14.12.24; level 1; topic; school [5]; Music [1]

The term ars mūsica can also be used to refer to the study of music although mūsica alone can convey the same idea.

The topic of music and, in particular, musical instruments is extensive; we’ll only deal with a few verbs related to playing instruments and the names of some instruments both in our world and in the world of the Romans and the Greeks.

Image #1

[i] canō, -ere, cecinī [3]: sing; play (a musical instrument)

• Potesne canere īnstrūmentō mūsicō? │ Can you play a musical instrument? [see also: organum below]

When saying that you play a musical instrument, the name of the instrument is in the ablative case i.e. to play on / by means of a musical instrument:

• tubā canō │ I play (on) the trumpet
• organō canō │ I play (on) the organ

[ii] tuba, -ae [1/f]: in CL referred to a long, straight war-trumpet but can be used now to refer any trumpet

[iii] organum, -ī [2/n]: can refer to any musical instrument or the pipe of a musical instrument; also (Church) organ

• organum mūsicum: musical instrument

[iv] pulsō, -āre, -āvī [1]: strike; play upon (musical instrument)

tympanum, -ī [2/n]: drum

• tympanum pulsō: I play the drum

Image #2

cymbalum, -ī [2/n]: cymbal

crotalum, -ī [2/m]: castanet

tībia, -ae [1/f]: flute

• tībiā (or plural: tībiīs) canō │ I play the flute

Image #3

cithara, -ae [1/f] hispānica: (New Latin) guitar; classical guitar; In Modern Greek the term κιθάρα (kithára) means ‘guitar’.

• citharā hispānicā lūdere possum │ I can play the guitar.

The original term cithara has more than one meaning and can refer to several different types of instrument at different periods: “the same name used indiscriminately by many writers for lyres, harps, psalteries and, indeed, it sometimes seems, for almost any instrument, open-stringed or fretted” (earlymusicmuse.com)

[i] Kithara - Wikipedia:  explains the meaning of the term in the Classical / Ancient Greek period; the fresco shows a Roman lady playing a cithara (which she’s holding in her left hand), the instrument being different from the Mediaeval one in [ii].

[ii] Cythara - Wikipedia: “The cythara is a wide group of stringed instruments of medieval and Renaissance Europe, including not only the lyre and harp but also necked, string instruments.”

The cat is playing a lute, “A fretted stringed instrument, similar to the guitar, having a bowl-shaped body or soundbox”

Since the term cithara could refer to several different types of stringed instruments, if you want to be specific and say you play the harp, you can use the Mediaeval word: harpa, -ae [1/f]

Image #4:

[i] From “A new and Copious Lexicon of the Latin Language” (Scheller: 1850):

violina, -ae [1/f]: violin

[ii] Traupman (Conversational Latin for Oral Proficiency) also lists:

fidicula, -ae [1/f]: violin; the term originally referred to a small stringed instrument, a small lute or lyre, but “probably in the 9th century, the bow, the bridge, and the fingerboard … had evidently been applied to the “fidicula” (Dictionary of Music and Musicians)

Another common instrument in the Middle Ages was the psaltērium, -ī [2/n] a psaltery, "a zither-like musical instrument consisting of a soundboard with multiple strings, played by plucking the strings with the fingers or a plectrum." Another word for the same instrument is nablium, -ī [2/n]