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

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 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.

Pydna Aulos

Siubhal