Salpinx: Greece musical instrument

A salpinx was an ancient Greek musical instrument that is like the trumpet.

The musical instrument is made up of a straight, narrow bronze tube with a mouthpiece of bone and a bell of different size and shape; extant descriptions opines that it is conical, bulb-like and spherical structures. Each type of bell may have a distinctive effect on the sound produced by the musical instrument. 

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The musical instrument has been portrayed in some classical era vases as employing to use of a phorbeia, analogous to those used by aulos players of the era. Though the instrument is analogous to the roman tuba, the salpinx still was shorter than the roman tuba that is approximately 1.5 meter long. An ordinary example of the salpinx, held at the museum of fine arts, Boston, is distinctive in that it is carved from thirteen sections of bone connected using tenons and sockets instead of the long, bronze tube that is described elsewhere.

The musical instrument is found in many early civilizations and so makes it hard to say for sure where and when the long, straight trumpet design that is found in the salpinx is fabricated. Reference to the instrument is often found in the Greek literature and art. Early description of musical instrument’s sound can be found in Homer’s Iliad, meanwhile , this reference is more distinctive and frequent reference are not fopund until the classical era. Analogous musical instrument can be found in Egypt, Mesopotamia, and Anatolia, but the salpinx is most closely related to the Egyptian version of the musical instrument.

When encountered in the art and literature of the greek people, the musical instrument is often portrayed as being performed by a soldier. 5^th century author always linked the piercing sound of the instrument with war; the musical instrument normally used for signaling, summoning the crowds and starting of the chariot races. This was supported by Aristotle in his writing in De Audibilibus as he explained that the salpinges were used as "...instruments of summons in war, at the games, and so on, not to make music." Aristides Quitilianus described the importance of the salpinx in the battle in his treatise, On Music. He opined that each command troops was given using particular tones that is played on the musical instrument. This actions permitted for an entire army to take command at once and provide a level of secrecy as these instrument calls were specific to a group and would be unknown to the opponent.

The sound of this musical instrument is being recreated by the Ancient Instruments Sound/Timbre Reconstruction Application (ASTRA) project which uses Physical modeling synthesis to simulate the sound of the musical instrument.

The musical instrument is a part of the Lost Sound Orchestra, together with other old musical instruments that ASTRA have reconstructed their sounds, including the epigonion, the aulos, the barbiton and the syrinx.