Promoting the Bagpipe Revival since 1986
The Bagpipe Society
Chanter Spring 1986
This edition is from our archives, so it is presented as scanned pages rather than text.
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The journal of
the bagpipe society
volume 1 part 1
interview with
paul james of
blowzabella
julian goodacre
on the leicestershire
small pipes
Spring /
Summer ‘86
ISSN 0261-7939
CONTENTS
Chanter, The Journal of the Bagpipe Society* Peter Stacey …………………………………. 2
The Inaugural Meeting of the Bagpipe Society, Simon Owen ………………………… 4
Bagpipe First Aid David Van Doorn …………………………………………… 8
Making and Maintaining the Early Music Shop Bagpipe Kit Jim Parr ……………….. 13
WORKSHOP
Pipe Maker Beyond Leicestershire Julian Goodacre ……………………………….. 17
Leicestershire Piper in Italy, John Goodacre ………………………………………… 23
The Blowzabella Workshop Weekend Dance Tune Competition, Judy Tarry …….. 26
A Repertoire for the English Bagpipe?, Peter Stacey …………………………………. 29
FOCUS ON BLOWZABELLA
Blowzabella’s Peculiar Bit in the Middle - An Interview with Paul James, Sangit Jashan ………………………. 35
Blowzabella - A Factual History Paul James ………………………………………… 40
RECORD REVIEWS
ABERJABER - Aberjaber Simon Owen …………………………………………… 42
Hamish Moore - Cauld Wind Pipes, Simon Owen …………………………………… 44
Eric Montbel - L’Art de la Cornemuse, Paul James ………………………………….. 46
CHANTER
JOURNAL OF THE BAGPIPE SOCIETY
New projects may be forgiven for starting with high hopes, and our hope is that Chanter will become a useful, even indispensable companion to happy bagpiping. Chanter is the principal forum of The Bagpipe Society; while the Newsletter aims to keep members informed about the Society’s activities, meetings, concerts, and other events, the Journal will provide an outlet for articles on all subjects concerning bagpipes. But as this is a periodical about a musical instrument it is appropriate that it should contain not only words, but also music. So it is our intention to include all sorts of melodies, from pieces drawn from the oldest of sources to the latest of compositions.
This, the first number of Chanter, contains articles on aspects of bagpipe making, maintenance, and repertoire as well as some recent compositions for bagpipes. Several of the articles are the first of several series of articles to be published in Chanter. For example, Focus on Blowzahella is the first in a series in which special attention is paid to a prominent bagpiper or group featuring bagpipes. The Focus On series will include factual histories and interviews. John Goodacre’s article on his Leicestershire small-pipe is the first in a series entitled Workshop in which makers describe the instruments they make and discuss their philosophies and techniques of bagpipe design and construction. David Van Doorn’s article Bagpipe First Aid, is the first in a series on bagpipe maintenance, and my own article A Repertoire for the English Bagpipe? is the first in a series that will explore musical sources from medieval times to the eighteenth century.
Write for Chanter!
We rely on members to contribute articles to Chanter, and if the present harvest of contributions is anything to go by the Journal will continue to be informative and enjoyable. Please write to Chanter if you have anything that you wish to share with the members of the Society.
We had originally hoped that Chanter would appear quarterly; however, at a recent committee meeting it was agreed that the Society does not have sufficient funds to support this frequency of publication. Therefore, Chanter will appear biannually, the issues being numbered by volume and part: the first issue being Volume 1, Part 1: Spring/Summer; the second Volume I, Part 2: Autumn/Winter; the third Volume 2, Part 1: Spring/Summer; and so on. The next issue of Chanter should appear on November 3, 1986; articles and advertising material should arrive no later than September 22.
It would be greatly appreciated if contributors could send articles in typescript, preferably double-spaced on A4 paper. If you can’t get it typed, please write as clearly as possible on every other line.
Advertising Rates
Cost: £6.00 quarter page
£10.00 half page
£14.00 whole page (A5)
Please make cheques payable to: The Bagpipe Society
Editorial Address
All contributions, including advertisements, should be sent to:
Peter Stacey
Journal Editor
63 Lonsdale Road
OXFORD OX2 7ES
©Copyright
The copyright of all material included in Chanter remains with the individual authors.
A Special Word of Thanks
The preparation of the first issue of Chanter has been surrounded by enthusiasm and good-will. I would like to thank the contributors, and all who have offered help and advice. A special word of thanks goes to André de Vries and Biddy Wells who have worked behind the scenes on word-processing and paste-up!
