A musical instrument of the chordophone family, the lyre guitar was a type of guitar shaped like a lyre. Invented in 1780 by Pierre Charles Mareschal, a prominent French luthier, it had 6 single courses and was tuned like the modern classical guitar, with a fretboard located between two curved arms recalling the shape of the ancient Greek lyre. The lyre guitar nearly always had a built-in pedestal allowing it to stand upright when not in use.