The kanun (kanonaki) is a direct descendant of the Byzantine psaltery (psalterion) and the distant forerunner of the western spinets and harpsichords. It consists of a flat box in the shape of a trapezoid strung with enough strings to produce three octaves plus three notes.
It is also capable of playing a great variety of microtones. Its tuning can be adapted to a rich variety of oriental modes and can follow modal changes within the same piece, its strings are made of cat-gut or nylon and are plucked with plectrums attached to the index fingers of the performer. Markos Ph. Dragoumis (1974)