Peter Stacey
THE INAUGURAL MEETING OF THE BAGPIPE SOCIETY
Of the fifty or so people who expressed a willingness to join an as yet un-named, unconstituted society, eighteen attended the inaugural meeting at the Faculty of Music in the University of Oxford on December 1, 1985. The meeting was opened by the Society’s Honorary President, Jon Swayne playing ‘The First of December’ (a tune especially written for the occasion) on his newly developed set of half-long pipes. The meeting continued under the control of David Van Doorn, the acting secretary, starting with the election of committee members and proceeding to work its way through a draft constitution. Most points were resolved without difficulty, although the naming of the Society and its learned organ (The Journal) generated some lively debate. Suggestions for names ranged from the epic to the obscure. Ultimately, the name ‘The Bagpipe Society’ was chosen for its ability to encompass a wide variety of interests in different types of bagpipe without prejudice for or against any particular tradition or revival. It was decided that the Journal would be known as Chanter: Journal of the Bagpipe Society.
During the lunch-break Jeremy Montagu, the Curator of the Bate Collection of Historical Instruments which is housed in the Faculty of Music, opened the collection for Bagpipe Society members attending the meeting to have a special out-of-hours viewing of the many fine instruments that it contains. Deliberations over affairs constitutional continued until quite late in the afternoon. At the end of the day there was an opportunity to examine other members’ bagpipes and discuss them with their owners. It soon became clear that the provision of such informal occasions would be an important function of the Society. On such occasions, help is at hand, or advice may be given, on the problems which inevitably afflict bagpipes from time to time. Tunes may be exchanged, informal tuition given, and many advantages accrue from being in the company of like-minded people.
For those able to stay into the evening, a session was held in the Half Moon in Oxford, a miniscule pub, but one with a long history of hosting sessions. I doubt, though, that there have ever been so many bagpipes there at one time before! This was an excellent way to round off the day, and a good time was had by all.
Simon Owen
Constitution of the Bagpipe Society
Here is the Constitution as it was finally approved at the AGM.
CONSTITUTION
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That the organisation shall be known as ‘The Bagpipe Society’ (hereinafter referred to as the Society).
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That the aims of the Society be:
- to encourage more people to take up playing the bagpipes, thereby increasing the instrument’s popularity.
- to promote public awareness of all forms of folk and early bagpipes
- to build a common pool of repertoire and playing techniques
- to build a common pool of research material for future investigation
- to publish plans (copyright permitting) for amateur makers
- to encourage standards of excellence in playing and making (by example rather than by competition)
- to promote the revival of bagpipes as modern folk instruments in this country
- to encourage the future development of the bagpipe and to develop new instruments, e.g. a modern English bagpipe
- to encourage communication with, and give support to, societies with related interests, e.g. the Hurdy-gurdy Society, and specialist piping societies such as Highland, Uilleann and Northumbrian.
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That the membership of the Society shall be open to all on payment of the current annual membership subscription, as agreed at the Annual General Meeting.
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That the Society shall have an Honorary President, which position shall be for 5 years.
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That the managing committee of the Society (hereinafter referred to as the Committee) shall consist of
Chairperson Hon. Secretary (to include Membership Society) Hon. Treasurer Publicity Officer Journal Editor
Two ordinary members
A quorum shall be deemed to be when 4 members of the Committee are present. The chairperson shall have the casting vote.
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That the Annual General Meeting shall be held in November/December at which the election of the Committee shall be held. All members will be notified of the date at least 2 months in advance. Names plus signatures of candidates shall be submitted to the Committee by 4 weeks before the AGM and then a secret ballot shall be held for contested posts, at the AGM, the results being declared by the retiring chairperson.
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That the ballot shall be run as follows. Each full member shall be entitled to one vote which may be cast in person, by post or by proxy. When known in advance, members will be notified of motions subject to a vote no later than 4 weeks before the meeting. Postal votes must arrive with the secretary by the day before the meeting.
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That if any member of the Committee resigns, the Committee shall have the power to co-opt another member of the Society who will hold the post until the next AGM.
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That it is the duty of the
a) Chairperson to organise the running of official meetings and balloting
b) Hon. Secretary to record a summary of committee meetings and Society meetings in the Society minutes and to record membership details.
c) Hon. Treasurer to keep an up-to-date account of the Society’s financial transactions and that this shall be made available to any member of the Society for inspection on request
d) Publicity Officer to organise all advertising and events.
e) Journal Editor to produce a Biannual Journal, to be known as Chanter – The Journal of the Bagpipe Society.
- That accounts of the Society’s finances be submitted annually for audit by two auditors, appointed at the AGM, who shall not be members of the Society. A current account shall be kept in the name of ‘The Bagpipe Society’.
