THE JOURNAL OF THE LOWLAND AND BORDER PIPERS SOCIETY

Transcription

1 June 2011 VOLUME 28 NO 1 THE JOURNAL OF THE LOWLAND AND BORDER PIPERS SOCIETY IN THIS ISSUE From the Archive (2); Repertoire: The Baggepipe Way (4); Pìob Shionnaich (15); A Bellows Pipe From the Rifle Brigade(20); Annual Competition (26); The Lowland Reel (34); Pipers of the Past (38); Bellows Care (40); Piper Interview (47); Event Reports (52);Coming Events (54) 1

2 President Iain MacInnes Chairman: Martin Lowe Treasurer Iain Wells Secretary Judy Barker Minute Sec. Jeannie Campbell Newsletter Helen Ross Membership Pete Stewart Editor CS Pete Stewart THE JOURNAL OF THE LOWLAND AND BORDER PIPERS SOCIETY EDITORIAL This year s competition was remarkable for a number of reasons; as Jim Buchanan relates in his report, it was held in a new and very different venue, one which lent its own informality to this least of formal piping competitions. It was also distinguished by being held on what was within days of the thirtieth anniversary of the meeting which led to the formation of the society. Whilst I am unaware of anyone who was present at both these gatherings, the latest one was also remarkable in that two of this year s prize-winners were also prize winners in the first-ever Lowland piping competition in Paul Roberts, who won the open class each year for the first three years, returned this year to win the open border pipe class, and David Hannay, who was awarded third prize in 1984 this year editor@lbps.net won the Seasoned Pipers award. What is more, Davie Robertson, who won this year s pipe and song class was the first piper to win that class when it was instituted as a memorial to Jimmy Wilson in the second competition, in At a casual glance these results might suggest that the competition has not moved on in 28 years; nothing, however, could be further from the truth. During that time dramatic changes have taken place in the Scottish piping scene, and the revival of the bellows pipes has been a particular engine of those changes, changes which inevitably had an impact on the competitions. Nevertheless, it is salutary to look at the 1984 competition judges remarks regarding inappropriate repertoire. Appropriate-ness of repertoire remains one of the criteria on which judges are instructed to base their marking, though The views expressed in Common Stock are those of the contributors and not necessarily those either of the Editor or of the Lowland & Border Pipers Society. The contents of Common Stock are protected by copyright. None of them may be reproduced without the written consent of the copyright owner. The copyright in the individual contributions belongs to their authors and the copyright in each edition of the magazine as a whole belongs to the Society. Cover image: Tavern with Bagpiper by E. v. Heemskerk, c.1680[?] 2

3 it is not clear how rigidly it is applied today. So much has happened in the intervening years in the development of Scottish piping that it may be even more difficult now than it was then to discriminate; indeed, it might be said that a whole new genre of music has emerged, with new compositions either composed on bellows-pipes or adapted in significant ways to suit either smallpipes or lowland pipes with their unique characteristics. It is perhaps a good moment, 30 years on, to consider what appropriate means. One can t help wondering what happened to that enthusiasm, expressed so potently in a talk to the Society in 1989 by Andy Hunter - the rediscovery of this [Lowland] music was, for him, comparable with that by Hugh MacDiarmid of Lowland Scots language for modern writing. Fortunately this repertoire was powerfully represented, as Jim Buchanan remarks, by several of the prize-winners at this year s competition, prizes awarded not so much for the repertoire as for the verve, skill and excitement with which it was performed. In his talk to the 2010 LBPS Collogue Iain MacInnes introduced a Gaelic term for the bellows-pipes. The story of Scottish bellows piping goes on expanding and the more we learn the clearer it becomes that the term Lowland or Border pipes will one day have to be reconsidered. If only we had recordings of the Bruces or Macphersons playing those jigs, what we might learn about piping styles Speaking of playing styles, John Dally s piece introduces some intriguing questions, opening up the whole issue of dance in a lowland context. This is something that has been barely considered in the revival, a gap that I hope will soon begin to be filled. The interview with Paul Roberts once more promises an article on the mythical Lowland Pibroch. A glance at some of the sources employed in recreating these performances, as described in this issue, may help explain the delays and the detective work involved; I can assure you that performable versions of at least one other piece do exist and we hope to have video available on the website in the coming months. This is the first issue of Common Stock since the launch of the new website. The journal and the web pages will be able to share material as appropriate; the new compositions printed here, for instance, can all be heard on the competition webpage. We also have a number of extended essays which are too long to include in these pages but which will find their way eventually on to the site. As always, we look forward to hearing your thoughts on any topic; send them to the editor, or post them on the website by commenting on articles directly, or on the forum. And to those readers who steer clear of cyberspace, your editor is Pete Stewart, Stables Cottage, Winton Gardens, Pencaitland, EH34 5AT Scotland 3

4 This year s competition was the 28th; the first was held in Since both competitions featured the same winners, it seemed appropriate to look back at that competition. Here then are the advance publicity, the published report and the play lists of the competitors. From the December 1983 edition of Common Stock (the first issue to be produced) 4

5 On this page we reproduce the report of the competition, as published in the November 1984 edition of Common Stock (the next issue to be produced) (There seems to be a typesetting error here: para 3 line 5 should presumably read: its heyday seems not to have been ) 5

6 1985 competition tune list 6 The judges comments, and the impact on Iain McInnes result of his choice of repertoire, stand out particularly here, since the list of music played at the 1984 competition actually consists almost entirely of tunes which we would class as Lowland. Although we now have the digital files of the recordings of this first competition, a full playlist has yet to be prepared. However, the recordings of the following three years are accompanied by full details of who played what and on what instruments. On the following page we reproduce the list of the 1985 competition. It is revealing to compare this list with the tunes played by the prize-winners at this year s competition [see p. 28]. Smallpipes Mike Ward The Mousewald Tragedy/The Beggar Man/The Carles o Dysart David Taylor Freedom Come All Ye/Jocky said to Johnny [sic]/robin Shure in Hearst/Kenmure s Up an Awa/Coorie Doon/Drink the Water and Spill the Beer[sic]/ The Carles o Dysart Hamish Moore Country Dance/ Drink the Water and Spill the Beer[sic]/Drops o Brandy/The White and the Yellow Barrel Gordon Mooney Lament of the Border Widow/The Cat that Chased its Tail Iain MacInnes Highland Laddie/Wooed and Married an A /Hay Ca Thru/Ranting Roaring Willie/Hunt the Hare Andy Hunter The Cockle Gatherers/The Gallowa Hills/Rattling Roaring Willie Jeannie Campbell O Gin I were a Baron s Heir/Teribus/Willie s Gone to Melville Castle/Skinner s Cradle Song/ The Border Jig

7 Lowland Pipes David Stevenson Mary Scott/Noble Lord Dacre/The Dawning of the Day Paul Roberts Soor Plums O Galashiels/Drops o Brandy Gordon Mooney Johnny Armstrong/O er the Border David Hannay Christmas Day in the Morning/Haste to the Wedding. The Piper s Prayer/I ll Gae Nae Mair to Yon Toon/The Hen s March over the Midden Pipe duet Mike Ward & Andy Hunter Bonny Glenshee/Jamie Gilchrist/Drops o Brandy Paul Roberts and Gordon Mooney Mary Scott/Keelrow Hamish Moore & David Taylor Lonely Loch nan Eun/Rock and wee Pickle Tow/The Miner s Greyhound Jeannie Campbell & Andrew Sharp the Rhine Skye Boat Song/10th Highlanders Crossing Mixed duet Gordon & Barbara Mooney [flute] Can ye Sew Cushions/The Piper s Wedding Andy Hunter & Mike Ward [harmonium] Macpherson s Lament/a Man s a Man/ Duncan Gray/Blue Bonnet Iain MacInnes & Patsy Seldon [clarsach] Inverness Gathering/Little Cascade Recordings of all these performances exist, recorded by Pete Cooke of the School of Scottish Studies. These are now available in digital format and it is hoped to make them available on the website just as soon as we have permissions from the performers themselves. If your name is on this list, or if you played at the 1984 or 1985 competition, and you have not yet been contacted, please let the editor know whether you are happy for these sound files to be broadcast. 7

8 The Bagge=pipe Way The prize-winning piece played by Paul Roberts at this year s competition, which he called The Hunting of the Fox was drawn from two 17th century manuscripts. Here we take a closer look at these remarkable sources. The Hunting of the Fox was, unlikely as it may seem, a compilation of music from two manuscripts for the bass viol or viola-de gamba. The first is anonymous and is held in the Henry Watson Music Library at Manchester Public Library, and is known accordingly as the Manchester Manuscript.1 It appears to date from somewhere between 1640 and The second manuscript is in the Chester Records Office and is the work of Sir Peter Leycester, antiquarian and Lord Lieutenant of Cheshire.2 His work is in the form of A Booke of Lessons for the Lyra=viole and carries the date These manuscripts come from an area of the North-West of England wellknown for its historical links with bagpiping and their compilers may have been known to each other. What makes these manuscripts of immense value to bagpipers interested in early sources of pipe music is that they are both divided into sections categorised by the manner in which the viol is tuned. The bass viol is a fretted instrument with six strings which can be set in a variety of tunings; the Leycester manuscript has one tuning labeled Bagge=pipe way and this section contains eight tunes plus what looks like a brief exercise. The Manchester manuscript has two tunings, one labeled lancashire pipes ( the seventh tuninge and the other Bag=pipes ( the eighthe tuninge ) which between them contain eight tunes, including one titled bag=pipes and another Lanca=shire pipes, the tune which formed the basis of Paul s interpretation. Not only does all the melodic music in these sections of both manuscripts stay within the ninenote range, but a good deal of it is Scottish music, and some of these tunes were popular enough to appear in several manuscripts, for various instruments, from the period around the beginning of the 17th century. The music for Lancashire Pipes and the remainder of the bagpipe music in the Manchester MS was printed (for pipes in D) in my Robin with the Bagpipe.3 I have appended it to this article transposed for pipes in A. Of the music in the Leycester MS, the jygge, the horn- 8

