OK, more generalizations, probably mistaken.
If you’re going to play something heartbreakingly beautiful
on the
pipes at a funeral, my impression is that it’s likely to
be Scottish. As in Bachelor’s Farewell.
Also Scottish piping tends to sound more military, as the pipes
were used in battle.
Excellent points, Sporting P-Fork. As a piper I agree with a lot of your comments. The GHB has always been rather separate from Scottish music just because of the power of the instrument and its role in Highland culture. It became even more separate over the last 100 years or so, its playing becoming more of an obscure ‘art music’. People point to the military which was a major benefactor of piping, the competition scene which became the popular venue for performance and to various other ‘tradition-bearers’ like the Piobaireachd Society as major influences on the direction of the GHB’s development.
I don’t think it’s totally a bad thing. I enjoy competing and appreciate competition style music. Listening to a top-level competitor play a big March/Strathspey/Reel set is a pleasure. Among all of the somewhat confabulated, technical ornamenting there is tremendous room for expression and without that expression it sounds like a mash of gracenotes (compounding the challenge). I’m actually more of a fan of this music than a lot of the contemporary GHB tunes.
I also enjoy playing and listening to the revitalized sean-nòs style, especially on border pipes because they are so enemble friendly. I have piper friends who are justifiably sceptical of all of this ‘neo-traditional’ piping because no matter how many M.Litt. theses and examples of cultural evidence you cite, the reality is that this is not what pipers have been doing for several generations even if they did possibly at some point in history.
But the sean-nòs nuadh music speaks for itself. It has a drive and vitality that is pleasurable to hear and play and it acts as a nexus for tying many cultural traditions together that might fade even further on their own.
That’s my own little diatribe anyways.
Well, since the topic has been broached, can anyone reccomend a good book or twa of Scottish trad. music that isn’t scored for pipes? I can’t play a taurluath on a flute very well. And really, most of what I played in pipe band were marches.
The only books I would recommend are Christine Martin’s “Ceol Na Fidhle” series [ not sure about spelling there ]. There are a lot of pipe-tunes in them, some of the best. I wouldn’t shy away from them. Your flute will have the 9 notes needed to play any pipe-tune.
The Lowland and Border Pipers Society has a few tune books that leave out pipe ornamentation (My server is disagreeing with theirs otherwise I’d give you a more direct link).
Here’s a few collections of Scottish tunes in ABC including a flute friendly rendering of Simon Fraser’s collection.
Taigh na Teud has several old collections in their catalogue. I’d recommend the Patrick McDonald Collection. Ceol na Fidhle is available there too and Ho-ro-gheallaidh is another good collection.
Gle maith! Tapadh leibh.
yeah, it’s kind of hard, although a short cran isn’t that far off. it’s funny, i actually find myself throwing in the occasional d-throw or grip on the flute. guess it’s the last vestige of when i used to play the pipes. it’s kind of a cool effect on the flute though.
b
Interesting thread(s). A couple other things I’ve noticed:
Scottish tunes tend much more toward the mixolydian mode (basically a major scale with a lowered 7th; G to G on the D whistle), which, to my ear, lends a great deal of drama and a sort of melodic drive to even slow tunes. I very rarely notice this mode in Irtrad. It could be that this mode is so common because it reflects the tuning of the highland pipes. Or perhaps the highland pipes are tuned that way because so many tunes are in that mode…chicken or the egg.
(aside: because of the above tuning, when playing whistle with a highland piper use an Eb whistle–and a cranked up microphone–and play the tunes mixolydian. No charge for that bit of info)
Much more subjectively, I’ve also noticed that Irish tunes tend to be more “smooth” and Scottish tunes more “jagged” in their melodic contours. Again, as so many others have said, there are no hard rules. But I believe that’s why Irish music has caught on so much more in the States–the melodies are a bit friendlier to the ear of someone steeped in the western european/U.S. classical, jazz, and pop styles. Scottish trad music, as a whole, is more of an aquired taste.
Personally I prefer Scottish–much of it has an intensity of melody and rhythm I don’t get from most Irish trad.
Much has been said about the “rigidity” of Scottish trad. I’ve read several places that this is almost entirely a result of the whole pipes culture being co-opted by the Brittish military. Before that, pipes, while still a military instrument, were much freer and more in touch with folk music. Since many of the earliest Scots emigrants went to Cape Bretton early on in the clearances, they took the old school piping with them. That’s why the Cape Breton style is arguably considered the more “old fashioned” nowadays.
Tom
It’s actually a pretty common mode in the irish tradition as well. There a bunch of tunes in mixolydian. Lots of the big piping jigs are in D mix, there are plenty of reels, such as the Connaught Heifers, Within a Mile of Dublin, etc. that are in D mix too.
b
(basically a major scale with a lowered 7th; G to G on the D whistle
Actually, that’d be on a C whistle. Mixo is A to A, with the C# (or D to D with the Cnat) on a D whistle 
(basically a major scale with a lowered 7th; G to G on the D whistle
Actually, that’d be on a C whistle. Mixo is A to A, with the C# (or D to D with the Cnat) on a D whistle
Interesting disscusion here. I played GHBs for a couple of years, and found that they were not what I wanted to be playing. I started playing Whistle more and eventually went to Flute. Although, sometimes I play what would be an E doubling on GHBs as an alternative to an A roll on Flute.
Now what about Northumbrian and Lowland music? Breton, Galician, and Asturian where do they fall?
One interesting thing is the culture with the Pipes that can play staccato notes (Uilleanns) generally play in a smoother style. Of course there is Donegal Fiddling, ok that is very influenced by Scottish music.
Right you are. Don’t know what came over me.
T
That is indeed interesting; I’d never thought of that before. But I can’t imagine GHP tunes played on uilleanns–I think that would sound pretty ugly. On the other hand, Scottish small pipes and shuttle pipes can sound mighty smooth in the right hands.
T
We’ve got a NSP player, an UPer and a drummer coming to the island tomorrow. I’ll let you know…
In a great big ditch, hopefully…
…Only joking…
Please disregard and refer to the following post.
Not quite so simple, Tom, but you’re in the ballpark. Most all of Scottish music became ‘institutionalised’ in some manner or the other, not just piping. The GHB has just taken longer to de-institutionalise itself. As to the military role, that is still debated. IFRC it wasn’t really until the 20th century that the army began a set curriculum. For the longest time pipers coming to the army had learned the ‘traditional’ way. Because the regiments were raised regionally you had pipers from the same locale playing together but then only usually in small numbers.
Those who are doing a lot of serious research into the matter point to the Highland Societies, the competition circuit and the pipe band movement. It was the Piobaireachd Society that collaborated with the Army School to develop its curriculum and that cemented the settings of tunes for piobaireachd competition. The pipe band movement really took off in the cities when the local government and Highland Societies wanted a bit of pomp and the army would mass the various pipers (and later drummers) from their regiments for public events and parades. A band obviously demands uniformity in playing. From there local police and collieries formed their own pipe bands and eventually band competitions began.
What piping became in Cape Breton isn’t so much of a time capsule as it is an isolation of the tradition. It started with what piping was at the time of the clearances but to say it didn’t evolve in its own way would be naïve. And even if it didn’t and it is an accurate time capsule, mostly the island traditions would have been caspsulated as that is where the majority of immigrants were from. That leaves out a major portion of Scotland and Gaelic culture.