Videos From 2011 Field Recording Expedition in Sicily

Bagpipes (Non-Uilleann)
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I thought I would start a thread to post select videos from my 2011 field recording trip this past summer. I spent the bulk of my time investigating and recording rare music in Sicily on the Eastern half of the Island around where my relatives live where they were hosting me in the family vineyard. I believe that this field recording trip is the largest most comprehensive field research done by an American in Sicily since Alan Lomax in 1954. Much of what I recorded had until now not been documented, or is highly under-documented or poorly documented.

Traditional Sicilian music is one of the most if not the most diverse forms of Italian traditional music. It is also hanging on by a thread. This is attributed to the fact that there is a strong negative stigma associated with traditional Sicilian culture which is unfortunately equated to poverty. Fortunately for a field recorder like myself, their are still living informants from the pre-war, pre-industrial generations who I can document the authentic traditions as they were once practiced a couple generations ago. Up into the 1960s, Sicily was almost in a medieval state of development. Horse drawn carts were commonplace, pulled by a class of men who had their own unique way of singing as they drove along the road (yes I have recordings of this). Work music was commonplace and the harvest was communal and accompanied by song and dance. Fragments of this memory lives on in the elderly who lived this life up until 50 years ago. In an essence, my work is a race against time to capture these vestiges of humanity before they are gone.

This is not to say that all is lost or will disappear. There are young people who care, and I met some of them. They are the next generation of Sicilian music. They have the task of figuring out how this music exist in the 21st century outside of its original pre-industrial context. Overall my trip was fantastic. I felt like I truly understood, experienced, and participated in a rich vein of humanity and creative expression that is uniquely Sicilian. I hope you all can find some enjoyment and inspiration from these videos.

Feel free to ask questions or write comments here or on the videos themselves.

David Marker


NUNZIO FAMA
Bagpipe maker and player from the province of Messina. It was his 73rd birthday when we recorded him. He has a very straight forward traditional and crisp style of playing that really utilizes the subtle intricacies of timing.

http://youtu.be/SmmNn3OI6co
The second half of this video is an interview in Italian.

SAIJA (need to get his first name from my friend…)
From Rometta Superiore in province of Messina. This guy is the classic traditional shepherd piper. He lived way up in the mountains. Took forever and felt like we were ascending into the heavens in our little car as we kept climbing and climbing. The view was beautiful. The whole family played the pipes. He only utilizes one drone.
http://youtu.be/fQ-gKeoVkIE

SALVATORE VINCI
From San Fillipo Superiore in province of Messina. My friend Sean Folsom met Salvatore in 1996 when he was invited to play at a bagpipe festival in Scapoli, Italy. Sean kept telling me how amazing Salvatore was and that I need to meet this guy. Sean was right. Salvatore has been playing since he was 7. He comes from a long lineage of piperes. His son is also very good. I would argue that Salvatore is the best if not one of the best Sicilian pipers. At least he is the best at playing the Messina style. Later I will post videos from other areas that have different styles of playing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjIr6mRmKLA
This starts with the Christmas novena and ends with an incredible tarantella. This is very traditional Sicilian old school piping. The technique he uses is perfect. Slightly out of tune drone at beginning but corrects itself as video goes on.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B2s884uUbQ0&feature=related
I just love this tarantella. Salvatore invented this melody.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vaj8G6s5rbs&feature=related
This pipe is in LA. The standard size is usually SOL. Some are in FA. I will post a video later from another region where they play a giant zampogna that is in RE or MI.


These videos represent only a fraction of what I recorded on the trip. It takes a while to edit and upload them to youtube, something that I am currently work on in my free time. As they are available I will post more in this thread.

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BRAVO DAVID !
These Videos are FANTASTIC ! I hope that other Pipers reading this can put their energies to use documenting
the older generations of Pipers living in the Balkans, the Middle East, etc. and make these documents accessible to the general public as Mr. Marker is doing for Italy.
I say this because much of older collectors work in this field is locked up in some institution other
(Private, or Governmental).
Most of the Older Pipers that I knew, starting in the 1970s, are dead and gone.
I do have a small number of Cassette Tapes I need to convert to modern formats,
as soon as I get some Money forward.
More Later,
Sean Folsom

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That is just amazing.
My gosh, the bags on those are huge.
What are they made of?

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Thanks Sean and Osage.

The bags are made of goat hide. They are turned inside out and treated with salt to cure. In some areas they use copper. Also in a few regions they traditionally used Sheepskin where goat herding was not common. All the bags in my videos are Goat.

I guess I’ll use this post also to link you to a video of my friend Giorgio playing the Jews Harp, called “marranzanu” in Sicilian. This instrument is strongly associated with Sicilian culture and music. Ironically even though it still has this strong connotation you are hard pressed to find someone who can actually play it in Sicily. There are only a handful of elderly people that play the instrument in the traditional way and most of them don’t have the teeth left required to play it. My friend Giorgio has made it his personal crusade to learn everything about this instrument in Sicily. He is only 22 and probably the best play in Sicily now. The marranzanu he plays in this video is one that I purchased from one of the last traditional black smith makers who still hand forges these instruments. I think you will be blown away by this video. I am every time I watch it. This is a traditional tarantella for marranzanu.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7LF1UnLJDCc

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For those of you who read Italian, I was interviewed by a local paper in Sicily this summer:
http://www.vdj.it/?p=2983

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David I have two questions.
*About how old is Salvatore Vinci?

  • did you get any footage of the 6 guys ( :wink: )who play zamp. di Monreale???
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The bags are made of goat hide. They are turned inside out and treated with salt to cure. In some areas they use copper. Also in a few regions they traditionally used Sheepskin where goat herding was not common. All the bags in my videos are Goat.

Amazing.