9 Bag=pipes from the Manchester manuscript [the tune is one used several times by William Byrd] pipe, the canary and the Hunts Up, were transcribed in The Day it Daws; the other tunes have not been published hitherto, as far as I am aware. This horne=pipe, first published by John Ward in his seminal essay The Lancashire Hornpipe 4 is clearly the Manchester Manuscript s Lancashire pipes material in a different working. It is titled A Horne=pipe called the Bag=pipe Horne=pipe other=wise The Knave of Clubs. In Paul Roberts words this piece first forms an extension of the 3/2 hornpipe in the Manchester MS, then links this melodically to the opening march, before finally dissolving into a sort of jazzlike riff. Paul used this material to extend the Manchester MS music into his border-pipe version of the Fox Chase. His piece began with a tune from the Manchester MS titled A Pointe, or preludium to be playde before the Lancashire pipes, and finished with the music labeled Upstroke in the manuscript. What Paul was unaware of at the time is that the Leycester MS also contains an Upstroke to be played after the hornpipe, the content of which is quite different to that of the Manchester MS. Whatever these manuscripts meant by the term Upstroke it is intriguing to note that the word appears in an identical context in a contemporary poem written by William Blundell of Crosby, 9

10 Lancashire, a noted cavalier and Royalist [as indeed was Leycester and, it seems, most of the known musicians of the period ]. The poem is titled A country song remembering the harmless mirth of Lancashire in peaceable times, to the tune of Roger o Coverley.5 It describes a country fair to which come the lads from surrounding villages who engage in a competition of hornpipe dancing, each to the sound of their bagpiper s music. In addition to naming two pipers and several dance tunes of the period, the poem, the main part of which is in 9/4 rhythm, finishes with a section set to the Upstroke, in 6/4.6 A Horne=pipe called the Bag=pipe Horne=pipe other=wise The Knave of Clubs An Upstroke to be played after the Horne=pipe 10

11 The manuscript contains two tunes with clear Scottish connections. The first is the Scottish Jygge which was discussed in The Day it Daws.7 The second is a setting of the old tune of Kate o Bardie ; though the Leycester setting is untitled, the same tune, in a slightly simpler setting, appears in the Manchester Manuscript, where it is named. Another variety of the tune appears in the 1630 Skene Manuscript. A Scottish Jygge Untitled Tune [Kate o Bardie] 11

12 Another untitled tune in the Leycester MS is a setting of the ubiquitous Hunt s Up, a tune first mentioned in Scotland in 1480, in Robert Henryson s The Fox, the Wolff and the Codger- The cadger sang huntis up, up, upon hie. Untitled tune [Hunt s Up] The manuscript also includes a setting of the Canaries, clearly a popular dance in early 17th century Scotland; there are two settings in the Straloch MS (1627) and one in the Skene MS (c.1630).7 Canaries 12

13 The following tune is untitled in the MS. It may be simply an exercise; if so, it is one with decidedly Lowland characteristics, and might even be considered as another Scottish Jygge. Untitled tune The remaining tune in this collection of bagpipe music is something quite different; it has the feeling of a dance from the Playford collections (the first of which was published in 1651, when the Leycester MS was still being prepared). Although Playford published a good deal of Scottish music, this is most likely an English song. Its first two bars are derived from Praetorius La Bourre. A Health to All the Lords and Ladyes of the Courte The following tunes are transcribed from the Manchester Manuscript. Most of these are very simple settings; here is the old tune of Kate of Bardie [from which we can recognise the untitled tune above] Kate of Bardie 13

14 Another Scottish tune in the Manchester Manuscript is titled Pigges of Rumsey, a delightful reworking of the tune s original title Peggy Ramsay [another fine example of the fact that if you want your tune to remain in the tradition for hundreds of year some filthy words set to it are a great help]. Pigges of Rumsey Two more simple tunes, the first untitled, the second with the title often attached in these manuscripts to such melodies, A Toye,. A Toye On the following page are the three pieces which, together with the Bag=pipe Horne=pipe above, formed the basis of Paul s piece. They come from the section of the Manchester Manuscript labeled The seventh tuninge Lanca=shire pipes. The first is titled A pointe or preludium to be played before the Lanca=shire pipes, the second is Lanca=shire pipes itself and the last, which in the manuscript follows on continuously from this, is marked upstroke. A facsimile of the manuscript page containing the end of the Lancashire pipes with the upstroke, together with Kate of Bardie and The Pigges of Rumsey is included on page 15. A transcription of the magnificent 20-strain setting of Put up they Dagger Jamie which appears in the manuscript will be available on the website shortly, along with Playford s bagpipe music from The Division Viol and other related material. 14

15 A pointe or Preludium to be playde before the Lanca=shire pipes Lanca=shire pipes Upstroke (This appears to be a strain from the English tune Blowzabella ) 15

16 The second page of the Seventh tuninge Lanca=shire pipes section of the Manchester 'Viol Da Gamba Book', BRMs832Vu51 (Image provided by kind permission of the Henry Watson Music Library, Manchester Library and Information Service) Notes 1. The complete contents of the Manchester Manuscript were published by Peacock Press, 2003 as The Manchester Gamba Book. Containing 246 items, it is the largest known manuscript collection for the instrument. The majority of the contents are sarabandes, corantos, almains, preludes etc. 2. A Booke of Lessons for the Lyro=Viole, Chester Records Office, GB-CHEr DLT/B Stewart, P., Robin with the Bagpipe, White House Tune Books, Ward, John M., The Lancashire Hornpipe, in Essays in Musicology - A Tribute to Alvin Johnson, A.M.S., 1990 pp Blundell s poem was published in Crosby Records: A Cavalier s Notebook, by Rev. T Ellison Gibson available on line, p crosbyrecordscav00blunuoft_djvu.txt. [retrieved 12/05/2011] 6. For the tunes mentioned by Blundell see Stewart, P., Three Extraordinary Collections, Hornpipe Music 2007 p.97. This essay is now available on the lbps website from the Resources page. 7. For other settings of Hunts Up and the Canaries see Stewart, P., The Day it Daws, White House Tune Books, The Scottish Jygge also appears, along with a Hunts Up, copied in a rather illiterate hand into the Tokyo copy of Thomas Robinson s New Lessons for the Cithern, 1609, available online at 16

17 Pìob Shionnaich Those seeking good idiomatic Gaelic to describe their bellows pipe might want to consider pìob shionnaich. Here Iain McInnes describes some of the usages of the term for bellows pipes in the Highlands and some of the pipers who played them This term was used by the Bruce and MacPherson families in the 19th century, and was sufficiently well-known for the lexicographer (and piper) Edward Dwelly to include it in his Gaelic dictionary of Father Allan MacDonald, collecting Gaelic expressions in South Uist and Eriskay in the 1880s was also aware of the term, applied to pipes where a bellows under one arm supplies the place of the gaothaire (blowpipe).1 The term pìob shionnaich is a curious one. It might translate literally as fox pipe, which is colourful if somewhat obscure. Dwelly, possibly seeking to rationalise the meaning, offers the alternative of pìob theannaich, a direct reference, it would seem, to the bellows. Teannaich means to constrict or squeeze, and in certain circumstances to tighten by pumping. (Dwelly includes a wealth of nuance and localised idiom in his definitions). Most early Gaelic dictionaries contain the term. The massive tome published by the Highland Society of Scotland in 1828, for instance, offers two definitions of pìob shionnaich: a bellows pipe, and the small bagpipe.2 Whatever the precise etymology, pìob shionnaich was an expression used by one particular piping family with links to Glenelg, Skye and Raasay. Writing in the Oban Times in 1913, Dr K.N Mac- Donald (compiler of the excellent Gesto Collection of Highland Music ) provides a vivid description of the Glenelg piper Sandy Bruce: I must first have heard old Sandy in the early forties [1840s], and I remember him quite well. He was a man about 5 feet 7 inches, sturdy and well set, of a ruddy complexion, clean shaven not unlike Niel Gow in appearance. He wore a tartan coat, with flaps embellished with silver-gilt bullet-shaped buttons, and trews. His walk when playing pibrochs, was dignified and stately, and when he came to the quick passages he stood perfectly still. He generally set forth in the porch in Ord, Skye [K.N MacDonald s home], where he had sufficient elbow-room, but the noise to me in those days was something terrific. Pibrochs were his forte, but he also played marches, salutes, and dance music when necessary. He would 17

18 scorn to play the latter the dance music on the pìob mhòr, or large pipe. He reserved it for the pìob shionnaich, or bellows pipe, which he generally carried about with him on periodical visits to our place. His usual routine was to begin playing in the morning about 8 o clock, without ever being asked, and again during dinner, pibrochs and salutes, and when there was any dancing he played the bellows pipe. He was a very amiable and agreeable man one of nature s gentlemen with a considerable sense of humour, and possessed a large repertoire of old stories of by-gone days.3 Sandy Bruce was a piper of renown. He took second prize in the famous pibroch competition in Edinburgh in 1807, when he was listed as piper to Niel MacLeod of Gesto (K.N MacDonald s grandfather). He learnt his music directly from the MacCrimmons, and was on hand when Alexander Campbell, the composer and collector, visited Donald Ruadh MacCrimmon in Glenelg in October Before having a tune himself, Donald Ruadh sent for Sandy, a favourite pupil of his own, who played several pieces in a stile of excellence, that while it excited applause, reflected much credit on his able preceptor.4 Piping passed on down through Sandy s family, and K.N MacDonald records that his descendants retained a prize pipe which he had won at the St Fillans Games in His brother John was also a piper, employed by Sir Walter Scott at Abbotsford, where he played his part in entertaining visiting dignitaries. A rather poignant letter from Scott recounts how John Bruce once spent an entire Sunday selecting twelve stones from twelve south-running streams for him, as a cure for jaundice.5 In the Bruces, clearly, there was music and lore in abundance. Near-relations to the Bruces were the MacPhersons from Laggan in Badenoch. More mature readers of Common Stock might recall old Angus MacPherson ( ) perched on the front row of the Caledonian Hotel ballroom at the Northern Meeting in Inverness each year, dispensing piping wisdom and trenchant comment on the performers. In a BBC radio interview broadcast in 1959, he recounted how his great-grandfather Peter had been a piper in Skye; his grandfather Angus (the pìobaire cam ) was a pupil of John Mac- Crimmon, and a near-neighbour of the famous MacKay pipers in Raasay; and his father Malcolm (generally known as Calum pìobaire ) had eventually settled in Cluny after working in Islay, Greenock and Stornoway.6 There he followed in his own father s footsteps as piper to Cluny MacPherson, before retiring to the nearby cottage of Catlodge which became a base for his teaching activities. Angus himself had a fascinating life, recounted in his autobiography A Highlander Looks Back, which included a period in service to Andrew Carnegie at Skibo Castle, followed by 35 years as 18

