The Aulos

The wind-instruments of the Greeks were the aerophones. The aulos was the most commonly used of these instruments. Most like the oboe, the aulos has a simple sound of great proportion. Many different mediums were used to create the aulos' body. Metal, wood and bone were used as the body and it is said to have had four to eight tremata (holes) carved into the top. When blown through, with a reed in place, the sound was much like a singing voice.

Athena is said to have invented the aulos. After witnessing the mourning sisters of Medusa, she wanted to recreate the sound of their cries. That origin is why the instrument's sound was sometimes referred to as a "many-heads-tune".

Supposedly, Athena saw herself playing the aulos and threw it away when she saw how it distorted her features. Because of Athena's attitude toward the aulos, contraversy arose over whether or not it should be played. Socrates dismissed it saying that it was less desirable than the lyre since it could not be sung with and played by the same person.

Nevertheless, many Greeks thoroughly enjoyed the aulos. It was often used in theater, at wedding ceremonies and as accompaniment for dancers. Such plays as "Agamemnon" and "Andromache" would have had a chorus as shown in the text of Ten Greek Plays and instruments like the aulos to accompany. As the oboe's predecessor, it must say something that the intrument was popular enough to be redesigned.

Thrasybulos Georgiades wrote that, "Characteristically, the lyre is the instrument of Homer, of the epos, of the serene contemplation of the universe, whereas the aulos is the instrument of exaltation and ecstasy, the instrument of dithyramb."

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