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Charlie: I’m not sure exactly how old Salvatore is. His son is probably in his mid 30’s. I would guess Salvatore is in his early to mid 60s. He told me he used to smoke some ridiculous number of packs of cigarettes a day up until about 10 or so years ago. He quit when his Dr. said he would be dead soon. The number of pipers in Italy who smoke is scary. His son smokes. A few years ago Vinci was in a bad horse accident and was in the hospital for a long time. He races horses. Illegal horse racing is big in Sicily. It’s tied in with the mafia. A lot of the people I recorded were hooked into this network because a lot of these traditions come from professions that used horses and now they have shifted to breading horses for racing since they no longer need to pull carts.

I did not get a chance to go to Palermo to record Monreale pipers. I had organized a trip but it fell through and I ran out of time and money and energy to do it. I am hoping to go back to Sicily early next year and Monreale will be at the top of my list.

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The heady mixture of tobaco infused goatskin is indeed unforgetable :sniffle:
David you played my 5 palmi from Gianluca, when I got that bag it was..on the brown side… After about 3 months of me (nonsmoker) playing it, it cleaned up and is white as a sheet now.
Osage59; goatskin this way is an excellent material for pipebag.
Palermo or bust, eh? :smiley:

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Some more piping videos. These are of Leonard Carpita who is from Castemola which is near Taormina, a popular tourist destination. Carpita is considered by many to be the “best” maker of Sicilian pipes. He is also in my documentary, playing in traditional Sicilian clothing in the street at the Scapoli festival segment of the film. I just uploaded like 7 or so videos of Carpita. I’ll post a couple here. You can go to my youtube channel to watch the rest if you are interested.

I don’t think he is the greatest pipe but he knows a lot of tunes. I bought a very nice pipe from him this summer. It’s in olive wood and in the key of G more or less. I had to pull some strings in order to get it since he only had a few weeks to make it for me. He sort of did it as a favor. I’m very happy with the instrument.

This pipe is made of ebony and has brass rings on the ends of the bells. I don’t really like ebony as a wood for an Italian bagpipe. It’s very heavy and too dark in my opinion. Plus it’s not really traditional. I like the brass rings a lot and wanted to get them put on my pipe but there wasn’t time for the work but plus he thought it would look bad on an olive pipe and others told me it wasn’t traditional… This pipe was still in production as he had not made the little “frischetto” drone for it yet. I thought this pipe sounded a little harsh. Maybe it’s the dense wood.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9b4-_pgkYM

Olive wood pipe in LA. I think it was for sale at the time but I wanted a bigger pipe in SOL.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDUFs0VukRc

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Did the ocarina ever get down there, is was it always a northern Italian thing?

If it did, do you have any recordings?

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Jack - I have never once in all my field recording trips encountered anyone who has played let alone talked about the ocarina. That doesn’t mean that it wasn’t used traditionally in Southern Italy.

From Wikipedia I found this:
'Its earliest use in Europe dates back to the 19th century in Budrio, a town near Bologna, Italy, where Giuseppe Donati transformed the ocarina from a toy, which only played a few notes, into a more comprehensive instrument (known as the first “classical” ocarinas). The word ocarina in the Bolognese dialect means “little goose.” The earlier form was known in Europe as a gemshorn, which was made from animal horns of the chamois (Dutch: gems)."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocarina


So perhaps it was more of a northern thing. All of the fipple like instruments played in Southern Italy that I am aware of are made of Arundo Donax cane.

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Hey David, give me a call sometime. :slight_smile: Still interested in zamps…

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Been awhile since I added some videos to this thread.

Here is a video of me playing with Concetto Testa, a “carritieri” which means he used to drive the painted horse drawn Sicilian carts. He is the last of a dying breed since that profession has been replaced by the automobile starting in the 60s. As I believe I explained earlier the carritieri have a special style of singing that is unique to their profession. Singing and dancing in Sicily is often accompanied by frame drumming. In this video I am playing a sicilan pipe loaned to me by my friend for the duration of my trip until I was able to pick up the pipe I ordered.

http://youtu.be/KK_x3w0skK4

Here is Concetto singing and playing tambourine. This is VERY Sicilian:
http://youtu.be/7ehOemiaAOc


This next video is another video of Salvatore Vinci. This specific video is rather important to me as a cultural documentation. The song he is playing is called a “scordino” which translates to “out of tune”. The notable thing about this song is that it is played with all the drones plugged and is a traditional method of way of playing in Sicily, though now rarely practiced. Perhaps Salvatore is the last player to carry this tune. This method of playing interest me because I believe that the origin of the zampogna is droneless. Droneless version of the zampogna exist in places like Amatrice in Lazio and with the piva di Trieste in Northern Italy. This is the only other example of traditionally played droneless double piping that I am aware of in Italy. It’s not possible to know of the origins of this “scordino” Sicilian piping tradition. Perhaps it is something “new” or perhaps it links back to the days of the aulos/tibia of ancient Rome.

http://youtu.be/vELqZMRWHWU

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Two things, while I’m at it at all.
When I briefly lived in Italy, some 30 years ago, the most common brand of ciggies was called “MS”. In Italian parlance it was translated as “Morto Securo”. Nuff said.
The other thing is the ocarina. It is probably true that the ocarina, as we know it, originates in 19th c. Italy, just as stated in Wiki. However. There are any number of mediaeval, and earlier remains that are ocarinas. There is one that I know of specifically, because I’m from Hungary, well, it’s a 9th c. ocarina with a couple of fingerholes. Unmistakable. Then, of course there are the gemshorns, that are ocarinas made from a cow’s horn. Not to mention the gedact pipes on any Renaissance of Baroque organ. So this whole thingy about ocarinas starting in the 19th century has to be taken with a rather sizeable pinch of salt…