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Harmonides the pipe-player once asked Timotheus, who was his teacher. “Tell me, Timotheus, how can I become famous in the art? What must I do to become known to all the Greek world? You have already (and I thank you) taught me the rest of the art: I mean, to tune the pipe accurately, to blow lightly and harmoniously into the mouthpiece, to fit the fingers with easy touch to the full rise and fall of the music, to step in rhythm, to direct the music harmoniously in the direction of the dancers, and to master the peculiarities of each mode—the frenzy of the Phrygian, the excitement of the Lydian, the dignity of the Dorian, the elegance of the Ionian. All this I have learnt from you. But the most important matter—the reason for my interest in the art of pipe-playing—I don’t see how pipe-playing will ever bring me to it. I mean universal fame, being noticed in a crowd, being pointed at, and on putting in an appearance anywhere having everyone turn towards me and say my name, ‘That is Harmonides the outstanding piper’; just as when you too, Timotheus, first left your home in Boeotia and accompanied the Daughter of Pandion and won the victory in the Ajax Mad, playing the music your namesake had written for you, every single person knew your name, Timotheus of Thebes. Whenever you appear there now, everyone flocks round you like birds around an owl. This was my reason for wanting to become a pipe-player and undertaking the hard training. I shouldn’t consider taking up pipe-playing for its own sake without its attendant reputation, and if I were to remain in obscurity. No, not even if I were to be an unknown Marsyas or Olympus. It’s no use, they say, if musical skill is to be secret and kept hidden. But teach me this as well, how to do some good to myself as well as our art and I shall feel doubly grateful to you—for the pipe-playing and, most important of all, for the glory it confers.”
