#aulos

Actor Edwige Fenech (French-Italian, born Dec. 24, 1948).

Apollo Preparing to Flay Marsyas, first half of 19th century. Pen and ink. Giuseppe Cammarano, (Italian, 1766 - 1850).

What’s Going on Here? Marsyas, a satyr, was the world’s first and best player of the old Greek harmonica (aulos). One day when he and the other satyrs were drunk as usual, he presumed to challenge Apollo (the god of music) to a musical competition.

Now, to the ancient Greeks, hubris such as Marsyas’s was considered one of the worst vices—and challenging the gods, in any way, was the worst kind of hubris.

The judges of the performances were, naturally, the Muses, goddesses of the arts (and Apollo’s daughters).

It’s actually a more complicated story, but, cutting to the chase: After Apollo won, he had Marsyas flayed alive.

See more satyr-flaying art:

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]

Oh I really don’t have much to say at all about them, I was mostly exploring the wiki page and that’s about it lol, but since you asked!

I’m currently writing a fic rn where characters are playing instruments and I was curious about ancient greek instruments, considering all I really knew was the lyre and the aulos. So I decided to look up a wikipedia list and click around to see what I thought was pretty cool

(Quick disclaimer, everything I’m about to say is from wikipedia, so take it with a grain of salt. Also I am not a music historian or a musician so really I barely have any idea about what I’m talking about)

Turns out, there’s a million different versions of the lyre! They all look quite similar but I am sure they’re from different regions and have their own unique sounds and histories. The one I went with in my fic was the kithara! It is a seven stringed lyre-esque instrument that was mainly played by professionals (called kitharodes). Since lyres were considered a folk/beginner instrument, those who played music for a living tended to prefer the kithara. Fun fact! “Kithara” in modern greek means guitar, and the etymological origin of the english “guitar” comes from kithara. Words are cool!!!

Please forgive me if I am using the singular/plural versions of this instrument wrong, I’m not entirely sure how this all works and I am trying my best

I was mainly excited about the krotalon (latin: crotalum) which were pretty much castanets! (I really like castanets because the fun clappy sound is nice in my ears lol) they were made out of wood or shell and brass and were mainly used by women in religious dances. Often at a slower beat/rhythm than castanets as we think of them today

More fun facts! This time bird related! Krotala allegedly made the sound of a crane’s bill, thus the bird was called crotalistria "player on crotala.”

In some versions of heracles’ myth, he uses krotala to scare away the stymphalian birds in order to shoot them down!

Now, I mentioned the aulos earlier but honestly I still didn’t know much about it other than what it sounded like. (Shout out to olympus alfame from the hades 2 soundtrack, absolute banger!!!)

Anyways, while the aulos may look like a modern flute or clarinet, it is more akin to highland bagpipes in multiple ways! We see similarities in the way it’s played (the use of circular breathing), in sound (the droning that people often find really annoying) and in function! (Both instruments were used to communicate on the battlefield.)

They were also double-reeded like oboes!

There’s multiple types of auloi. The plain “aulos” we think about is the two pipes with reeds. A single pipe without a reed was called a “monaulos.” A single pipe that was held horizontally like a flute was a “plagiaulos,” and a pipe with a bag (ahem, bagpipe, one may say) that allowed for continuous sound was called a “askaulos”

Finally, I want to talk about a myth surrounding the aulos. A satyr named marsyas either invented the aulos or picked it up one day after athena discarded it because she hated how it made her cheeks puff up (which is really funny to me). Either way, he gets his hands on the instrument and challenges apollo to a music contest (always a bad idea) the winner would “do whatever he wanted” to the loser.

If you’re a freak like me you probably had the same train of thought as marsyas who, being a satyr, would never turn down the opportunity to fuck our favourite sunshine twink. Unfortunately for him, apollo and his lyre beat him in the competition. Even more unfortunate is that instead of being taken by the god of light he is strung up on a tree and flayed alive for his hubris. Hooray!

Ack it’s almost 4am I meant to go to bed an hour ago lmao (as if 3am is a reasonable time to go to bed)

Anyways I hope you enjoyed my yap sesh! I always get nervous when writing these up because I am bound to get information wrong. And if there are any discrepancies PLEASE do not be afraid to (kindly) inform me otherwise and I will fix it!!! I am no historian I am just a silly little guy with worms in their brain who is running on 5 hours of sleep

As our national epic, the Odyssey, did I'll start from the middle. Please listen to the sound of medieval Greek music and then come back. It's an exercise, I command you!

Middle Ages Greek music is speculated to be "slowed down ancient Greek music"! 😁 So, take notes on that!

Christodoulos Halaris - Anthology of Byzantine Secular Music

(Christodoulos Halaris was a prominent Greek composer, researcher, and musicologist. He focused on secular Byzantine and traditional music, incorporating his extensive research into a solid and singular musical language.)

After your warm-up (and perhaps some confusion) let's get into what you came here to see.

What Ancient Greek and Roman Music Sounded Like - A Beginner's Introduction

Α fantastic introduction by a composer, musician, and researcher who calls himself:

OKAY, OKAY, HE IS FARYA FARAJI, YOU GOT ME.

So, this is going to be another excellent video where he spits facts. He gives a great impression of how ancient Greek and Roman music sounded like.

And no, they didn't sound like the watered-down (north)-eurocentric "ancient Greek music" on youtube videos you find. (who's surprised at this point, after all this Northwestern appropriation) Unless they are made by Farya Faraji because… the man knows his shit (and our shit 😂)

By the way, I called it "watered down", not because I believe western music is lame, but because the performers apply western rules to ancient Greek music, stripping it of all the Heterophonic complexity.

In the video above, you'll learn how the lyre should actually be played!!! And what instruments have been in continuous use in Greece for more than 2.000 years! And see all the ways our ancient and traditional music is more complex than Western music - such as Western music can be more complex than ours in other ways! (as also stated in the video)

And before you ask: Why does ancient Greek and Byzantine/traditional Greek music sound Oriental? Well, that's just your ear and biases and Hollywood stereotypes, my dear friend. See, these sounds are not (just) Oriental! They are originally Greek, too!

Many tunes and the way of singing the West associates today with the Middle East came from the Greek world (where these tunes are still in use, mind you) or other Mediterranean countries. That's not to say that Middle Eastern nations didn't have these scales and twirls for a long time - because they did. That's their ancient music, too.

Please see the video below to make more sense of my ramblings:

The Greco-Roman Influence on Middle-Eastern Music

All of Farya's videos have their sources in the description so make sure to check them out!

Now you can better enjoy the Epitaph of Sekeilos you heard in the first Middle Ages video! You can also listen to another great version by Farya, where he uses the above ancient Greek principles he mentioned in his video. That's why his version actually feels fun to listen to, thank god! (Of course Chalaris also orchestrates the Epitaoh in an excellent way)

Personal commentary: I am happy to share Farya's work online because he put into words why reconstructions of ancient Greek music online don't sound Greek at all. Greeks have a hard time relating to it because... that's not our folk music. They sound boring like Chopin playing piano when he was 3 years old. (But by now you know why! 😉)