The Voice

Abstract

Abstract By far the greater part of Greek music-as of ethnic music overall consisted of song, either solo or choral. Instruments were sometimes played on their own, but mostly they served to accompany the human voice. There normally was such accompaniment (except when someone was singing to entertain himself while doing something else), but its role was subordinate. A choir of many voices was not balanced by an equivalent band of instrumentalists; very often a single piper supplied the accompaniment, even for a chorus of fifty, as in the Athenian dithyramb. According to a writer of the Aristotelian school, we enjoy listening to a singer more when he sings to an aulos or a lyre, not because of the additional sonority but because it helps to define the tune. It is not better with more instruments, because that tends to obscure the song. Another tells us that the aulos is better than the lyre for singing to, because it blends better with the voice and covers the singer’s mistakes, whereas the lyre shows them up.