Aulos Bass Holes and the Impacts of Technophilia

Technophiles adopt new forms of technology enthusiastically. This may or may not cause a revolution. In the case of aulos bass holes, it did. Twice. Bass holes are those below the reach of the little fingers, producing what Terzḗs and Hagel helpfully call ‘bass notes’ (2022). This paper sets out a framework for understanding the musical impact of the sliders and rotating rings introduced to open and close bass holes mid-piece, causing revolutions in the fifth and first centuries BCE, changing what elite pipers did. Armed with language that clarifies the neurophysiological matrix of music perception (contingent on experience, motivational state, and emotional state) and technical execution involving aulos bass notes, I address how 21st-century technologies are impacting our understanding of bass notes: their operation and function without sliders, with sliders, and with rotating rings. The interpretation of two auloi from Megara by Terzḗs and Hagel, and the video archive of the Aulos Support Group (which has held over eighty Zoom meetings since July 2019) provide case studies. In these disparate arenas, technology is used first to receive and process data, then to build and refine arguments, in contrasting ways. Incompatible conclusions have been reached and a methodological recommendation emerges.