James Countryman
James built ancient Greek auloi: double-reed woodwind instruments, with a musician playing two pipes at once. James based his wooden replicas on three surviving pipes from the Classical period: the two Elgin Auloi, complete instruments, and the Brauron aulos, a fragment of a once larger pipe. By making replicas of all three, James discovered that the spacing of the tone holes is remarkably similar on all of them. From the dimensions of the Elgin pipes, he was then able to create hypothetical extensions to the Brauron fragments, to recreate the original full length of the pipe. After Winter Term, James will find suitable double reeds so that he can actually play the pipes, and answer questions of what notes these auloi were originally meant to play, and what might have been the function of playing two pipes together simultaneously.