19 hotelier in Inveran inspiration to a brace of fine compositions by G.S McLennan. Although mainly associated with Highland piping, the MacPhersons were by no means above turning their hands to the bellows. In an article published in 1955, Seton Gordon wrote of them: At this time [the 19th century], and much later, another form of bagpipe was in use in the Highlands. This may be the pipe referred to by Hume as Scottes. The Gaelic name is Pìob Shionnaich, the Bellows Pipe. Angus MacPherson, a celebrated piper and a judge of piping at the great Highland Gatherings, tells me that in his family there is preserved his father s Pìob Shionnaich. His father, Malcolm MacPherson, was a famous piper, and, like his father before him, was equally at home, and equally skilled, on either type of bagpipe. In those days dances would be continued for several nights in succession, and the piper, having opened the proceedings with the Great Pipe, would then sit at his ease on a stool or bench, and play dance music on the Bellows Pipe hour after hour, the fingering and scale in both Piob Mhòr and Piob Shionnaich being the same. 7 Surviving pipemakers catalogues show that bellows-blown instruments were by no-means a rarity in the nineteenth century. In 1860, for instance, the Edinburgh maker Alexander Glen was offering Union or Lowcountry pipes of Malcolm MacPherson s piob shionnaich. (courtesy of the National Museums of Scotland; the pipes themselves are in the collection in the Piping Centre in Glasgow) 19

20 all descriptions made to order, in addition to an impressive range of Highland bagpipes. In 1871 David Glen s price list included a Second Size Reel Pipe with a bellows. These, presumably, were the instruments that found their way into the hands of pipers in the Highland village halls. Angus MacPherson confirmed his father s use of the bellows bagpipe in a radio interview conducted in 1971: Yes, it s a Lowland pipe of course, and at weddings he always took that with him. He d have the two sets, and play all night on the bellows pipes, you know. Of course as you know the reeds never got damp. I can remember, I can visualise him now sitting on the chair. And the smoking pipe he s smoking his pipe and playing the other pipe at the same time. And jigs he could play; and that s the thing - the old jigs, they really were beautiful music, such as that jig Cailleach nan Guirean, the Herring Wife, and the Stable Boys Jig, and these old jigs. Oh my, he could rattle these jigs out beautifully. 8 This testimony suggests that bellows pipes were a valued component of piping culture in the Highlands, at least within certain families, a practical alternative to the pìob mhòr, although never played to the exclusion of the mouthblown pipe. There is no suggestion that bellows pipes were used to explore alternative music, or unusual tonality. For the Bruces and MacPhersons the pìob shionnaich simply had its place by the fireside and on the dance floor, part of the everyday rhythm of musical life. Notes 1. Father Allan MacDonald Gaelic Words and Expressions from South Uist and Eriskay. Edited by J.L Campbell. Oxford University Press, 1953: Dictionarium Scoto-Celticum. A Dictionary of the Gaelic Language. Edinburgh Dr K.N MacDonald The Bruces of Glenelg, Contemporaries of John MacCrimmon. Oban Times, Januray 4th, Alexander Campbell (ms) A Slight Sketch of a Journey made through Parts of the Highlands and Hebrides; undertaken to Collect Materials for Albyn s Anthology: in Autumn Edinburgh University Library EUL. La.III Walter Scott. Letter to the Duke of Buccleuch, 15 April In J.G Lockhart Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott. Edinburgh. 1842; Angus MacPherson interviewed by Fred MacAulay in Lairg, 21 August BBC archive. LP Seton Gordon The Bagpipe in John Hadfield (ed) The Saturday 15 Book. 1955; 188, These examples are contained in Jeannie Campbell Highland Bagpipe Makers, Edinburgh, 2001;24, the former excerpted from an edition of Glen s Caledonian Repository, Angus MacPherson talking to Seumas Mac- Neill. BBC insert reel recorded in Inverness, 27 April The state of the tape suggests that this may never have been broadcast. 20

21 Pìob Shionnaich Pursued Iain McInnes introduction to the pìob shionnaich led us to investigate further the history of this term. There is no mention of a bellows-pipe in the Highlands in Joseph MacDonald s manuscript, written in 1760; MacDonald is particularly scathing about the insipid bagpipe of the low country, where they use bellowses to their pipes ; however, only 20 years later the Rev William Shaw s Galic [sic] and English Dictionary included the entry Piobshionnaich. A pipe blown with bellows.1 The term remained in use into the 21st century; Tiber Falzett recorded a conversation with Calum Eaiedsidh Choinnich Beaton of Stonetbridge, South Uist, who remembered hearing about and seeing sets of bagpipes known as a piob shionnaich in his youth.2 He noted the local use of the term as both blowpipe valve and as a species of bellows-blown bagpipe that had gone out of fashion. However, Falzett goes on to point out that although bellows-blown bagpipes are remembered in the Scottish Gaidhealteachd this does not infer that they are the same in form as the common stock Scottish bellows-blown bagpipes known today. To illustrate his point he reproduces a picture of the bellows-blown set of Highland Bagpipes that Seamus Mac- Neil collected in Canada and which are now in the Museum of the College of Piping in Glasgow. However, Falzett also includes a photo of a set of bagpipes that very definitely are of the kind known today: the photo is the same as that reproduced here on page 24. Bellows-pipes were not completely unknown in the Highlands from an early date - witness the famous musette owned by Prince Charles Stewart; moreover, it now seems that an instrument very much like that of Malcolm MacPherson was known in London perhaps 100 years before Shaw s dictionary. According to Joseph MacDonald s brother Patrick there was a smallpipe, on which dancing tunes are played that is Compleat, the same in form and apparatus with the greater, differing only in size.3 It seems likely that it was around that the bellows were introduced to power this smallpipe ; the disdain shown by Joseph MacDonald for the low country pipe may well explain why it took so long for the advantages of the bellows in sustained informal playing to be acknowledged. Notes 1. Shaw, Rev. William A Galic and English Dictionary containing All the Words in the Scotch and Irish Dialects of the Celtic, that.could be collected from the Voice, and Old Books and MSS., Falzett, Tiber F. M., Aspects if Indigenous instrument Technologies and the Question of the Smallpipe in the Old and New World Gadhealtachds. We are grateful to Tiber for supplying a copy of this paper. 3. The quotation is from the 1803 published edition of Joseph MacDonald s MS, but as Falzett points out, Patrick is re-working an essay by John Ramsay of Ochtertyre, which Patrick had published in

22 A Bellows-pipe from the Rifle Brigade The Cameron Bagpipe on display in the Greenjackets Museum, Winchester (photo courtesy of the Museum trustees) On the website of the Royal Greenjackets Museum in Winchester the pipes shown above are described as the bellows pipes of the Highland Company of the 1st Battalion, 95th Rifles (later The Rifle Brigade). The website text adds Unsurprisingly, the members of the Highland Company were very proud of their roots and included amongst their number one or more pipers who, at appropriate moments, would play the bellow pipes. 1 Now a record of the use of bellowspipes, not only in a military context, but in 22 a Highland Company must be worth exploring, since it would currently be unique. The following is therefore an attempt to retrieve what information is available about these pipes, their history and their military use. The presence of this picture on the internet was first uncovered by Paul Roberts in a post to the Dunsire Forum in October, Straightaway questions were being posed about the validity of the website s claims; chiefly arguing that the pipes appear to be in extremely good condition for an in-

23 strument used in a military context more than 200 years ago. An enquiry to the museum archive produced a number of items reproduced from the Brigade Chronicles. Between them, these articles seem to represent the source of the website s description and attribution. The crucial item is from the 1955 volume: under the heading The Regimental Museum is the following: among the many articles added to the Museum during the year-- Bagpipe used by the Highland Company when saved in 1800 by Alexander Cameron of Inverailort, later to become General Sir Alexander Cameron. Given by Mr Francis Head of Inverailort, a direct descendant of the General 2 The Alexander Cameron mentioned was son of Donald Cameron of Glendessary and Murligan, and a lineal descendant of Ewen, XIIIth Chief of Lochiel. In 1797 he was appointed to an Ensigncy in the Breadalbane Fencibles, and served with them most of two years, and soon after the Holland Expedition he received an Ensigncy in the 92nd Regiment ( Gordon Highlanders ). In March 1800 he volunteered to serve in the Rifle Corps then being formed. The Regimental Orders state: February 24th, The detachment of riflemen will march to-morrow at ten-o-clock under the command of Ensign Cameron. The major expects that the detachment will conduct themselves in such a manner as to do credit to the regiment they belong to, and that Ensign Cameron will so exert himself on the march, and after he has arrived at Horsham, that his detachment will appear as respectable in the corps they are to join as the regiment has always done among other regiments 3 This was part of the process whereby the Experimental Corps of Riflemen was created; the commanding officers of fourteen regiments of the line were directed to select from each 2 sergeants, 2 corporals, 30 privates and 1 person qualified for a bugler, to compose a rifle corps, and to send in to the Commander in Chief the names of 1 captain, 1 lieutenant and 1 ensign willing to volunteer for this service. The detachments from the 79th and 92nd regiments retained their own dress, and later became informally known as the Highland Company. Cameron volunteered to accompany the 92nd to Egypt and was severely wounded, probably at the Battle of Alexandria. Despite his wound, on his return to England in 1801, having been elevated to Lieutenant rank, he re-joined the Rifle Corps, whose Standing Orders as the new Corps of Riflemen had come into effect in January of that year. So far, we have followed the regimental records. However, it is at this crucial point that the story s details are filled in by Mrs Cameron-Head, grand-daughter of Alexander Cameron. In a footnote in the Brigade Chronicles article she says: When my Grandfather returned to England after the Battle of Alexandria, and rejoined the Rifle Corps, of which he was one of the first ten officers, 23

