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Κωσταντής1
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Every concise historical model cannot be based only on the lyre. You have a marvellous, brief account at Chrysanthos's book. The readjustment of the chords is easy on stringed instruments - but stable systems are based on stable intervals, and today's model, the piano, comes in many respects from the aulos>hydraylis>church organ>clavecin>pianoforte. Until recently, alterations on tuning and pitch were always expected in every new performance.
What mattered was not the "software" but the "hardware" - and, more precisely, which should be the "set of flutes" to begin with. The most accurate actual model is the bagpipe, where you have something like the ancient double aulos.
It seems probable that the system with the ancient "anatolian modes" (phrygian, lydian etc.) was condensed at some point on a single aulos - a sort of "standard ionian flute" which led to the "standard 7chord lyre". When you used it up to its 4 holes you had a sort of 5-tone flute, a "ptolemaic dorian" one; up to 6, a "phrygian" aulos; up to 7 a "lydian" one.... that is all!
Then you had an evolution consisting on putting a second aulos on the ...bagpipe, playing, this time, the "pythagorean dorian mode", or "chinese pentatonic" - the one we all use today, 1-T- (x32/27)T-T. By this addition, you could revert to the older system of different flutes. You would use the pentatonic "chinese" flute as a basis for one-note ison, and change flutes on the second hole of the bagpipe , according to which "mode" you wanted to play, using the "drone flute" as a.. passe-partout, a joker, a μπαλαντέρ. Of course, you could also "cut" a flute into parts and even combine it with another, so as to get a"mixolydian"mode etc.
What would make, thus, the basic difference between the western system and ours, is that in the west the "pentatonic auxiliary aulos" has been autonomized, while on the other hand they kept for the melody only the 4-hole "dorian melodic" aulos, the one beginning with 10/9 at re and sol. We have kept the old system, according to which you keep the monophony (=never, never "autonomize" the ison , the drone flute, as a second voice) and change "modes" (or flutes) by insisting on playing a common interval between the different ones, until the transition is made.
This system would be thus much more freer than the western one - it would have perhaps some common aspects with the dodecaphonic system of Schoenberg. It would be very well-suited for "sung poetry" thanks to is flexibility. You can pass from a 12tone division to a 9tone division and then to a 7tone division etc. just following two rules - 1) you must have always the same tonic basis, keep a stable ison - and 2) insist on playig a common interval, usually a second, I suppose, to make the modulation accepted by the listener. This is perhaps the reason why the "diazeytikos tonos" comes so much in evidence in mr Dounavis's very sincere presentation of the basics of the byzantine system.
Of course, this model of the double aulos or bagpipe needs much more confirmation from history and practice in order to prove itself valid and helpful...
What mattered was not the "software" but the "hardware" - and, more precisely, which should be the "set of flutes" to begin with. The most accurate actual model is the bagpipe, where you have something like the ancient double aulos.
Then you had an evolution consisting on putting a second aulos on the ...bagpipe, playing, this time, the "pythagorean dorian mode", or "chinese pentatonic" - the one we all use today, 1-T- (x32/27)T-T. By this addition, you could revert to the older system of different flutes. You would use the pentatonic "chinese" flute as a basis for one-note ison, and change flutes on the second hole of the bagpipe , according to which "mode" you wanted to play, using the "drone flute" as a.. passe-partout, a joker, a μπαλαντέρ. Of course, you could also "cut" a flute into parts and even combine it with another, so as to get a"mixolydian"mode etc.
What would make, thus, the basic difference between the western system and ours, is that in the west the "pentatonic auxiliary aulos" has been autonomized, while on the other hand they kept for the melody only the 4-hole "dorian melodic" aulos, the one beginning with 10/9 at re and sol. We have kept the old system, according to which you keep the monophony (=never, never "autonomize" the ison , the drone flute, as a second voice) and change "modes" (or flutes) by insisting on playing a common interval between the different ones, until the transition is made.
This system would be thus much more freer than the western one - it would have perhaps some common aspects with the dodecaphonic system of Schoenberg. It would be very well-suited for "sung poetry" thanks to is flexibility. You can pass from a 12tone division to a 9tone division and then to a 7tone division etc. just following two rules - 1) you must have always the same tonic basis, keep a stable ison - and 2) insist on playig a common interval, usually a second, I suppose, to make the modulation accepted by the listener. This is perhaps the reason why the "diazeytikos tonos" comes so much in evidence in mr Dounavis's very sincere presentation of the basics of the byzantine system.
Of course, this model of the double aulos or bagpipe needs much more confirmation from history and practice in order to prove itself valid and helpful...
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