Typically, they are celebrating the power of Dionysos in song, music, and dance. Their instruments, drinking cups, torches, and thyrsoi (fennel stalks) introduce variety into a composition that might otherwise appear stiff. One maenad plays the aulos (a double-reed wind instrument), her cheeks puffed out, a second one plays the lyre, while a third carries a thyrsos and holds a kylix (shallow drinking cup) by the its foot as she opens her mouth to sing. Of the four additional maenads, one holds a thyrsos, the next holds a skyphos (deep drinking cup), the third plays the aulos, and the last holds a lighted torch.