24 Colonel the Hon. William Stewart, of the Galloway family, asked him to go up to the Highlands and recruit as many men as he could; and he recruited between 150 and 200 men in Lochaber, and they marched all the way to Horsham (where I have always understood they joined somewhere about August) to the music of the bagpipes; and it is on record that Colonel Cameron s men took the bagpipes into action. The Brigade Chronicles also contain an article on The Highland Company at the end of which a letter from Mrs Cameron Head is quoted in which the subject of the bagpipes is revisited. In your letter to me dated 26th December 1914, you said that you could not get to the bottom of the Highland Company. There is no doubt that my Grandfather took a big batch of men from the Fort William district in 1801, and that they marched all the way to Horsham, where they joined the old 95th. There is also no doubt that these men had bagpipes. I remember three very old sets of bagpipes at Inverailort, which were kept in a horsehair ottoman there when I was quite a small child, and I was always told that these had belonged to my Grandfather s Highland Company. Whether they were returned to him when the Regiment gave up using pipes or how they came to be there I do not know; most unfortunately, after my Father s death in 1874, when I was quite a child, these pipes disappeared and I can now find no trace of them It seems that it is these two written items, and perhaps other verbal reminiscences from Mrs Cameron-Head, that have provided all the evidence to link the set of bagpipes in the museum to the Rifle Corps and their march to Horsham in I put this question to Keith Sanger, whose work on piping history will be well-known to Common Stock readers; Here are extracts from his replies: I have now searched the army pension records, the contemporary newspapers and re-checked my notes on material in the NAS and there is not a shred of evidence that anyone raised 150 men in Lochaber to join the 95th The idea that one junior officer on his own could raise men when people like Col Cameron [of the 79th] with some 30 plus officers all engaged raising a regiment were struggling simply does not make sense especially when you consider the paper trail that would be involved. [Keith Sanger provided me with copies of the reports of the efforts made to raise the 79th, Cameron Highlanders in 1799]. Firstly, to recruit at all required a warrant to do so. On arriving in an area to recruit the senior officer of the recruiting party had to go to the local JP and show his warrant and also inform any other regiments operating in the same area. Secondly every recruit needed to be medically examined and sworn in front of said JP, (and in the case of transfers 24

25 from the fencibles they too would require re-attesting because their original attestments were for home service only). The recruiting officer would have needed letters of authorisation to draw money locally because apart from the recruits bounty money each recruit was required to be issued with some basic clothing and would require subsistence from the moment he had signed on. Then until the men were ready to move they would also have needed authorisation in the form of a written order from the War Dept to enable them to be billeted locally. Having assembled these men, if he did, he would then have had to await the written order from the War Dept to move them down to where the 95th were stationed, the order giving the route to take including where to stop at the end of each days march, (so that orders could be sent from the War Dept in advance to the stops requiring the local magistrates to accommodate and arrange food for the stop). It was all highly organised and generated masses of paperwork; it would also have involved the Lord Lieutenant of the County concerned which in the case of Lochaber was Inverness, and Sir James Grant. Now I have been working my way through the Grant papers for some time including the lieutenancy military papers for that period and I have seen nothing to suggest any of those recruiting events happened. One is left wondering what was the origin of this story, if, as the evidence suggests, it left no trace in any of the required military sources? Alexander Cameron had been dead for nine years when Cristian his grand-daughter was born. Her remark I was always told seems to be the only indication of her source; although she says it is a matter of record she does not say where that record was; it has certainly proved impossible to locate it up till now, though the full collection of Inverailort papers remains un-researched. There are, however, a number of other questions which are pertinent to the question of whether the Rifle Brigade in any of its manifestations ever had pipers. Keith Sanger has pointed to the difficulties experienced by more than one recruiting drive to locate the usual two pipers to join the Grenadier Companies, whether they were highland pipers or other. He did however provide a copy of the Paybooks of the Lochaber Fencibles Regiment for the relevant years. These seem to indicate that the regiment maintained two pipers [listed in the paybooks among the 4 drummers since the preprinted paybooks had no space for pipers] from 1799 until it was disbanded in 1802; though some of the fencibles, including the pipers, could have joined the Rifles in 1802 when other fencibles did provide recruits, we can be sure that they were not present in Cameron s 1801 march. In fact Keith added: I have checked the pension records cross checking the Lochaber, fencibles or origin, against the 95 or rifle brigade. I only found 2 matches having both in com- 25

26 mon, one was a Scot but was discharged in 1802 so his time with the 95th must have been pretty short, the other was a man from Cork. Of equal importance is the evidence of the pipes themselves; and here we encounter a further mystery. When I first began to investigate these pipes, Hugh Cheap put me in contact with Loch Ailort local historian Iain Thurnber. Iain kindly supplied a photo which he believes was taken when the pipes were first presented to the Museum in Now this set is clearly not that now on display in the Museum. Unfortunately the current archivist at the Museum was unable to shed any light on this mystery; we are very much in the hands of those who received and documented the pipes at the time. However, closer inspection of both sets of pipes only muddies the water further; comparing the styles of drone-tops, mounts and beadings leads to the strong suggestion that whilst the second set here may be the earlier, neither are likely to have been made before 1800 and post-1830 seems to be a more reliable date, with the first set, those now in the museum, being even later. The 1919 letter from Mrs Cameron- Head however describes how she had seen three very old sets when I was quite a small child. If we accept this part of her story, that would imply sometime in the mid to late 1860 s. Very old of course would have a different meaning to a small child. She also tells us that these pipes disappeared after her father s death [in 1874] when she was 15. At the end of May 1940 Inverailort Castle, like many others at the time, had been requisitioned by the military. Although the house was cleared and the contents sent to Fort William for storage, it seems storms had washed away a number of bridges in the area, and that when the lorries carrying the contents encountered a collapsed bridge on the road, the soldiers unloaded the valuable antique furniture from up to three of the lorries in order to bridge the gap and continue on their way. If it were not for Mrs Cameron-Head s remark in her letter that the pipes had disappeared before 1874 one might per- 26

27 haps guess that it was at this time that they either passed to Fort William or were lost; how they were returned to the family remains a mystery; Keith Sanger has told me that he recalls as a boy seeing them in the Fort William Museum some time in the early 1950 s, shortly before Francis Head presented them to the museum. Mrs Cameron-Head mentions having seen three sets of pipes in the ottoman. Hugh Cheap tells me that he has been in Notes Rifle Brigade Chronicle, various dates 1797%E2%80% C S The Master Piper Returns touch with someone who owns a set of bagpipes purporting to be from Inverailort, but has yet to see them; these appear to be the set in the 1955 photo, implying that this set was not presented to the Museum. The mystery remains and we await the result of Hugh Cheape s investigation with some interest. In the meantime, it seems we have, albeit reluctantly, to dismiss the notion of bellows-pipes being played before the Rifle Corps in 1801, whether in action or on the march. 3. The Gordon Highlanders The Life of a Regiment p Described and reproduced in British Rifleman , Philip Haythornthwaite Illustrated by Christa Hook We hear from Matt Seattle that he hopes to have the new edition of the William Dixon Manuscript ready for publication this July. This is perhaps one of the most important manuscripts in the Lowland piping repertoire and we are delighted that with the combined support of the LBPS, the Bagpipe Society and the Northumbrian Pipers Society, it will soon be back in print. 27

28 This year s Competition was a landmark in the history of the LBPS. It was held on the 30th anniversary of the meeting that was to lead to the founding of the Lowland and Border Pipers Society some two years later. Here former Society president Jim Buchanan gives us his report on the day s events. Iam delighted to have been asked to write a short review of this year s competition, which is part of Edinburgh s Ceilidh Culture (Edinburgh s Traditional Arts Festival), because it gives me the chance to say publicly that I thought it was one of the best, if not the best that I ve attended in 28 Euan Whitmore plays border pipes before an engrossed audience in the Pleasance Theatre, Edinburgh twenty years. All the essential aspects of a competition were present. First, the organization was flawless and flowed with all the appearance of being effortless thanks to the hard work and experience of all the committee, particularly our Secretary, Judy, who so professionally deals with the paperwork of entries, certificates and the rest. Second, the polished way our Chairman Martin acted as Master of Ceremonies, which was both calming and encouraging for all the competitors and added greatly to the overall enjoyment of the event. Third, the high standard of the entrants who were imaginative, diverse and original in

