What makes Classical Greek so exquisite is its pitch accent, a feature nearly unique to it with the exception of Classical Chinese. Furthermore, anyone who studies Greek should spend the time to learn pronunciation and sylllable quantity immediately, for, if one does not memorize which syllables are long by nature in coordination with memorizing vocabulary, it will be excruciating to be forced to memorize such matters later if one does decide to study poetry.
The Lithuanians and the Czechs will be very surprised to learn that. 
Actually, Chinese (modern and classical) is a tonal language, by which we mean that each syllable has a pitch (location or contour) associated with it. Change the pitch and you change the word. Tonal languages are everywhere.
Were you to pronounce pitch accent badly at Socrates, he’d think you were a barbarian with a terrible accent — like accenting the wrong syllable in English — not that you were speaking Gibberish. Accent, whether pitch or stress, has useful contrastive functions, but isn’t the same as a tonal system.
The Japanese pitch accent system is a closer match to ancient Greek that Chinese, actually.
Agreed on the Japanese.
Actually, Will, I’ve been interested in comparing notes with you on Attic pronunciation, including the rendering of the pitch accent.
Choose your electronic medium of communication of choice. 
I think I can remember my skype passwd…
Skype would be good; I’m free Thursday starting at 1:00 pm.
Mind if I join in?
Not at all! the reason for writing about it publically ?νταῦθα. Though Will hasn’t responded yet.
I will be in a class at just the time you say you’re available — assuming I’m guessing your time zone correctly.
Non-tuesday evenings (central time, -0600CST) are best for me in general, from about 17:00 on. And weekends, if there’s an arranged time.
What about Saturday some time?
Thank you for the helpful criticism of my reading of Homer. It appears that all your suggestions have to do with the exact pronunciation of vowels, and that in general, you believe they are too flat (“lazy”?), and that in particular, you believe the short i should be more forward, like the long i, and that the ou should be identical to Latin u, based on Classical period transliterations. Regarding the short i, I have come to believe that you are correct, and that my short i in those recordings was too far back. Originally I thought Allen’s reasons for claiming that the short i was like the long i were weak (actually, I still think his reasons are weak), but I’ve realized I was only diverging from his view because of a false analogy to Latin i. Regarding the dipthong ou, however, I maintain that mine was probably closer to the Homeric pronunciation, which is why I used it in the Homer selections, and that is of course is the reason for its orthography, at least some cases. I believe that the leveling of the dipthong into a single sound occurred after Homer and before the Classical period. As it happens, Allen agrees. On page 72, he says:
In the earlier inscriptions O is also written for some (Allen’s italics) of the cases (a) which later show ou (eg misthonta = misthounta…), but other cases (b) are written with OY from earliest times, eg spoudias… The difference between the two sets of cases is accounted for by the fact that those of class (b) were originally diphthongs (of a type similar to, but more back than, that of English low…But over a period 6-4 C. BC there was an increasing tendency, which finally became regular practice, to write the cases of class (a) also with OY.
Do you feel differently, or are you simply objecting that the sound of the ou is not Classical? I agree that some of the contractions should probably be more like Latin u, but I did not research the etymology of every word, and in general I think my OY is more correct, at least for Homer.
I find your criticism quite helpful, but I wish to point out that the exact sound of the vowels is one of the most difficult aspects of the language to isolate in time and place. This is seen in modern language, where the sound of vowels varies greatly from place to place, whereas the sound of consonants is more consistent.
Sure. Suggest some times. I do have some things to do tomorrow, but none at a fixed time.
How about noon? Seems like a nice, round number.
But also different in every timezone. Noon Eastern? Central?
Eastern, as I would have hoped the info at the left to have suggested, my Wisconsian friend.
I have no idea if Skype allows audio chat for more than 2 people, but my Skype ID is: wm.annis.