If you got a grant to study Piob Mo’r where would you go. Libraries, schools, bands… what?
The most obvious places to go would be The College of Piping http://www.college-of-piping.co.uk/ or The Piping Centre http://www.thepipingcentre.co.uk/ , both in Glasgow . Can´t quite see the point in going to Ireland to study the Scottish pipes.
It is true that the Great Pipe in Ireland and Irish culture has been treated like a poor relation and made to eat in the kitchen for several decades and the revelation that many pipers including Seamus Ennis played the Piob Mo’r, or their fathers, or uncles, or others of great influence on them is whispered behind hands and met with incredulity. But the truth is that the Great Pipe was THE instrument of the Irish culture long before St. Collumcille immigrated to the Highlands of Scotland taking the Great Pipe with him. I am interested in bringing the poor maligned ‘Root of all that is Irish music’ out of the squalor of neglectful ignorance and into the light of understanding and enlightenment.
So there!
I thought that truth was ripped to shreds by Tinker here
Just a note to say that by “study” I took it to mean that you wanted to learn piping. I´ve realised you might have meant study in a more academic sense. If so, I´m sorry for any confusion caused.
No, Tinker only showed his “True colors” and “prejudices”.
The truly interesting part of that discussion was what Sean Folsum had to say about the Great Pipe and the Harp. But he got it entirely backwards. If you use just a little logic you will find that the technology of the pipe more then likely predates the technology of the harp and the early music of the Irish culture was Drone based. Now why would a fully chromatic instrument like the harp develope a drone based cosmology? The embellishments Sean says were developed on the harp are actually the only way a pipe can be played. If you put a little gray matter to it, the Harp had to have adopted the pipes mode of play and not the other way around.
Bunting said that the old harpers played the drone with the right hand. Why would a Harper drone if he didn’t have some kind of previous example of a drone based music? Some scholarly works have come out of late saying that the Clairsach was tuned in Bb. I find it interesting that the Piob Mo’r is tuned to Bb. Now why would a Harper who is technologically capable of choosing any tuning choose Bb? Maybe because it imitates the human voice? Most singers I know sing in A, G, D, and C not in Bb.
And then we could get into the existence of a form of Great Pipe today in areas that were at the fringes of the Hellenic Cultures like Galicia and Brittany.
These are the things I want to study and so where would I go to do that in Ireland? Huh, huh? Tell me.
I would check around the various universities. Ask Blayne who is currently in a trad music programme.
I don’t have any sources or anything to debate much but I would guess that due to religion and politics the Great Pipe’s role in Irish music has been overlooked and the link has eroded.
Plus the instrument and its music evolved considerably since the pipe usurped the harp’s place in Gaelic politics. Though the chiefs did often send their pipers to Ireland for tuition, that practice faded as the prominence of the MacCrimmons grew. Since the MacCrimmons, the embellishments of the pipe changed a lot too.
While you are looking for a study programme look into William Donaldson’s and John Gibson’s books if you haven’t already.
Cheers,
Aaron
Assuming that the harp has always been fully chromatic, which of course it hasn’t.
Again, the Scottish highland pipes have not always been tuned to Bb. They used to be much flatter, but the pitch has gone up, because of a desire for a more “brilliant” pitch and also to compete with the picht of the snare drum (whose pitch and volume of sound has risen a great deal because of technological advancements). Modern pipe bands tune around 480 Hz which is sharper than Bb.
Sometimes because folks are so close to things they can’t see the rest of what matters.
Ok! Sorry Scots people and your supporters, this Oirish Scot knows a few wee things that have absolutely nuttin to do with Bagpipes but show how far from reality debates abuoiiit Scot Ireland Ire Scotland can get.
First there is absolutely NO doubt at all that the Scotti first landed in Oirland.
Whether they had Bagpipes is not so much not known as nobody ever bothered to find out, and if they did they would have had one helluva job!
Second, whatever culture was common among the Scotti is almost certainly a European mainland culture, and here comes the kicker - a Europeanlanguage as well. However it can easily be shewn that Bagpipes were common as sandals amoung Roman and earlier civilised societies AND these reported the same to be the war instruments of the Celts.
Taking these two things together does not require much reasoning so I say, the Scotti PROBABLY brought Bagpipes from mainland Europe FIRST, and later from Oirland to Alba when they invaded SOME of its territory.
Therefore, its not that the Oirish gave the Piobmhor to the Scots as a joke, rather its more likely that BOTH shared the same instrument for some centuries.
All of which leads to the hypothesis that somewhere sometime somebody may find proof of the same in an Oirish bog or a Scottish moor.
(with all due respect to oulanders who are embroiled in this pointless debate BTW didn’t the Gaelic League simply buy Piobmhor from Scottish suppliers when they decided to make war on the English?)
This one keeps coming up, and keeps going round and round. According to Sean Donnelly’s treatise The Early History of Piping in Ireland the pipes didn’t show up in Ireland until the late 11th or early 12th century. This postdates Scots who live in Ireland, Scots who live in Scotland, Colmcille, and whoever else’s name you want to dredge up. There are lots of places to study early Irish history if that’s what you want, with a specialization (personal vendetta) in bagpipes, but I am not aware of any Irish schools that specialize in the war pipes.
djm
My complete dweebishness revealed:
On a mainland-style “Gothic” harp popular 14th-17th centuries, you can get semitones by pressing the string against the neck with yer left hand, making it pseudo-chromatic. But I don;t believe wire harps common in Ireland were designed to do this.