29 their choice of music, and lastly, the venue of The Pleasance, which was superb. We had as many competitors as the day and the venue could comfortably manage although the audience could have been greater. Not only did our Chairman Martin take part in six of the classes, but also he was on the podium for three of them! Owing to the foresight of our Secretary the Society was able to cope with the extraordinary fact that in no less than four of the classes there were joint firsts. This unique result indicated the extremely high standards of playing, singing and general musicality that were on display and the difficulty of classifying overall excellence into the categories of 1st, 2nd and 3rd. It should also be mentioned that one competitor scored the highest marks ever to be awarded in the 28 years the competition has been held. I ought to mention that a singular feature of this competition is that half the marks come from the audience and half from the judge. The only fly in the ointment was the absence of entries in the Novice class. This has happened before and will be a feature that I m sure will be addressed by the LBPS Committee. What of the music? Please judge for yourselves by listening to the variety, quality and originality captured on the splendid recordings now on the website. This is where you will also find a comment on Paul Robert s winning contribution in the Open Lowland/Border class with the tune Lancashire Pipes aka Hunting the Fox describing not only the music but also Paul s comments on how he interpreted this composition from c Paul was the winner of the Open class at our first competition in 1984 and it was great to have him back competing and winning this year. You can also hear the archived recording of his 1984 winning entry on our website. An over-seas member of the Society wrote on 4th April It s wonderful to be able to hear Paul s performance only two days after the event worth the price of membership in itself. I ve been back over past issues of Common Stock researching the comments of some of my predecessors on past Competitions and find that there have been frequent criticisms of Highland fingering and excessive playing of Highland tunes, also the use or misuse of vibrato and slides and even of the lack of notes higher than can be got with usual fingering. Let me say that I have no worries about any of these, especially the playing of Highland tunes. Regarding high notes, Paul included high Bs and a spine-tingling stratospheric harmonic B more that two octaves above middle C. Thus he brought life and colour in his musical depiction of chasing the fox with sound effects never normally heard on the Lowland/Border pipe. May I further single out Paul Martin from Durham for his fine playing of old style Border tunes on smallpipes and on a beautiful set of Lowland/Border pipes 29

30 with a baritone drone. Please do listen to his sets on the website. Of course, there were Highland tunes and Highland gracings to be heard, and why not; but there was none of the rather desperate rivalry of some Highland piping competitions. Manuel Trucco once wrote in CS that apart from the Society being an undoubted force in the evolution of Scottish music, our real strength is in our two distinct and unique instruments, the Scottish smallpipe and the Lowland/ Border pipe. The latter has evolved a long way in a remarkably few years to where it is now arguably at least equal to the smallpipe in Scotland, despite the fact that it will always be comparatively more difficult to make, to reed and to play. This Competition was an admirable showcase for what our bellows blown pipes can achieve musically and will be a landmark in the development of the Society now in its 30th year. COMPETITION 2011 RESULTS Novice - Heriot & Allan Quaich No entries Intermediate - Julian Goodacre Trophy 1. (joint 1st) Allan Sturrock - Mary Scot-The Flower of Yarrow/Richard the Rogue John Mitchell - Flett from Flotta /Wee Highland Laddie/ Shores of Loch Bee 3. Lewis Thomson - My Lodging is on the Cold Ground/ The Milky Bar Kid/ The Belle of Belfast City/ Aunt Jemima Seasoned Pipers - Nigel Richards Trophy 1. David Hannay - Sarah s Song/ Fred Olson s Birthday/ 2. Jim Buchanan - Singin in the rain/ Garbindar n Polska/ Garbindar n Wedding March 3. (Joint 3rd ) Henry Aitchison - Battle of the Somme/ Forest Lodge Reel David Stevenson - Frere Jacques/ Twinkle Twinkle/ Three Blind Mice New Composition - London Trophy 1. (joint 1st) Andrew S Montague (played by Rona Dawson) Corporal James Montague s Farewell to the 7th Argyle & Sutherland Highlanders Fin Moore - Finlay Donald Willie s Jig 3. George Greig - Andrew & Gertie dear friends 30

31 Open Solo for Scottish Smallpipes - Colin Ross Trophy 1. (joint 1st) Fraser Yorston - Jim Tweedie's Sea Legs/ The Wise Maid/ The Fourth Floor/ Richard Dwyer's Euan Whitmore - Aspen Bank/ Stumpie/ Brendan Murphy/ The 4th Floor 3. Paul Martin - Meggy s Foot/ Lick the Ladle Sandy/ Holme s Fancy Duet for Pipes - Mains Castle Medal 1. (joint 1st) George Greig & Martin Lowe - Rusty Gully/ Jocky said to Jenny Fin Moore & Lawrence Thomson - Richard Gone banana s (Tully)/ Londonderry Hornpipe 3. Euan Whitmore & Henry Aitchison - La Baum/ Hills of Argyll/ MacPherson s Lament Pipe and Song Duet 1. Kirsten Anderson & Euan Whitmore - Keep on the Sunny Side 2. Linda Thomson & Lawrence Thomson - Leezie Lindsay 3. Sadie Maskery & Martin Lowe - Maggie Lauder Pipe and Song - Jimmy Wilson Memorial Cup 1. Davie Robertson - Sir Patrick Spens 2. Martin Lowe - The Gallowa Hills 3. Pete Stewart - The Grey Funnel Line Duet for Pipes and Other Instrument - Dunfermline Tassie 1. Fin Moore & Ewan Macpherson - Mary's Fancy/ Donald MacGuggan's Rant/ The Four Courts 2. Euan Whitmore & Keith Westhead - Hector the hero/ The North Star/ New Year in Noosa/ Electric Pumpkin 3. Martin Lowe & Pete Stewart - The Scotch March/ High Road to Linton (8 part Matt Seattle setting) Open Solo for Lowland/Border Pipes - Hamish Moore Cup 1. Paul Roberts - Lancashire Pipes (aka The Hunting of the Fox) 2. Paul Martin - Cut and Dry Dolly New Way/ The Lass and the Money are All my Own/ Old Wife of Coverdale 3. Martin Lowe - Sarah's Song (Cunningham)/ Horsborough Castle/ The Water Babies (Tully) 31

32 Paul Martin plays his border pipe set Winners of the 2011 competition classes gather for the photo call (competition photos courtesy of Iain Wells) 32

33 One of the joint- first prizes in last year s new composition class was Tiber Falzett. The music for his tune, unavailable last year, is included here, followed by the winners of this year s competition Joint First Prize 2010 Joint First Prize

34 Joint First Prize 2011 [Played by Rona Dawson] 34

35 Third Prize 2011 Andrew and Gertie _ Dear Friends George Greig 35

36 Large areas of the repertoire of the Lowland Piper still remain virtually unexplored. Here North American piper John Dally offers his thoughts on approaching the performance of Lowland reels To call Pete Stewart s Welcome Home My Deasrie (Hornpipe Music, Pencaitland, 2008) masterful, seminal, fascinating and indispensable is still inadequate. My copy is frayed around the edges, and yet it still seems new to me. It never ceases to inspire and inform. I have read it several times through, studied passages and still find more to learn and absorb every time I open it up. And yet the music itself remains mysterious, which is another attractive feature of the collection. This is a report on my own progress playing the tunes, especially those written in common time, included in Pete s important book. Before considering ornamentation, fingering technique and tempo we have to make some decisions about rhythm. The inadequacies of written music are immediately made manifest. Written music at best is like a sculpture of a dancer. You can get an inkling of the dance, but you still cannot see its flow, hear it, or feel it. These are dance tunes, or performance tunes based on dance tunes, so the first assumption is that the rhythms are based on the movement of the human body, and I have to rely on my own (worn out old boot) as a gauge for whether or not a certain rhythmic approach works. Can we assume that the rhythms we take for granted today are the rhythms played in the past? When it comes to tunes in common time I don t think contemporary reel rhythms work very well. These tunes are like an ancient wood: tread carefully and keep your senses alert. I want to be historically accurate and respectful, and yet leave myself room to put my own accent on the tune. I suspect there is something very exciting beyond historical reenactment or trying to fit these old tunes to modern rhythms and tempos. To paraphrase Hamlet, There are more beats in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your drum machine. The time signature of a tune indicates its rhythm, but it is only an indication. Listening to a few bars of music will tell you much more about it than reading the time signature. The top number of a time signature tells us how many beats there are in a bar and the bottom number tells us what kind of note gets a beat. There are also pulses or stresses. The time signature of a strathspey is 4/4 or C for common time. It tells us there are four quarter note (crotchet) beats to the bar, but it doesn t tell us they are each accented and that the first is more heavily stressed than the others. If a quarter note in a bar of 4/4 is broken up 36

37 into eighth notes (quaver) the tails of those two notes will be tied together. If the next beat is also broken up into eighth notes the tails will also be tied together. To tie the tails of both beats together, so that four eighth notes are tied together, is confusing because it indicates that there are two rather than four beats to the bar. The time signature for this is 2/2 or cut time, signified by a C with a vertical line through it. The conventions of the time were to tie the tails of notes together in patterns that sometimes did not comply with the time signature, sometimes following different conventions within the same tune. It is up to the piper to determine what is going on. Is it just written convention or is some very subtle rhythm indicated? Any one time signature can indicate many different rhythms. So, try four beats to the bar, then two beats to the bar. Tunes that seem to work nicely in cut time will lead you along seemingly familiar ground, playing in what we might call a Cape Breton style, especially if the tune is as well known as Sleepy Maggie or Tail Toddle. But then you come upon a group of sixteenth notes (semiquaver) that even if played cleanly sound crammed and jar my internal dancer. There must be a different way. At this point it would be good to look at a few tunes. A Pretty Wench (p 132) is available on the LBPS web site. Lasses Pisses Brandy (p 133) is a tune that looks simple enough, but it soon reveals its own rhythm (see below). Lass if I Come Near You (p. 144) is good example of a tune that at first glance looks like it should be played like a modern reel. Willie Winna Hae Her (p 136) is another. These are not courtly tunes. The ribald titles indicate a sweaty looseness, a casting off of decorum, and a dainty, careful approach is out of place. These tunes sent me back to a recording of Willie Taylor playing his own reel, Nancy Taylor. It s not 4/4 or 2/2 or a rant rhythm. Whatever you call it, it fits these old pipe tunes. A Pretty Wench [MacFarlane MS, 1740) Lass if I Come Near You (Aird s Airs, 1760) 37

