antique

This is a thrilling adventure. It is humbling to find myself at the bottom of an Olympian ascent, a complete beginner again. Becoming a skilled aulos player, capable of artistry consistent with the ancient evidence - including superlative achievements in other modes of cultural expression - is not a task anyone should undertake lightly. To do it well requires dropping everything else and building up a lifetime, preferably generations of expertise. I hope these recordings will comfort and energise fellow risk-takers venturing into the unknown.

I find the discipline of listening back to my own practising has enormous value and urge others to do the same. Sharing these recordings publicly is something that I rate highly as a scientific researcher. This responds to good practice guidelines in experimental archaeology. In 1973, John Coles articulated two of these as follows: “8. Experiments should be developed and run with reference to previous trials” and “12. The experiment must be published as fully, transparently, and rigorously as possible. Prompt publication is desirable”.

Because playing the aulos is such new territory, I feel uncomfortable about sitting on the results of my flawed experiments. Everything will be provisional for decades - every word and musical sound captured in these recordings is open to question. Other solutions are possible (emphasising this is another of John Coles' guidelines). I share my mistakes and learning process in order to make it easier for creative practitioners and philologists to build on my work. The whole point is that others - perhaps you - could do it better.

High levels of resilience are required. Sharing the struggle, connecting with others - rather than working in isolation - makes the mountain less steep. On this subject, I recommend the videos at www.rickhanson.net/resilience-summit/, particularly the last set with Shawn Achor.

The most significant limitation I have is that I only started learning the aulos at the age of 41 and I cannot drop everything else. The aulos revival needs 1st-study conservatoire students and younger people who are able to devote more hours to practising. Making that a reality and giving them a head start is the goal of this playlist. All my experiments are currently compromised by an undeveloped embouchure: what you hear is someone limbering up at the foot of a mountain, unfit and without a map.

Barnaby Brown’s aulos practising

Reflective documentation by Barnaby Brown of a learning journey, trying to understand and play an Ancient Greek aulos of the 5th century BC. The reeds and reproductions are by Robin Howell, based on measurements by Stelios Psaroudakēs (available at http://scholar.uoa.gr/sites/default/files/spsaroud/files/psaroudakes_2008_pydna_auloi.pdf).

Pydna Aulos

I think it is highly likely that a resurrected ancient Greek person from the 5th century BC would recognize this sample melody as Spondeion Nomos or perhaps Pythikos Nomos; Greek melody, nonetheless.
The melody is improvised and influenced by the Athenaeus Paean.
Its Near Eastern feel is due to the use of wide ‘semitone’ (The undivided Pyknon size is 3 Aristoxenian diesis wide, i.e., circa 150 cents wide), as described in a few ancient Greek sources. The hole distances on some of the earliest discovered ancient pipes produce these wide semitones as well. 

For this recording I chose a modern Santur VST; because why not? :)

Pythikos Nomos? - Ancient Greek Sample Improvisation

This is an improvisation on Iranian Santur instrument in the ancient Greek Enharmonic Genus as it was used in the days of Plato and Socrates. this instrument most likely didn't exist back then but it's still a good experience. Hope you enjoy this.

A Paean to Poseidon

See http://www.doublepipes.info/louvre-deluxe-by-robin-howell/ ‎for images, links and more info on this track.

While testing this deluxe instrument, a couple of new insights came to me:

1) While circular breathing, you can't keep diaphragm vibrato going; however, with lip vibrato you can. I also prefer the sound of lip vibrato; you can be so much more expressive with it and you have greater control.

2) The Louvre could potentially be a polymodal instrument, in the sense that one can bend the pitch of every note to overlap with the pitch range of the neighbouring fingering, without any half-holing, i.e. purely using the embouchure.

Conclusion: These reeds are marvellous, a delight to play. The timbre and response of the instrument are absolutely gorgeous. Congratulations Robin!

Testing a Louvre aulos by Robin Howell

This is the first recording in which I explore the three genera: enharmonic, diatonic and chromatic. It is a practise session, painful to listen to, shared for research purposes and to make the hill feel less steep for other Pydna learners. It marks a turning point in how I interpret auloi that do not fit a system of 12 semitones. Until now, I was imposing a 12-tone conception of tonal space on the Pydna and Poseidonia auloi. It has taken me a year to shed that preconception and go with how these instruments want to behave naturally. Provisionally, I would call this a cyclic 7-tone system, or three Unmodulating Systems spaced an equi-heptatonic tone apart.
Recorded in Cambridge, 23 March 2018

Descending Equi-heptatonic Circuits 1 - practising on Pydna aulos

Recorded in Ystad Abbey, Sweden, 6 June 2016
A composition by Barnaby Brown inspired by the Hebridean psalm singing of Murdina and Effie MacLeod, particularly the recording Thorkild Knudsen made of these sisters singing Psalm 118, embroidering the melody Coleshill. This recording was made in their kitchen on the Isle of Harris in 1965, thanks to an introduction by John MacInnes, son of the minister in Stornoway, who persuaded the sisters' mother that the young Danish ethnomusicologist, Knudsen, was a man of God. This recording is available at www.tobarandualchais.co.uk/en/fullrecord/67880/7

Barnaby Brown & Miriam Andersén - Psalm 150 at the opening of Archæomusica, Ystad 2016

Recorded live at the BBC in London, 18 January 2018
Broadcast on The Early Music Show, BBC Radio 3, 28 January 2018. Presenter: Lucie Skeaping

For this recording we used a reproduction of the Pydna aulos by Robin Howell. Our realisation modulates between the Dorian and Mixolydian scales transmitted from 'distant antiquity' by Aristides Quintilianus (? 3rd c. BCE); these scales form an 'Unmodulating System', or single key defined by the contrast between them. We are grateful to Armand D'Angour for elucidating the pitch profile and rhythm embedded in the words.

Pindar's 12th Pythian Ode realised by Stef Conner and Barnaby Brown (January 2018)

Performed on 21 July 2018 in Christ Church, Reading, UK, for the MOISA 11th International Conference, ‘Music and Materiality’.
Performing materials available at https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.6885089

Descending Equi-heptatonic Circuits 1 - practising on Pydna aulos

Siubhal