Access to account finances shall be only by cheque signed by the Hon. Treasurer and countersigned by one other committee member as registered with the bank. A float of petty cash, the limit to be agreed by the AGM, shall be held by the Treasurer or another officer, as deemed necessary by the committee.
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That should the Society cease to function then all remaining finances shall be donated to a similar organisation or charity as agreed by remaining interested members.
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The constitution and committee may only be changed at an AGM or EGM at which time the meeting shall be considered quorate (for the purpose of constitution and committee changes only) when one-third of the membership is present (including proxy and postal votes). A majority of 75% of those voting shall be required to change the constitution or committee. All other voting at an AGM or EGM shall be by simple majority, the chairperson having the casting vote.
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That written petition of at least 10 members of the Society, to the Secretary, shall cause the convention of an Extraordinary General Meeting (EGM), to take place at a date and venue to be decided by the Committee and no later than one month after receipt of the petition.
1st December 1985
Committee Members
The Committee elected to serve for a period of one year is as follows:
Chairperson - Simon Owen
Secretary - Dave Van Doorn
Treasurer - Jacqueline Contre
Publicity Officer - Judy Tarry
Journal Editor - Peter Stacey
Ordinary Member - Steafan Hannegan
Ordinary Member - Chi Allen
BAGPIPE FIRST AID
The first in a series of articles on bagpipe maintenance
Most musicians, especially if they regularly play in public, keep some sort of first aid kit in their instrument case. It may simply be a spare set of strings for the guitarist or valve oil for the trumpeter, but there’s usually something essential to keeping the instrument in good playing order. Whilst some bagpipers seem to manage with only a spare set of reeds (and some not even that!), the majority have learned from bitter experience the necessity for a slightly more elaborate kit.
How far you go is up to you, but it’s certainly not uncommon to encounter extremely complex maintenance packs, including full reed-making equipment, stopping short only at the inclusion of a small lathe. The complexity of your own first aid kit depends entirely on your own requirements, only experience telling you what you need. The list discussed here is based on my own requirements and experience and you may, of course, add to or subtract from it to suit yourself.
The bagpipe is a very complex, highly temperamental instrument having problems unlike any other (except perhaps the hurdy-gurdy) and needs to be treated with love and respect if you are going to get the best from it. When things go wrong, however, there are usually certain steps that can be taken immediately to get you out of trouble with no permanent ill-effects.
The majority of faults fall into four categories: airtightness, reed problems, playing out of tune, and blocked pipes. The following list of materials and tools is intended to assist the player in overcoming most of these faults, on a first-aid basis, provided they are not too serious (there is rarely anything you can do if a bag bursts, for instance, other than light up a Hamlet and let the rest of the band get on with it).
So here goes. Let’s start with the materials.
Masking Tape
Shock, horror! How can he suggest such a nasty, untraditional material? (There’s worse to come yet). If, however, you have ever experienced the complete unwinding of a hemp slide binding during tuning just before a performance you will appreciate the need for speedy, effective first aid - masking tape will provide this. Don’t try to rewind the binding in a hurry - you’ll only make a mess of it and end up with a leaky slide. Instead, quickly remove all the hemp and replace to the same thickness with masking tape. It’s compressible like hemp so will stand being wound very slightly too thick provided a suitable lubricant is used (see below). Masking tape is also useful for retuning finger holes when a tired or difficult reed is causing a chanter to play out of tune (Sellotape is less unsightly, however).
Slide Lubricant
I find that the best lubricant for drone slides and stock tenons is ‘Selmer Tuning Slide and Cork Grease’. But beware: although excellent, it’s messy and poisonous, so mouth-testing of pipes which have it on their tenons should be done with care or avoided altogether. A more convenient though less effective lubricant is ‘Yamaha Slide Grease’, which comes in a small lipstick type dispenser. Vasilene can also be used but tends to ’lock up’ if slides are not used for a while. But I always keep some in a small pill-box as it’s excellent if a slide develops a small leak which can’t quickly be cured. Apply it liberally and it will seal and lubricate at the same time (but not so liberally that it blocks the windway).
PTFE Tape
Ageing, humidity and temperature variations occasionally cause a slide or stock tenon to become loose. A simple method of correcting this is to wind a few turns of PTFE tape (plumbers’ tape) around the hemp or cork binding. PTFE can provide a really excellent seal as the action of pushing home a tenon pushes the tape into the cracks between the turns of hemp to make an almost perfect, smooth cylinder. It can also sometimes be used to seal a leaky double reed (but see below) or to make a good reed to socket joint.
Goldbeater’s Skin
This is the traditional material for sealing leaks on double reeds (oboes etc.) and consists of tissue-thin pig skin. It should be used on bagpipe reeds as a last resort as it can dull the tone and affect tuning and range.