38 G grace notes sound chirpy on a Scottish smallpipe. Using an f# grace note rather than a g reduces the chirping. Ripping fast birls might not accentuate the rhythm. Playing birls open or using low g grace notes to break up the low a s might be more rhythmical. The birl as we know it today was called a nasty Glasgow habit by some old pipers Barry Shears met in Cape Breton. Early collections of Highland pipe music contain many useful, interesting and forgotten ornaments. John McLachlan s The Piper s Assistant (Edinburgh, 1877) is full of clever devices. I would also encourage pipers to vary their approach not only part to part but phrase to phrase. Keeping in mind the tonality of Scottish smallpipes, low a s can often be substituted for high a s to get the effect of a false rest between notes. The chromatic Border pipe chanter allows half tone gracing, which some pipers slide out of to the melody note. Scottish smallpipe chanters with keys, such as c, f, high g# and high b, can also provide this option, although keys make sliding almost impossible. See the f grace note before the f# at the end of the second bar. The tunes seem to demand a relaxed tempo and relaxed approach to ornamentation. Experimenting with the way I was taught to play competition style reels, a choppy 4/4, the results are equally unsatisfactory. There appears to be no place for heavy movements like a taorluath even if you were tempted to put one in. A 4/4 march rhythm works well enough for getting all the notes in, but my internal dancer is soon bored. A slight increase in tempo, seeking out the stresses where they seem to want to fall, in essence, letting the tune show me how it wants to be played, I end up with a sprung 4/4 rhythm that is neither plodding common time or strict 2/2 reel rhythm. It is somewhere in between, just like the way it is written. The lack of heavy taorluath-like ornamentation doesn t mean these tunes are easy to play. The batches of sixteenth notes require very clean fingering. Crossing noises lurk beneath them. A fine example of these challenges is David Young s Lasses drink at Brandy : The first version is from Vickers 1772 manuscript followed by three strains from Young s. 38

39 Lasses Pisses Brandy (Vickers MS, 1772) Lasses drink at Brandy (MacFarlane MS, 1740, strains 1-3) Once you decide upon a certain rhythm you must develop it, make it danceable, and rub some dirt into it. One trick that you may find useful is to find a traditional dance on youtube.com that fits the rhythm you are working on, turn the sound off and play to the dance. Morris, Breton, English clogging are some that I have tried. The recordings of David Faulkner, Paul Martin and Matt Seattle, to name only a few, are required listening, although it would be a mistake, I think, if anyone were to slavishly replicate their individual styles. Joe Hutton s Northumbrian smallpipe recordings shed a great deal of light on the various rhythms you can use with these tunes, whether they be reels, rants, marches, or some other type based on 4/4. All that and I have ignored the many excellent and fun tunes in other time signatures. Some of the best tunes in the collection, for me at least, are composed in 6/4, 9/4, 6/8, 9/8, ¾ and 3/2. These tunes are a lot of fun and lend themselves to a lot of different interpretations. They are not as problematic as the tunes discussed above. It is a good idea to start with some of these, especially if you have never played this kind of pipe music before, because it will give you a sense of what Lowland pipe music is all about. 39

40 There are remarkably few images of Scottish Pipers from before the 1750 s. Here we introduce three more, at least one of which has a strange history. The first of our two pipers is seen here at the restorers prior to its being rebuilt and replaced in its original position high up on a pediment over a dormer window at Craigievar Castle in Aberdeenshire.1 The castle was completed in 1626 by William Forbes, who had purchased the incomplete structure in It seems reasonable to assume that the sculpture dates from somewhere between those dates. The pipes themselves lack drone or blowpipe and the end of the chanter is missing; however, it is clear that something is unusual about this piper; he has the bag under his left arm, though he has his right hand on top, but the drone clearly once lay across his chest and over his right shoulder, the position adopted by many border and smallpipe players today [though most today would have their left hand on top]. The position is identical to that shown in a drawing, done in 1839 by John Dalyell and published in 1849 in his Musical Memoirs of Scotland.2 This piper, according to Dalyell, was at Melrose Abbey, though by the time of Manson s 1901 publication The Highland Bagpipe,3 which reproduced the drawing, it had disappeared. Craigievar Castle Piper Photo courtesy of Graciela Ainsworth Sculpture Conservation Whether Dalyell s piper was ever at Melrose may be difficult to establish now, though a more thorough exploration of his papers may reveal a clue. It seems clear, however, that the same piper is depicted in our second carving, to be seen on the gable wall of one of the Saughtree Cottages in the Fife village of Ceres. 40

41 Dalyell s drawing of the Melrose piper (note the difference in the pedestals ) The story of this piper is a good example of the way in which local history sometimes seems to conspire to confuse. A copy of the sculpture is in the museum at Ceres, the label to which reads: This sculpture is of a left-handed piper. It was carved by John Howie, a stonemason working in Ceres in the 1700's. The most famous of his caricatures in stone is the Provost, who is shown clutching a pint of beer! Another copy of this statue can be seen on Saughtree Cottage in the village. John Howie's cottage has the mason's The Ceres Piper (photo courtesy of Martin Lowe) insignia showing his mason's tools carved over the door. We will return to this Provost for our third piper, but the museum s suggestion that this John Howie carved both piper and Provost in the 1700 s is contradicted in a history of Ceres included on the website of the Ceres Games.4 Here we are told that the Provost was first located in the garden of its first owner in That this sculpture was carved by John Howie is quoted on the site from a well known book on old Ceres, "The Croft House Andersons". 41

42 The website then adds to the confusion, though perhaps also suggesting an explanation, with the following: John Howie, the grandfather of the John Howie who carved the Provost, also a stonemason, lived in the house that still stands behind what is now the art gallery. It is this house, used by the Howie family as a workshop until the 1920 s, that bears the mason s tools above its doorway. So was it this earlier Howie that carved both piper and Provost? Not so, says the website: A little further to the north of the village, along the main road, stand Saughtree Cottages, once the home of John Howie ( ). On the roof of one of the cottages can be seen two more of his carvings. One is of a lefthanded piper and the other a carved stone head.. A number of other websites re-iterate the same opinion, which, as we have seen, contradicts that of the museum. In looking for a higher authority we can pass to our third piper, since he is very closely related. In fact, he can be seen in the centre of Ceres, immediately below the aforementioned Provost, on a panel depicting a skirmish, said to represent the Battle of Bannockburn [at which the men of Ceres so distinguished themselves that the Ceres Games are said to have been first held to celebrate their return]. You will not be surprised to learn that, having credited John Howie with the carving of the Provost the Ceres Games website goes on to add Howie apparently also carved the surround for his statue, placing the figure in a niche above a large panel which is said to depict a cavalry skirmish at the Battle of Bannockburn with a carved head on each side. The composite of panel and provost were set up in their current position at the corner of the main road junction in 1939 and the stonework of the panel has been eroding ever since. However, it was recorded in 1927 in the Inventory of Monuments in Fife, when it was still in its earlier location: Built into the south-east wall of an old garden lying to the south-west of Ceres Church is a double fireplace of the 17th century with a sculptured frieze panel measuring 4 feet 2 inches by 2 feet and representing a cavalry skirmish... In the lower sinister corner is a hill with a piper marching up one side and five foot-men marching down the other... The fire place is incomplete, the upper part, which apparently contained an armorial panel, being missing. The panel has been replaced by a carved effigy, of date not earlier than the late 18th century, and probably executed by a local mason, representing a large Toby jug; on the base is inscribed, PROVOST. 5 John Howie the younger was born, we are told, in he was therefore 17 when the Provost statue was bought - perhaps one of his first. The piper below him however was much older; there has been a suggestion that the fireplace may have been taken from nearby Criaghall Castle, tough this has been disputed. As 42

43 for the piper on the Saughtree cottage, if it is the work of a Howie then the museum is probably right in assigning it to the grandfather. Even then the 1700 s may prove too late a date. It has so much in common with the Craigievar piper, which can be fairly confidently assigned to the early 17th century, that it is tempting to suggest that they are contemporary; could it too have come from Craighall Castle? How we equate this with the obvious relationship with Dalyell s drawing is a matter for conjecture; perhaps after all, the younger John Howie simply copied the drawing? That would at least account for the difference in the pedestals. An interesting supplement to the story of the Craigievar and Ceres pipers comes from Keith Sanger, who supplied the following: in the 1632 Register of the Privy Council, there was a complaint by Sir Thomas Hope of Craighall, the Kings Advocate and Andrew Forbes at the Mylne of Clinterlie that they had been invaded by a James Arbuthnot in Kinnudie and George Leslie in Birsackmylne armed with swords, hagbuts and pistols and with ane pyper playing on ane great pype. They are all Lowlanders and although not the Forbes of Craigievar, it s the right geographical area. Craighall Castle, the seat of the Hope family, was built by Thomas Hope in 1637, it lay within a mile of the village of Ceres (it had been a ruin since the late 18th century and was finally demolished in 1957). It is perhaps too much to suggest that it is this 1632 incident that is depicted in the panel now in the village centre. Notes Detail of the much-worn Ceres panel (From a photograph by Keith Sanger, 1974) 1. The restored piper can be viewed at N00/ / 2. Dayell, Sir JohnGraham, Musical Memoirs of Scotland, London, Manson, W. L., The Highland Bagpipe, Its History, Literature and Music etc, London, Inventory of Monuments in Fife, 1927, p.55 43