There are a few other types of droning instruments that aren;t pipes. .. .weird medieval string instruments for instance.
I thought the ‘celtic’ harp was diatonic.
Also, there are several stringed instruments with drone ‘cultures.’
The hurdy-gurdy and sitar are two that spring to mind.
Mukade
I suspect she is aserting that IF the Irish harp had always been Chromatic then why the devil would anybody bother with a drone? Put another way the Irish harp musta been diatonic BECAUSE it had a drone. Other sources basicaly say the same thing.
While Baglady has opened a pandora’s box of speculation about the Pipes, it is interesting to note that in Ireland - though not outside of it, as far as I know - there is a long tradition of ‘wild’ or ‘blue’ notes taken out of diatonic tuned instruments in the playing of tunes. The same style is often said to have ‘draiocht’ ( sp?).
Worm and Mukade make good points about the drone. There is a lot of iconographic and material evidence that a drone (static support) was used in music throughout Ancient culture in Europe and the East. The drone was just as likely played on a separate instrument (much like you still find in classical Indian music) as on one instrument. There is iconographic evidence of a triple-pipe in Scotland and Ireland. See this link.
Actually, the originator of that website is probably another good contact. Barnaby Brown has done a fair bit of research and exploration on the history of the Great Pipe and its music. Here’s his website.
Cheers,
Aaron
And, I’m not kidding myself, because of progress technologically and culturally. I am hoping to be able to reestablish the link and help the Great Pipe regain it’s former place in the Irish music and dance community.
Though the chiefs did often send their pipers to Ireland for tuition,
Here is another red flag besides things like the hereditary Bards of Clan Ranald were said to be the MacMhuirichs descended from Ireland. Don’t these little tidbits get your curiosity itching?
The Irish Book of Invasions says that the Sons of Mil came from Spain with their bagpipes and are the ancestors of todays Irish. So the Irish are descendents of Gaiteros. 
Second, whatever culture was common among the Scotti is almost certainly a European mainland culture, and here comes the kicker - a Europeanlanguage as well. However it can easily be shewn that Bagpipes were common as sandals amoung Roman and earlier civilised societies AND these reported the same to be the war instruments of the Celts.
Taking these two things together does not require much reasoning so I say, the Scotti PROBABLY brought Bagpipes from mainland Europe FIRST, and later from Oirland to Alba when they invaded SOME of its territory.
Therefore, its not that the Oirish gave the Piobmhor to the Scots as a joke, rather its more likely that BOTH shared the same instrument for some centuries.
All of which leads to the hypothesis that somewhere sometime somebody may find proof of the same in an Oirish bog or a Scottish moor.
(with all due respect to oulanders who are embroiled in this pointless debate BTW didn’t the Gaelic League simply buy Piobmhor from Scottish suppliers when they decided to make war on the English?)
You’re almost there. Sorry to those that hate the C word but the western European semi nomadic culture of the Celts, or Gauls, or Keltoi as the Romans called it, moved from Germany, down through France and Spain, up through Ireland and across to Scotland with their sheep and bagpipes. Then the Romans swept across Europe and into England with their culture and absorbed bagpipes and some of the culture they conquered. The Celtic configuration bagpipe survived in mountainous regions of France and Spain, and unconquered Ireland and Scotland.
That’s my story and I’m stickin’ with it.
(Until someone proves it isn’t so)
There is written, historical, and artistic evidence that the bagpipe was popular in Ireland as early as 35 BC.
Well yeah except the ‘Englified’ history fixers would dispute the Mil stuff citing things like before Roman times there was NO WRITING in Ireland except runic and 'tisnt from there that such tales came! And who would argue with that!
However modern science does prove some of your thesis shewing that the Irish and Scots and modern Portugese/Spanish are the same race of people, no wonder, then, that it took the English 700 years to get the message ‘buggar off’ wasn’t because the Oirish didn’t like them, rather it was because the Oirish couldn’t understand what the f**** they were on about, and still don’t.
I can just see them looking at each other and thinking “This git would benefit from a little culture. My culture that is!”
Nice to know that science is getting things straightend out now.
On the subject of drones in ancient music.
I found an excerpt from a book I found very enlightening on the subject.
I have quoted it several times but it needs repeating until people start to get it. Here it is again.
THE HISTORICAL METHOD OF THE CELTIC HARP C.W.Bayer “As we would expect, both the small harp and the newer, larger Clairseach were not based on chords or modern harmony but on > drones> . Historical Celtic harp melodies were structured on alternating > drones> --on F and G at the most basic. On the Clairseach, the ancient small harp and related instruments this alternating drone basis resulted in three scales or musics–Joy Music, Sad Music and Sleep Music. During ancient times, these “three musics” were known from the middle east through western Europe. This musical system corresponded to widely held cosmogenic ideas. The three musics are refered to in English and Arabic writings. Each of these scales resolved on two finals–the low drone and Bb. The basic tuning was f,g,a Bb,c,d,eb,f, g. Thus, as a whole the instrument could be said to have been tuned to Bb–just as Giraldus Cambrensis states in his 13th century description of Irish harpers. This music system was displaced in Helenic culture around 600 BC. Beyond strong Helenic influence this ancient musical system survived longer. Up until the systematization of music undertaken by the Persians around 900 AD and by the Roman church in western Europe soon afterward, this drone based system survived among the Arabs, the Britains, the Celts and possibly others. The last practitioners of this system–Irish players of the historical Celtic harp–died out around 1840.
We need to take a wider world view of the instrument and the music and the culture to put it all into better perspective.