The main musical instruments used are:
Idiophones: zilia (cymbals), the triangle, masá (tongs), handclapping, etc. 
Membranophones: daouli (drum), toumbi (a sort of small daouli), defi, toumbeleki (an earthenware pot with a skin stretched over the top), etc. 
Aerophones: various pastoral pipes: floghera, souravli, madoura, zournás - also called pipiza or karamouza - bagpipes: tsambouna or gaida, clarinet.
Cordophones: tamboura, lute, pear-shaped lira, bottle-shaped lira (the kementjés of the Greeks of Pontos), qanun (psalterium), sandouri (dulcimer) and violin.

The instrumental ensembles best known throughout Greece are the zygia (from zygos-two instruments), i.e. one or two zournás and a daouli -encountered in continental Greece; the island zygia violin and lute, and the compania, composed of clarinet, violin, lute and sandouri, which form is gradually replacing the zygiá combination of zournás-daouli. Let us note here that, wherever the singers or players have not been influenced by western music, the Greek folk song is played and sung in the natural scale and not in the equal-tempered scale of the west.

The Greek folk dances, accompanied either by singing or by the various instruments mentioned above, are divided into two large groups: the pidichtoi (hopping or leaping dances) and the syrtoi (drawn dances). The first group of dances, at once severe and spirited, are danced mainly by men, while the dances of the “syrtos” type, calmer and more lyrical in movement, are very often performed by women, as well. A third category consists of composite dances, combining the pidichtos and syrtos characteristics. According to the number of dancers and to the way in which the dances are performed, we have group dances, which are usually circular in formation - such as the kalamatianos -, face-to-face dances (andikrystoi), performed by couples in contra formation - such as the island ballos, and dances, - such as the sickle dance of Cyprus, etc.

Fivos Anoyanakis