44 Bellows Care and Maintenance One of the early posts on the Society website Forum asked the question; My smallpipe bellows are not working as efficiently as they used to ( not completely airtight) I plan to treat them with a mixture of neatsfoot oil and beeswax but I'm not sure of the mix ratio and required amount. Can anyone enlighten me on this procedure? All comments/info gratefully received Common Stock invited pipe-makers to come up with answers to this question; below are their responses. From Nate Banton: Here's a quick rant: I have no recipe for treating bellows, but I do have some thoughts on the need for such recipes. While I think the old ways of doing things are generally the best ways, that theory and myself part company when it comes to bellows. There is no longer any reason to make a bellows that needs seasoning, either when it is made, or even during its life span. I don't currently make my own bellows, but I have made many in the past and will make many in the future. There are three ways that I have seen that will allow one to make an airtight bellows that will give many years of airtightness with no seasoning. All of my experience with no seasoning bellows, as an uilleann pipe maker's apprentice and as a smallpipe and Border pipe maker, has been with the "tacked" style of bellows, and I think this is a superior way to make an airtight, no seasoning bellows, but I suppose it may be possible to still make such a bellows using the "more traditional" sewn style. Nate went on to say that leather was available of a suitable quality so that bellows should last twenty years without need of seasoning. He does however add that at least in the US, the leather industry is rather unreliable at the moment, and while a particular leather supply may be perfectly airtight one moment, the next time you order it is not. He goes on to recommend the use of a two layer gusset with barge cement to hold them together. Whether it is due to the two layers of leather, or (much more likely) due to the use of a layer of barge cement (or I have used the less deadly water based contact cement), this is a simple way to make a bellows that will not need seasoning. Nate recommends the use of a manmade second or third layer in the gusset to form a permanent airtight layer. 44

45 There are many many (rubber, plastic, gortex) materials available that can be glued to the inner side of the gusset that will create an airtight layer. Finally Nate adds: It is so desperately important to have as near to a 100% airtight set up as possible with bagpipes to allow the most comfort when playing. It is an unwieldy beast the bagpipe! We don't need to make it any harder by allowing our bags and bellows to reduce our playing efficiency. There are modern means and materials to make a 100% airtight gusset... From Jon Swayne: I've never used neatsfoot and beeswax so I don't know what a good proportion would be. I permanently seal my bellows leather during the making process, so that they don't need any seasoning until they are worn out. Although I have done it once or twice, I don't have much experience of carrying out what seems like a tricky procedure - getting enough, but not too much, of the mixture inside a strangely shaped object, so I won't offer any advice. But if I wanted to treat bellows I would use a mixture of Vaseline and beeswax, in the proportion 6 parts of vaseline to 1 part beeswax by weight. This gives a cold consistency like a stiff soft margarine, with a less oily feel than an oil/beeswax mixture and a wider temperature range (I think). [Editor; I asked Jon about applying this mixture] You would apply it hot. Melt it in a bowl or jug in a saucepan of slowly simmering water. [Editor; I also asked Jon the following question:] When you say 'till they are worn out' do you mean when the outer surface of the leather cracks and flakes? Is there a suitable treatment for deferring this kind of deterioration? My bellows are just starting to go like this at the folds; I don t want them to go the same way as my old leather jacket. Will just about any leather treatment do, or have you something particular to recommend? : How long the bellows leather lasts probably depends on the quality of the leather as much as anything. If it's a very dry, stiff tan then its life might be shorter than a soft supple tan. On the other hand bellows leather doesn't want to be too supple or it doesn't work very well. Leather dressings design to keep leather supple might prolong life, but much depends on the type of leather and the design of the bellows. It would be a mistake to make a hard and fast rule. From Julian Goodacre: The seasoning that I have always used for bellows and bellows blown bags is made from beeswax and olive oil. The oil softens the wax and helps it penetrate deep into the pores of the leather and the oil nourishes it, keeping it supple and airtight for many, many years. 45

46 This seasoning is easy to make and is tasty to eat! It is an enormous comfort to know that if I was washed up on a desert island I could nourish myself by chewing on my bellows. Approximately one part beeswax to four parts olive oil (by volume). Place this in a jam jar in a microwave and slowly heat it. It takes quite a while to melt the wax so I usually chop it into small pieces to speed the process. Then let it cool to room temperature and see if it sets with a similar consistency to Vaseline or soft margarine. After that you can add a bit of oil or wax and re heat it to achieve the required consistency. Julian attached the following method: SEASONING BELLOWS Wear old clothes! Remove the bellows inlet valve and block up the outlet. Pour some seasoning in through the valve hole. You need to manoeuvre the bellows quickly while it is still runny to ensure it covers all the inside surfaces of leather with a light coating. It is easier to pour in small quantities and work it into one side and then repeat the process on the other side. If you use too much you get clots of it forming which can clog up your transfer pipe. These will not damage anything but can be a bit of a nuisance (and sometimes embarrassing) until you get them out of the system. I suppose if you have a poorly made set of bellows with horrible big leaks you could add more wax to make it thicker. This might block the leaks temporarily, but it is best considered as a desperation measure and not a long term solution. I oil the leather inlet valve with a drop of almond oil. For Advanced Readers I advise an exhaustive and fascinating series of four articles written on stitched bellows making by David Quinn that was published in The Pipers Review. (The International Magazine for Uilleann Pipers). David bases this work on his considerable experience of making bellows for Irish pipes, but it nearly all of relevance to makers of all types of bellows. Twenty one pages of wit, wisdom and bellows insight! THE PIPERS REVIEW VOL XXIII Part 1 Part II Part III Part IV Making a stitched bellows. No 1 Winter 2004 Preparation of the gusset. No 2 Spring 2004 The wood. No 3 Autumn 2004 Hinges, belts and valves. No 4 Autumn 2004 [Editor s note; these articles are available on-line to subscribers to the Pipers Review at 7&t=389] 46

47 From Hamish Moore: There are two Essential Factors in Bellows efficiency; Airtightness and Mechanical issues. A. Airtightness. It is imperative that bellows are airtight. If it is suspected that air is leaking then a simple test must be carried out to check. Plug the exit with a finger or cork and squeeze the bellows as would be done when playing. If the bellows deflate at all then they are not airtight. Potentially, there are four problem areas. The surface of the leather. Diagnosis water spread on the surface of the leather will produce bubbles when the bellows are put under pressure. Treatment may or may not be successful depending on the state of the leather. Prepare a mixture of 75% Neetsfoot oil and 25% melted beeswax. Remove the housing of the non-return valve and pour 50 ml of the oil/beeswax mixture into the bellows. Work the mixture into the leather. More oil and wax can be used if it doesn t appear to be enough. Drain any excess. If the oily mixture leaks through the surface of leather then it is unlikely that the treatment will form a long-term solution to the problem, as the leather is no longer fit for purpose. In my experience there is no point in persisting with such bellows and new bellows should be purchased. The Inlet Valve. Using the same airtightness test; if air can be felt escaping from the inlet valve then the problem must be investigated. It must be determined whether the leaking air is coming from the joint of the valve housing with the bellows or the valve itself. If it is the joint then this can be tightened by roughing up the hemp or adding a few layers of cotton thread. The most common problem however is that the valve is not seated correctly. In particular if the arm of the valve is too long then there will be gap between the leather valve and the flat of the wooden blowpipe. By holding the valve up to a light source this gap will be easily seen. The solution is to re tie the valve, ensuring that the valve fits flat on to the wood leaving no gaps. In many cases the valve can successfully be retied but it may be necessary to replace it. The outlet pipe and the join to the blow pipe. Again, using the same diagnostic test as described it should be able to isolate the source of the leaking air and appropriate action should be used to fix the leak. The stitch line where the leather is stitched into the wood. It may be possible to solve the problem of leaking air from this area by rubbing beeswax into the stitch line. 47

48 B. Mechanical Issues. Length of the blow pipe. It is very important to adjust the blowpipe to be the correct length so that the arm presses on the bellows towards the back of the paddles. If the blowpipe is too long, the bellows are pushed round so that the right elbow will be in contact and pushing the bellows too close to the front and thus producing a mechanical inefficiency. In this case, the arm may also interfere with the inlet valve. If the blowpipe is too short, there may be a repeated problem with the blowpipe joint popping out. The leather cheeks may not hold their shape and become concave when the bellows are filling with air. This produces a huge efficiency problem. In this case the leather will have lost sufficient tensile strength to retain its convex shape and it is unlikely that the problem can be fixed. New bellows should be purchased. Summary If you ve read this far, you will have realised that there are no firm answers to this question; whether you use beeswax [some agreement on that,mat least] with neetsfoot oil 1:3, olive oil 1:4 or vaseline I:6 or whether you are lucky enough to have started off with a well-made set of bellows. Perhaps the answer is to ask the maker of your pipes for their advice and take that. One thing is certain, a bellows that is not airtight is going to spoil your piping life - as Nate said It is so desperately important to have as near to a 100% airtight set up as possible with bagpipes to allow the most comfort when playing. It is an unwieldy beast the bagpipe! We don't need to make it any harder by allowing our bags and bellows to reduce our playing efficiency. LBPS Technical Advisors Jon Swayne [js@swayne.demon.co.uk] Richard Evans [evansbagpipes@gmail.com] Julian Goodacre [julian@goodbagpipes.com] Technical Advisors are available to members for advice on all aspects of bellows-pipe maintenance. Please contact them directly; phone numbers are available in the Members Directory. You can also them from the Contacts page of the website You can also post maintenance question on the forum at lbps.net 48

49 Paul Roberts Winner of the earliest and the latest border piping competitions, Paul Roberts talks to Common Stock about his piping and his music Where, when, why and how did you start piping?when I was 16 in the summer of 1965 I was struck by an overwhelming urge to play the GHB. Me and a friend clubbed together and bought a cheap Pakistani set from a local music shop. They were junk, but somehow we managed to get them up and going. Then I bought a Practice Chanter and a copy of the College of Piping Tutor and I was away. Eventually my mate lost interest and I bought out his share. Then another friend introduced me to a couple of pipers who drank in his dad s pub, and I ended up in the Oxford pipe band. There I was mixing with these hardcore, heavy-drinking, middle-aged ex-army guys. Farewell innocent youth! This was in Oxford? Yes, we moved down from Stockport when I was 5, when dad got a job in the car factory. I moved back up north when I was 18. I m Lancashire and West Yorkshire, though apparently there are Borderers on both sides of the family, including Northumbrian Allans. I ve often wondered if there s a link to THE Allans, that would be something! How long did you play the GHB? Paul Roberts at this year s competition About two years. In 1967 I moved to Leeds and got heavily into guitar - country blues, old-timey, bluegrass, western swing. The pipes simply fell off the plank, though I was still interested in British traditional music. I ve always maintained a parallel involvement in British and American music. By the late 70s I had pretty much lost interest in the guitar. By now I was playing the whistle and mouth organ a lot and deep into English dance music. But really I wanted to play the fiddle. Eventually dad gave me 25 and told me to go and buy one.that would be in 49

