#krotalon

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