#auloi

Ancient Greek pottery showing figures playing the auloi. The aulos (plural auloi) [Roman tibia, plural tibiae] is a double or single reed wind instrument, played in pairs, that "sounded more like the modern oboe than the modern flute." [source]

"Perhaps the most commonly played instrument in Greek music, the aulos was played in festivals, processions of births and deaths, athletic games ... It was associated with the god Dionysos and often played at private drinking parties." [source]

"Made from cane, boxwood, bone, ivory, or occasionally metals such as bronze and copper, the circular pipe (bombyke) was fitted with one, two or three bulbous mouthpieces which gave the instrument a different pitch." [source]

This post has been long in the making and kept being pushed back in the favor of other topics. Here we are finally, time to talk about ancient music. I have chosen the aulos, as you will see, it is more relevant to my interests, but hopefully soon, you should be able to read about the lyre on @adri-le-chat 's blog.EDIT: go read it here. 

Brief description

The aulos (plur. auloi) is a wind instrument, often called "double pipe" or "double reed" in English (note that the term is also used for modern instruments of the same category). It is basically a pipe with finger-holes and a reed mouthpiece, that is usually played as a pair: one in each hand. Commonly found from the Near-East to Egypt as early as 2600 BC, the earliest evidence in Greece dates back to the 8th century.

The term aulos means "duct" or "tube" but the latin name "tibia" tells us a bit more, as some instruments were made out of bone. Typically, one would use deer tibia bone, as it is already long and easy to make an even hole in. Other material existed: auloi were made out of wood or reed, ivory and the much older Ur auloi are made out of silver. The mouth piece was exclusively made out of reed. Those are fragile, do not last long and need to be replaced often.

The classical aulos would have 5 finger-holes, sometimes a sixth hole would be added as a vent. However, after 400 BC, there could be much more holes, allowing for more modal scales. An innovation attributed to Pronomus, a musician from Thebes. 

In texts, the auloi have often been translated as "flute". In reality, the instrument is closer to a oboe, technically much closer to bagpipes and the Armenian duduk.

A Dionysian instrument

The reputation of the instrument in Platonic thought is a weird one. Considered disharmonic, unpure, yet impactful, it is an instrument of the populace that has no place in the refined education of the elite youth. Let's list some examples:

Plato, Symposion 215c “Marsyas used to charm everyone with his pipes through the power that came from his mouth, and we are still charmed today whenever we hear his music played. I say ‘‘his’’ because I ascribe to Marsyas the melodies that Olympus used to play, because it was Marsyas who taught Olympus. In the case of Olympus’s music, whether it is played by a great performer or by an ordinary aulos-girl, it takes hold of men in a unique way and, because of its divine origin, it reveals those who are in need of the gods and of initiation rites.”

Plato, Republic 8.561c “And does he not,” said I, “also live out his life in this fashion, day by day indulging the appetite of the day, now wine-bibbing and abandoning himself to the lascivious pleasing of the flute and again drinking only water and dieting;

Plato, Laws 3.700d "In the matter of music the populace willingly submitted to orderly control and abstained from outrageously judging by clamor; but later on, with the progress of time, there arose as leaders of unmusical illegality poets who, though by nature poetical, were ignorant of what was just and lawful in music; and they, being frenzied and unduly possessed by a spirit of pleasure, mixed dirges with hymns and paeans with dithyrambs, and imitated flute-tunes with harp-tunes, and blended every kind of music with every other."

And as a final example, we can cite Plutarch in Alcibiades, who also echos the classical idea expressed by Plato:  

"At school, he [Alcibiades] usually paid due heed to his teachers, but he refused to play the flute, holding it to be an ignoble and illiberal thing. The use of the plectrum and the lyre, he argued, wrought no havoc with the bearing and appearance which were becoming to a gentleman; but let a man go to blowing a flute, and even his own kinsmen could scarcely recognize his features."

I realize that we cannot use Plato’s opinion as being representative of the general ancient Greek world. We should not strike out the possibiliy that Plato’s bias comes from the presence of women in the profession: we do have representations (and archaeological evidence) of professional female players.

However, it does give insight to the association of the aulos to "uncivilized" deities/creatures like Pan and the rest of the satyrs, who are often shown playing the aulos, like here, with Dionysus (Drinking Cup of Makron, Attic red-figure Cup, c.480 BC). Curiously, I have not found representations of maenads playing the aulos (they are most often portrayed with percussions). 

Obviously the myths surrounding the satyr Marsyas and his brother Babys stand out, as the former was described as a master of the instrument and the latter was spared from his brother’s violent death for his lack of skill. 

Reconstruction

I could not possibly demonstrate it better than the researchers of the European Music Archaeology Project. Let’s start wih sound alone, with researcher Stefan Hagel, playing an hellenistic aulos: 

For more technical information, here is piper Barnaby Brown. I will just add here the information he has given in another, older video. This auloi he is playing in this specific video is a reproduction of an original buried at Megara in c. 300 BCE in the tomb of a young woman, who most likely was a professional player. 

As you can see, those two instruments are different in material, size, hand positions, thus making very different sounds. 

Further reading: 

West L. M., Ancient Greek Music, 1992

For more complete information about the different types of auloi that have been reconstructed, as well as various technical information, I recommend going on the blog co-authored by those two researchers as well as other scholars and players of the ancient Greek auloi: https://www.doublepipes.info/

This struck me as ridiculously fitting for my tumblr experience (goes well with lots of architecture pics and musing text posts), maybe it'll suit yours too.