DEVELOPMENT OF
PIPE MUSIC
The art of playing the bagpipe was for the performer
to produce the music with an even tone without pauses. While bagpipes were played throughout Europe prior to 1700’s,
differences in the pipe music was defined more by the local customs and has led
to some vast variations in both style and composition. Even in Scotland the differences in musical
abilities are immense. In the Lowlands
of Scotland, pipers occupied well-defined positions as town pipers, performers
for weddings, feasts and fairs. There
was no recorded “master piper” nor were there any recorded pipe schools. Lowland pipers played songs and dance music,
as was expected by their audience, so no effort was made to produce great musical
compositions.
During this same time in the same area of Europe, separated only by
mountains and glens were pipers of a different caliber. These pipers were strongly influenced by
their background of the Celtic legends and the wild nature that is the Highlands. The Highland piper occupied a high and
honored position within the Clan system.
To be a piper was sufficient, if he could play well than nothing else
would be asked. Most of the early
history and songs associated with this instrument that still exist come from
this small area in the north of Scotland.
As the Bagpipe slowly left center stage throughout Europe a new form of music was starting
in the Highlands. For over three hundred years one family was
to dominate piping in Scotland. The MacCrimmon’s were responsible for
elevating Highland pipe music to a new level – piobaireachd.
PIOBAIREACHD
The music of the pipes is ancient and has passed through
a long evolution process, but has changed little since it was committed to
paper.
Music in the Highlands is divided into two types,
each known in Gaelic as Ceol Mor for
Great Music and Ceol Beag for small
music. As the Highland Bagpipes are Piob Mhor and a piper is Piobaire, Piobaireachd in Gaelic simply
means piping. But in the course of time
Piobaireachd (pronounced P’broch) has come to stand for the great classical
music of the Bagpipes.
Ceol Beag
existed before the beginnings of Piobaireachd.
Most of these tunes are believed to have been simple, short and
repetitive. The harp being an ancient
instrument and popular in the Highlands suggest that some of early pipe tunes
probably originated from harp music or from mouth music as the pipes began to
be played when groups worked. Dances
such as reels and jigs and early Clan gathering tunes made up the early music
for the Highland Bagpipes.
Piobaireachd
is not easy to define or sometimes to describe; it has been called the voice of
uproar and the music of real nature and rude passion. Many Highlander Pipers believed that the
pipes could actually speak and that piobaireachd is an extension of the tales
told by Bards to remember the clan’s history. It is the specialty of the Highland
Bagpipes as no other instrument can produce the emotional response that the
pipes do when playing Piobaireachd.
Each piobaireachd tune was composed for a particular
purpose. Some recent studies have broken
piobaireachd down into the following types: Gatherings, Marches,
Laments, Salutes and other titled tunes.
The idea that the individual notes of the chanter take on meaning has
been proposed several times.
Low G note
of Gathering
Low A Piper’s
note B note
of challenge
C most
musical note
D note
of Battle
E echoing
note
F note
of Love
High G note of sorrow
High A Piper’s note
In
the days before written music, Piobaireachd was composed and taught by using a sort
of “unintelligible jargon” known as Canntaireachd. The use of the syllables
allowed the pipers to train their pupils with out the aid of any scales or
other notations. This verbal system was used to convey both the tune and the
emotion of the music and is far better than modern day written notation for
passing on Piobaireachd.
The
basic structure of Piobaireachd consists of an air with variations on the
theme. The ground is the basic theme and
is normally played slowly and is often the most interesting part of the
music. Some grounds are made up of short
repeat phrases while others are free flowing, but most are based on the
pentatonic scale. Often the ground is
followed by variations that are always simple and increase in complexity with
each more difficult to play than the previous.
These
variations on the ground can include:
1. Doubling.
2. Trebling
3. Thumb variation
4. Diths
5. Diths doubling
6. Throw
7. Leumluath
8. Leumluath doubling
9. Taorluath
10. Taorluath doubling
11. Taorluath a mach
12. Crunluath
13. Crunluath doubling
14. Crunluath a mach
In concluding variations the composer’s ingenuity and the
piper’s capability are tested. The piobaireachd ends with a return to the slow
and impressive ground and the whole tune can take between ten to twenty-five
minutes. Currently the ground is played
at the beginning and the end of a tune only, in the past the ground was played
at intervals in the tune, often played between doublings of variations and the
subsequent singling of the next variation.
There is evidence of a variation even greater in complexity
than the crunluath, called the barludh.
According to Joseph MacDonald it consisted of eighteen gracenotes after
the theme note and finished on high G.
Thankfully Patrick Og phased this out as an unmusical fancy.
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