The chief melody instrument played at present on most Greek islands is the violin, which arrived in Greece by the late 1600's and which gradually pushed out an older instrument called the lyra except on the islands of Crete and Karpathos and a few others where they are still played occasionally). There are several kinds of lyras but they are generically either pear-shaped or oblong, light-weight fiddles held upright and bowed with an underhand bow-grip (ie. the bowing hand held palm-up rather than palm-down). This family of instruments was played widely on most Greek islands, as well as in mainland northeastern Greece (Macedonia and Thrace). It was also played in what is now Turkey, in the regions of Kappadokia (often spelled Cappadocia) and the Black Sea region (Pontos) where Greeks lived for many centuries before they were evicted from the new Turkish state in 1922/3 in what is euphemistically called the 'exchange of populations'.

The lyra played in Crete now is an alteration of the earlier Dodecanesian lyra played there up till the 1930s. Examples of the stages it passed through can be seen at the Plaka museum, as well as all the types of lyras played by Greeks. Violin is also played in Crete. There is an extremely resonant lyra called 'Politiki' lyra, which is named for the 'Poli' (city) which Greeks still call 'Konstantinoupoli' (Constantinople), most of them refusing to use its modern Turkish name (Istanbul). This very difficult lyra is played  in Turkish classical ensembles but was previously a folk instrument played in some of the very extradordinary music of Asia Minor Greeks in the 'Poli' and in Smyrni (now Izmir). It is enjoying a revival now in recordings of Greek music from Asia Minor.