50 1979 or 1980 when I was 30. That s been my main instrument ever since. So how did you start playing Border Pipes? I first became aware of them in the 1960s during my GHB phase - long before you could just go buy a set! I was a regular visitor to the Pitt Rivers Museum bagpipe collection, and I read about them in books like Collinson s Music of Scotland. Throughout the 1970s it was always in the back of my mind that I d love a set, but as far as I knew they were a historic instrument that only existed in museums and books. But I really liked the idea of a dance-centred, non-militaristic bagpipe that I could use to explore my growing interest in older styles of English and Scots music, and that would fit in with other acoustic instruments. Sometime in the late 70s I got wind that Rab Wallace actually had a set, and that John Addison had made a set for Jean- Pierre Rasle. I remember meeting Jean- Pierre at Sidmouth festival and having a good drool over his pipes, but there was no way I could afford a set myself. Then in 1982 I heard that Grainger & Campbell had started making them, and in spring 1983 I wrote off for a catalogue. They were listed at 350, way beyond my means. A few weeks later I saw a second-hand set advertised in Exchange & Mart for 250. I realized it was probably my only chance and sold a beautiful Victorian bookcase for 200. I phoned the guy up, he accepted the 200, and the rest, as they say, is history....the pipes were a freebie really as the bookcase hadn t cost me a penny, I d rescued it from the dump. English piping: tell us about your time with Red Shift Red Shift was started by Pete Coe in Initially it was Pete, Colin Wood, Pat and Jamie Knowles, and me..then Pat and Jamie dropped out and Johnny Adams and George Faux came in. Pete s idea was to combine a concert band, featuring his songs, with a dance band specializing in Northern English music. I had long been researching Northern English bagpipe and fiddle music so I was well up for the dance half of the project. In England back then there was a lot of interest in Irish music, and a growing interest in southern English and Northumbrian music, but no one else was doing what we were doing, digging out music from all over northern England. We never got as deep into the oldest stuff as I d have liked - the 3/2s and 6/4s - because as a working band we had Red Shift,

51 to play what the dancers wanted, so it was Jigs, Reels, Hornpipes, Polkas, Waltzes basically the late 18th to 20th century repertoire. With the dance band we were developing a nice old-time style and repertoire with a proper old-time line up: buttonbox, pipes, cello, piano, and up to three fiddles. However, I wasn t that interested in the concert/song side of things and quit when that started to become the main focus. Lowland piping: how did you get into that? Well, from the start I was into researching Lowland Scots bagpipe music as well. I felt you couldn t really draw a line between Northern English and Lowland Scots music. It s basically the same type of music with a large shared repertoire. Funnily, it never, ever, crossed my mind to play the modern GHB repertoire on these pipes. I still don t quite understand why more players don t want to move beyond that repertoire, wonderful as it is. To me it s logical to think we re reviving this old instrument - so what did the old pipers play, and how did they play it? I suppose at heart I m an antiquarian, with more of an Early Music than a Folk approach. I have always been looking backwards: if I discover a form of music my first question is where has this come from? For example, I grew up on 50s Rock n Roll which inevitably led me back to 1930s/40s Hillbilly, Blues, Jazz. It s been the same with folk music: I d hear Martin Carthy or the Corries and think but where did they get this from?, which would take me back to Harry Cox and Jeannie Robertson. I ve spent my life discovering all sorts of fantastic and often forgotten music this way. Tell us about the early days and the first competitions I got my pipes in April 1983 and joined the LBPS in summer 83. I still remember the excitement of hitchhiking to my first meeting in Thirlestane Castle. It was a fantastic trip in beautiful summer weather. The final lift was with an Australian couple who played Marvin Gaye s Midnight Love album all the way: every time I hear it now it reminds me of driving through this gorgeous border scenery in brilliant sunshine, and ending up at this stunning border castle. I attended meetings regularly for about two years and also entered and won the first three competitions in 1984, 85, and 86. The LBPS was busy compared to today: meetings were bi-monthly, well attended, and usually culminated in a pub session. I remember it as a wonderful period, with tremendous enthusiasm and energy in the Society - we were reviving these new-old instruments, discovering this new-old music, and of course we were all still fairly young. However, I m afraid that even by the 1986 competition I wasn t playing much anymore, and I pretty much stopped altogether when I quit Red Shift in February 87. It wasn t that I lost interest, life 51

52 months in 2004, and more seriously for about a year in But basically, apart from these three short interludes, I stopped playing in 1987 and didn t start again till One of my greatest regrets, but that s the way it is: life is short and there isn t time for everything. So how did your return to piping: come about? Outside the School of Scottish Studies, with the Hamish Moore Cup, 1986 (courtesy of The West Highland Free Press, 6 June 1986) just got in the way: work, family and musically I was too busy as a fiddler. I simply didn t have time to play the pipes, especially as there is neither money nor social life in playing 300 year old extended variation sets in 3/2 on a Bb instrument! It didn t help that we d moved to a small inner-city flat where the kids could hardly run about without arousing the ire of the gangster living below, let alone dad play bagpipes. After we moved to Hebden Bridge in 1994 I did make a few short-lived attempts to start playing again: for a couple of months in 1995, for about 6 It was around May It was my 59th birthday that triggered it, that sense of time slipping away ever faster and the arthritis getting ever worse. I realized that if I didn t do it now I never would. To encourage myself I made a deliberate decision to buy a new set of pipes in A. My G&C pipes are in Bb so they re difficult to play with other people, which obviously discouraged playing. Also, I reasoned that committing myself to spending 2000 that I didn t actually have would help keep me focused. I opted for a Moore set in ebony and silver - a beautiful instrument, but I had to sell my soul on ebay to get it! You re the only person I ve ever heard play George Skene s music: how do you approach it? Most of this period variation music is based on dance forms, so I try to approach it with a dance sensibility. Whether or not it was actually played for dancing seems to me irrelevant, though I think it probably was. I originally played all four of Skene s bagpipe pieces but Gird the Cogie and Cauld Kail soon fell off the plank. I still regularly play Malcolm Kaird s Come Again and Wat Ye What I got Late Yestreen, two beautifully crafted and fascinating pieces. 52

53 I love Wat Ye: it s very ambiguous, it seems to hover somewhere between 6/8 and 6/4 and between A and D tonality. Ultimately I d say it is in A and 6/4, yet it keeps resolving on the D and it s written with tied notes and based round classic 6/8 motifs. And I love the way it starts as a series of melodic variations with a few runs, and then suddenly mutates into two extraordinary division passages. As for Malcolm Kaird, I d interpret things like his note values and gracing symbols to mean Skene meant it to be played at a stately march pace with a lot of grip type movements, especially in the final part. However, I found I preferred doing it faster, with lots of birls and cranns - with more of a dance feel. It really jumps when played like this. Tell us about your interests musically now. As far as piping is concerned I ve always been interested in the idea of the extended variation set. Long before I started playing I d been smitten by Northumbrian pipe variations, so from the start I tended to hone in on the variation sets in Marsden, Riddell, Peacock etc. When I started playing again I initially got very into Dixon, but for a while now my main interest has been the so-called border pibroch. Leyden and Collinson s references to this lost music have always fascinated me. Even when I d stopped playing I kept my eyes and ears open on the subject, and started noticing these pieces like Washington s March, Lancashire Pipes and Alisdruim s March which seemed to be linked by similar structural ideas and recurring motifs, and which seemed to match Leyden s criteria - extended bagpipe pieces that were not division sets; that would strike anyone educated in western art music as wild and irregular (Leyden s description); that could be seen as Gathering Tunes or narrative pieces; and that paralleled Piobaireachd in certain ways as regards both structure and function. I have several good examples now, and numerous simpler tunes that were probably once extended pieces. Most aren t that obscure, I think people haven t noticed them because they ve been presuming a specifically Border music, whereas most of this material comes from everywhere else but - the best examples are from Lancashire, Munster, Aberdeenshire. In fact I suspect I ve probably stumbled on the remains of a medieval art form that was at least pan- British Isles and probably pan-european, of which Highland Piobaireachd is the only serious survival. But wait for the article!.. Thanks Paul, we look forward with keen interest to this article - hopefully in our next issue? [Editor s note; Paul s competition-winning performance of The Hunting of the Fox can be heard on-line at lbps.net, along with his 1984 winning performance of Tweedside and Holy Ha penny ] 53

54 LBPS Teaching Day, Edinburgh, May 2011 Iain Kinnear s afternoon class tackles Phil Cunningham s Sarah s Song Sixteen pipers turned up at the premises of the Royal Scottish Pipers' Society in Edinburgh on May 7th, some of them a little bemused by the fact that the four-storey building now stands marooned in a building site. In fact the top two stories where the event was held were themselves marooned, the bottom two being let out as a site office for the construction team. Despite all this, the venue was eminently suitable and undisturbed and after a brief session of greetings the event got underway at 9:30am with the pipers divided into two groups, one for each tutor and piping began, surrounded by the historic images and objects on display in the two rooms. Finlay MacDonald from the National Piping Center in Glasgow introduced us to two reels from the Donald Maclean collection, stressing that we should not see the notation as carved in stone. He introduced a number of different ways of phrasing and timing the tunes, suggesting that these matters were as important when performing this 'small music' as they were with the 'big music'; some of the pipers present whose background was in pipe bands were impressed with this relaxed approach to the notation but not as much as they were by the next tune that Finlay presented; a Bulgarian 'horo' notated in 5/16. Finlay went out of his way to stress that the notes themselves were not at all difficult, but to a 54