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The Bagpipe Society
A far cry from the MacCrimmons: Scotland's Forgotten Bagpipes
This edition is from our archives, so it is presented as scanned pages rather than text.
An Italian Rant
Federico Ghisi pointed out that this tune which became very popular in England in the seventeenth century, was composed by the Italian singer and composer Giuseppino. See ‘An Early Seventeenth Century MS.’ Acta Musicologica, XX (1948), 49,50,58. The tune’s full title is ‘fuggi, fuggi, fuggi da questo cielo’. It appears in Cithern and Cittern (1652). Musick’s Handmaid (1678) and was published in the Netherlands and was later used by Smetana in Vltava. See New Grove 7, p. 417.
Jenny Pluck Pears
Playford’s version of this dance is the earliest source. In his The Country Dance Book part 2 (London: Novello, 1913) Sharp noted the significant changes made to the tune in successive publications of the Dancing Master. The first edition has the tune in the Dorian air with two flats. The second version has the tune in the minor mode with 5 sharps and the fourth and subsequent editions use the major mode. Cecil Sharp felt the versions in later editions were inferior to the original and the changes were indicative of the decline in quality of Playford’s dance books as they increasingly conformed to fashion.
All in a Garden Green
A ballad with the title ‘All in a garden green/betwene ij lovers’ was licensed by William Pekering as early as 1565–66. It appears in an instrumental version in the Ballet lute book and was used by Sweelinck and Vallet in Holland as the basis for pieces.
Goddesses
This tune which appeared in the FWVB as ‘Querdling’s Delight’ was used for the ballad ‘The Northern Lasses Lamentation’. Gilchrist (p. 277) noted an affinity with Danish and Scandinavian ballad airs and with several northern airs.
The Whim
Also known as ‘Bartholomews Fair’, this tune is connected to the late seventeenth-century ballad ‘Roger in Amaize’, or, the Countrey Mans Ramble through Bartholomew Fair’. It appeared in all editions of Pills and many ballad operas.
Chappell (pp. 585–86) noted the unusual phrases of three measures common to English jigs and hornpipes and also that the termination of each phrase with the same note three times suggested Irish characteristics.
M.S.
This article first appeared in the West Highland Free Press
A Far Cry from the MacCrimmons: Scotland’s Forgotten Bagpipes
A glance at the history and recent revival of the Lowland pipes
There is nothing quite like the Great Highland Bagpipe. Its music and history have spread worldwide and the ancient tunes are whistled in Winnipeg and hummed in Hong Kong.
Yes, the music is quite magnificent and the history behind it not bad either. There’s enough romance there to keep every fireside storyteller occupied for hours.
But can I ask you to pause for a moment? I do so because I want you to consider what I’ll call the forgotten Scottish bagpipes. If you were unaware that there was such a thing as another form of Scottish bagpipe then I’m not surprised.
But in this small country of ours there once thrived no less than five different types of pipes. These were the Great Highland Pipe, the Reel pipe (a half-size Highland pipe), a miniature, or chamber pipe, the Lowland pipe, and the Lowland small pipe. You could also add to this various hybrid forms of the instrument, but these were the main instruments extant in Scotland until the mid-nineteenth century. We all know about the first mentioned so I won’t waste space describing it, but I will explain a bit about the others.
The Reel pipe was, as I’ve said, a half-sized version of the Great Highland and was used, as the name suggests, for dances and social gatherings where a lot of playing was required. The smaller size probably made them quieter and easier to manage. They are seldom played today but are often used as a teaching aid for boys or girls. The miniature, or chamber, pipe was much quieter still and had a sound similar to Northumbrian pipes and could be either mouth or bellows blown. Again, very suitable for playing indoors. This pipe is still heard today but invariably the bottom half of a practice chanter is used instead of the proper chanter which would be of a higher pitch and therefore have more ‘carry’.
The Lowland pipe has undergone a major revival recently, as has its wee brother the Lowland small pipe. These instruments are both blown with a bellows. The Lowland pipe is similar to a Reel pipe with all of the drones in a common stock. The small pipe is the same but is much smaller and has a sound again like the Northumbrian pipe, the main differences being a less elaborate drone system and an open-ended chanter.
I first came across these instruments in the late Francis Collinson’s excellent work ‘The Traditional and National Music of Scotland’ 10 years or so ago. Since then the Lowland pipes, both large and small, have undergone an amazing revival.
A new society, the Lowland the Borders Pipers Society, has been formed, a tutor has been compiled and frantic research into the old Border tunes is underway by a number of people. An annual competition is held with pipers from all over the UK attending. There are categories for Lowland pipes, small pipes, duets for pipes.
Chanter Chanter
34 35
and other instrument (these pipes are much more suited than the Highland pipes to playing with other instruments), and song plus pipe accompaniment. There is one legend that says to be considered a competent Lowland piper you had to be able to play, sing and dance at the same time!
I was invited along to judge at the recent LBPS contest, held in the School of Scottish Studies in Edinburgh, and I asked Gordon Mooney, president, how he saw the future.
“All the makers tell me that their sales of small pipes are blooming. The larger Lowland pipes are also catching on but at a slower rate. I think this is because they are more difficult to handle. But for anyone who has the application the rewards are great. Highland pipers who have had to give up through poor health will find this instrument just the job. No blowing, just a gentle pumping action with the elbow and you can have the same sound almost as the Highland pipes with a lot less volume.
“This is what people find attractive. We currently have 100 members, half of them overseas. There’s nothing formal or stylised about what we do. There’s even room for improvisation. It’s all very much a case of doing your own thing.”
And what of the competition? Lowland pipe champion was Paul Roberts from Leculs who was informality itself (Army style peaked cap, ear-ring, leather jacket) with a sparkling display of Border melodies, complete with bendy notes, vibrato and overblown extra notes. Scottish small pipes champion was Jamie MacDonald-Reid, the pipes-song competition was won by David Robertson and brothers Julian and John Goodacre took the pipes-and-other-instrument title.
It was all a far cry from the days of the MacCrimmons, but who knows things may have been just as rough and ready in their day.
Robert Wallace
A Fern from Sky
for Somhairle MacGill-cain (Sorley Maclean)
‘Lament for the Children’— a pibroch by Pùdarig Mór MacCrimnein
1
We came across two worlds to see you, Sorley,
To Skye
The last battlefield, the last
Never say die
Of the Gael: the Celtic world squeezed out,
Cauterised for sheep;
Its leaders angled in sharp practice;
Highland and creek
Emptied of the tribes;
Croft and song
Left rotting like bladderwrack
On the high strand.
2
It was here, in Peinnachorrain of the Braes,
That the tenants held fast,
Met and showed fight. Broken head,
Clout and gasp
By their intransigence, refused
That grey day
At the sea coast, to be dumped
Or charted away.
Visitors we came. Clean air delighted us, gull music,
Cottages
Under the hill, clinking of little streams
And a damp breeze
From Raasay across the Sound. But you, you live here,
Poet, among
The presentative past of your people.
The old tongue
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