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typical of the area of 'Old High Culture' extending from North Africa across Asia to Malaysia; he specifically mentions harvest songs as traditional manifestations of this style. And Herodotus states that the Linos, under different names, was widely sung in the Near East, including Cyprus, Phoenicia, and Egypt.41 |
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Prophets apparently used a peculiar screaming voice for delivering prophecies, though whether this should be included under singing is doubtful.42 Mention should also be made of what has been claimed as evidence for the use of a special technique at the fifth-century symposium. Two vase-paintings depict singers with their open right hands held near their right ears, as if to hear better. According to the interpretation of D. Gerhardt, what they are actually doing is pressing their thumb against their larynx in order to produce a tremolo effect or glottal shake, a practice alive today in parts of the Middle East.43 |
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Finally, it may be instructive to note some of the difficulties that the average non-professional singer sometimes encountered. Not all types of composition were within his competence; it is observable in tragedy that singing parts are reserved for certain actors, not required of all. Singing in a high register was felt to be difficult, but on the other hand we hear that people tended to sing sharp rather than fat.44 They also had trouble with the note parhypate, located just a semitone or less from the bottom of the scale, perhaps because of a tendency to slip to the tonically more important bottom note, or to hold further off it.45 Choruses perhaps did not rehearse as long or as efficiently as they do for a modern concert. At any rate they depended a good deal on their leader. 'You know, of course,' says Demosthenes, 'that if one takes away the leader, the rest of the chorus is done for.'46 He gave the lead and did his best to keep his |
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41 Lomax, op. cit. (as n. 22), 97; Hdt. 2. 79. |
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42 Poets use the verbs klazo and lasko in this connection, both applicable inter alia to screaming birds or howling dogs; and also verbs more generally expressing loud cries, like iacheo, eporthiazo. |
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43 Red-figure stamnos, CVA Italia 27 Villa Giulia III. 1c pl. 11.5; red-figure cup, Munich 371; Wegner, Musikleben, 69f. and pl. 30b. In an Egyptian tomb painting of the 12th Dynasty a man is shown singing with his left hand against his left ear. A related technique appears to be attested on a relief of Ashurbanipal from Nineveh (BM 124802), where a woman singer in a procession of Elamite musicians is pressing or gently beating the left side of her throat with the extended fingers of her right hand (Rimmer, 37 and pl. xivb). |
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44 Ps.-Arist. Pr. 19. 37; 19. 26, 46. |
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45 Ibid. 19. 3-4 with von Jan's notes. |
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46Meid. 60. |
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