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down the side of a cane or straw (the top end of which is stopped), so as to create a narrow blade or tongue which, when excited by blowing, will beat against the opening that it covers. In the other type, the mouthpiece terminates in two thin blades that beat against each other; they can be, and in antiquity were, made simply by flattening the end of a hollow stem. In both types of mouthpiece the beating part is completely enclosed by the player's mouth. |
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In the Hornbostel-Sachs classification system this distinction between single-reed and double-reed instruments is treated as fundamental, the former being classified as clarinets and the latter as oboes. Some musicologists, however, maintain that the more significant distinction to be made is between pipes of conical bore (widening from mouthpiece end to exit) and those of cylindrical bore (equal diameter throughout).8 The modern clarinet is cylindrical, the oboe conical. The difference is acoustically important, because in response to overblowing9 a conical pipe raises its note by an octave, whereas a cylindrical one raises it by a twelfth (octave plus fifth). |
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The numerous preserved specimens and fragments of Greek auloi10 are all cylindrical, and the vast majority of artistic representations are of cylindrical pipes, though a small number appear distinctly conical.11 The variation may not have been of any practical significance, since overblowing was probably not a part of normal playing technique. (I shall return to this point.) Some instruments were made out of bones and might have had a naturally conical exterior form for this reason, though the bone auloi we have are mostly polished down to cylindrical shape. |
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As to mouthpieces, it looks as if both the double and the single reed were known, further confusing the question of whether to put the aulos in the oboe or the clarinet category. However, in the Classical period the evidence points to general use of the double reed. The material remains tell us nothing, their mouthpieces having all perished. Pictorial representations are equally unhelpful when the auloi are shown being played, as the reeds are hidden in the player's mouth. But sometimes the whole instrument is visible, and then, as a |
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8 Cf. J. MacGillivray in Music Libraries and Instruments (Cambridge, 1959): Becker, 31-4; Rimmer, 35. |
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9 When the blowing force increases beyond a certain point, the pitch suddenly shoots up into a higher register. See below, p. 101. |
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10 The pre-Hellenistic examples are listed below, p. 97. |
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11 e.g. Paquette, 41 A12, 47 A24, 101 fig. 15, 185 B23: see Howard, 3f., 22; Reinach, 'Tibia', 303; Becker, 49f. |
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