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aulos should be classified as an oboe. Those who regard the form of the bore as the decisive criterion will seek a different term.19 |
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It must be admitted that 'oboe-girl' is less evocative than the 'flute-girl' to which classicists have been accustomed, and that when it is a question of translating Greek poetry 'oboe' is likely to sound odd. For the latter case I favour 'pipe' or 'shawm'.20 I have found no very satisfactory solution to the girl problem. |
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The stem of the mouthpiece reed fitted into a bulbous séction of pipe. Vase-paintings (P1. 25) often show two of these bulbs, one socketed into the other, or occasionally, as it appears, even three. In other instances the instrument has continuous straight outlines but is crossed by bands at the corresponding places, indicating joints between separate pieces. From the surviving remains we know that the hole through the bulbs was narrow and cylindrical: it did not open out into a chamber, and the outer rotundity must have been merely ornamental. The player may have been able to modify the pitch of the instrument by adjusting the joints, or by varying the number of segments. In certain cases there was an open cup before the first bulb, forming a rest for the player's lips, and corresponding to the 'pirouette' of the later European shawm. |
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The terms holmos (connoting a smoothly rounded object) and hypholmion (what goes under the holmos) apparently referred to these parts of the aulos. Probably the holmos was the bulb and the hypholmion the open cup into which the reed was fitted.21 |
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Three of the preserved aulos bulbs have a small hole bored into them from the side. There has been speculation as to whether this had some acoustic role. In one case, however, there are indications that the hole held a rivet of some kind. Perhaps a pin was pushed through it into the reed stem to hold the latter securely in place.22 |
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19 Becker's 'euthyphone' (cylindrical) and 'enclinophone' (conical) cannot be called felicitous. |
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20 Some musicologists do use 'shawm' in the generic sense of double-reed pipe, while others reserve it for particular species (see NG XV. 665). The word derives from calamus. |
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21 Eup. fr. 289 (someone complaining of holmoi that give out a snoring or wheezing sound), Pherecr. fr. 276, Poll. 4.70, Ptol. Harm. p. 9. 3; Hsch. 'hypholmion: part of the aulos near the mouth, or the tongues' (or 'where the tongues are'); cf. Howard, 28 f.; Schlesinger, 70f. |
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22 See Howard, 32-5; N. B. Bodley, AJArch. 50 (1946), 225; Délos xviii. 813; J. G. Landels, Hesp. 33 (1964), 394 and BSA 63 (1968), 232, 234. |
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