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rule, its tip seems either to taper down to a fine point or to be splayed from a ligatured waist into a triangular or fan shape.12 These must be double reeds, seen either sideways on or from above. The shape resembles preserved specimens from Ptolemaic Egypt.13 In certain cases we see other conformations, difficult to interpret. But it is hard to find any clear example of a single-reed mouthpiece in Greek art. |
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Literary references point the same way. Theophrastus gives an account of the plant used for making aulos reeds, and of how it was prepared and cut. He calls the manufactured article either a 'tongue' or a zeugos, which implies a matching pair of things working togethernot the separate mouthpieces of a pair of auloi, but the twin blades of the double-reed mouthpiece. He refers to the 'mouth' of the tongue being at the point where the reed-stem was cut in two, and to the advantage of this mouth closing up naturally, or (for a more elaborate style of piping) of the tongue being flexible enough to 'take down-bends'. All this seems to make sense only in terms of the double reed.14 Other writers allude to techniques of squeezing the mouthpiece with the lips or pressing it against the (upper?) teeth, to modify the tone or the pitch.15 It was possible for the 'tongue' to break off and stick to the player's palate.16 Again, the double-reed mouthpiece seems to be presupposed. A double-reed mouthpiece affords far more scope for the control and nuancing of pitch than any single-reed one, as well as greater dynamic range.17 |
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The single-reed or clarinet mouthpiece was known to other ancient peoples,18 and I should not venture to assert that it was not known to the Greeks. But the evidence of both art and literature indicates that it was the double reed that was standard in the Classical period. Under the Hornbostel-Sachs system, therefore, the |
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12 See Paquette, 24 fig. 3, 43 A13, 47 A28, 49 A30, 53 A40-1, 55 A45, A47-8, 57 A49-51, 59 A55; Wegner, Musikleben, pl. 11; id., Bilder, 47 (= Paquette, 11 pl. Ib); my Pl. 17 and 21. |
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13 Brussels Conservatoire Museum; Baines, Woodwind, 193 fig. 41. The ligature 'was presumably put on the young plant while it was growing' (ibid. 192). |
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14 Theophr. Hist. Pl. 4. 11. 1-7. The passage is translated with excellent notes by Barker, GMW i. 186-9, cf. ii. 103. Becker, 51-62 argues unconvincingly that it refers to single-reed mouthpieces. On aulos reeds and their provenance see also Pind. Pyth. 12. 26 with schol. 44a, fr. 70, Eur. fr. 100 Austin, schol. Eur. Or. 147, Strab. 12. 8. 15 p. 578. |
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15 Ps.-Arist. De audibilibus 801b37, 804a12; Hsch. o 98. |
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16 Schol. Pind. Pyth. inscr. |
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17 Baines, Woodwind, 199. |
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18 At any rate the Egyptians (Sachs, HMI 91f.; NG vi. 71, 74) and Etruscans (Becker, 59 fig. 8: tomba Francesca Giustiniani). |
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