Epigonion: the synth patch
Posted on September 19, 2008
Filed Under computing, music | Comments Off
From the New Scientist
“The crisp, bright sound of a stringed musical instrument that exists only in the artwork and lore of ancient Greece has finally been heard again – thanks to the number-crunching power of latter-day computer networks.
Francesco de Mattia and colleagues at the Conservatory of Music in Salerno, Italy, wondered what an instrument introduced to Greece by a musician called Epigonus in AD 180 might have sounded like. No complete examples of the instrument – eponymously dubbed the epigonion – survive, but it’s known to have had 50 strings, like a harp. It also had a soundboard, like a guitar, but was played without a plectrum.
Using images of the epigonion in artwork, fragments from excavations and written descriptions of the instrument and how it was played, the team developed a 3D mechanical computer model of the instrument. Once they had their best guess at its physical form and the materials it would have been made from, they simulated numerous factors – such as the instrument’s mass, stiffness and resonances – responsible for its distinctive sound.” more
“For the first time we can hear the musical sounds of the past,” says de Mattia, who likens the epigonion’s sound to that of a harpsichord. His team have compiled the sounds of four variants of the epigonion: hear them at www.tinyurl.com/58fn2c”