Hemp Thread
This is the proper material (along with cork) for making bindings to all stock and slide tenons. Raw hemp, either yellow or white, is used and is normally waxed before use. It comes in different gauges depending on the size of the tenon. It can also be used for tying tuning bridles on single reeds.
Reed Twine
Some of the same twine as is used to bind your double reeds may prove useful if a reed needs to be remade in a hurry. Emergency sealing (normally done with wax or varnish) can be achieved with PTFE tape.
Dental Floss
Used with wax, this makes an excellent material for tying single reed bridles and is particularly useful in a first aid kit as it comes in a neat little
dispenser with a built-in cutter.
Brass Wire
If you need to make a new tuning bridle for a double reed, a few turns of thin brass (or copper) wire will do the job. Keep about a metre neatly wound like a guitar string in your kit. Try to avoid any kinks.
Wax
I consider this to be an essential ingredient in a first aid kit. While beeswax is useful for waxing hemp thread or dental floss, I find that a better all-rounder is the red wax found on Edam cheese as it is softer and more easily worked. Wax is useful for sealing all sorts of cracks and leaks, returning finger holes when problem reeds will not allow a chanter to play in tune, sealing reeds into sockets, stopping small pipe drones and even tacking music to walls (and if you leave some cheese attached you’ve always got a snack handy - only don’t get the cheese and the wax mixed up or you’ll end with stinky leaky bagpipes). Seriously though, I’ve never had any problems with smell or effect upon the wax as it peels cleanly away from the cheese. If the colour is too red, or a harder wax is needed, it can easily be mixed with beeswax.
Reed Rush
Not known to many pipers but used quite a lot by other double reed players (oboe etc.), reed rush is abrasive and gently scrapes the reed while depositing a fine siliceous coat. Sometimes useful when a reed has become weak and lifeless – though don’t expect miracles.
Bath Sealant
Very much a last resort, though it can usually be picked away afterwards with no ill-effects. Use a transparent silicone variety such as ‘Dow Corning House Sealant’. Note: takes about half-an-hour to go off (minimum) and will not take to wet or greasy surfaces. Uses: leaks between stock and bag, leaky bag seams, splits in wood.
Soft Leather
A small piece is handy in case you have to remake a blowpipe or bellows valve. A piece of an old glove or similar will do.
Elastic Bands
Very small elastic bands can be used to make an emergency replacement for single reed tuning bridles or key springs.
So much for the materials. Now let’s look at a few tools we can usefully include in the kit.
Small Electrician’s Pliers
Used for making or adjusting double reed tuning bridles. Also useful for helping to tie single reed bridles.
Reed Scraping Tool
The choice of tool is obviously a matter of taste and convenience. I feel, however, that unless you are going to equip your instrument case with a full reed making kit, a razor blade or scalpel blade (pushed into a rubber for safety) will serve for the kind of minor reed doctoring under discussion.
Car Aerial
Car aerial? Yes! If you can get an old one it makes a very good drone and blowpipe unbanging tool and it telescopes down into a very small size for packing away. Drones do get bunged up with bits of hemp, wax, etc. BUT USE WITH CARE!
Small pointed thingummy-with-a-slight-bend-in-the-end
This is useful for applying tuning wax to finger holes.
Tuning Fork
Get one that corresponds to the keynote of your pipes.
Four other small, all-purpose tools are: a penknife, a miniature hacksaw blade and a flat and a round needle file.
Well, that’s it. Most of the materials suggested here are strictly first aid as they are unsuitable for prolonged use and are aesthetically unsatisfactory (so much so that many will flinch at their use even as a temporary expedient). It must be stressed that the suggestions made do not necessarily represent what is used by the majority of pipers, being merely a reflection of my own experience and preferences (prejudices?). Talk to others and see what they use, then make your own judgements.
Oh, and don’t forget the spare set of reeds!
WHERE TO GET IT
Masking tape, PTFE tape, bath sealant - any good DIY shop
Beeswax - old-fashioned ironmongers or good woodwork shop.
Slide grease, tuning fork - good music shop.
Vaseline, dental floss - chemist.
Goldbeater’s skin, brass wire, reed rush, reed twine - Howarth’s, Chiltern St. (near Baker St, London) - also sell cane for reed making.
Hemp thread - Duncan MacRae Ltd, 328 Lawnmarket, Edinburgh (near castle) - also sell Highland pipes and accessories.
The above are only suggestions, of course, and you may be able to find other suppliers of the more specialised materials nearer home. Good Luck!
David Van Doorn, January 1986
MAKING AND MAINTAINING THE EARLY MUSIC SHOP BAGPIPE KIT
I have heard little good said about the Early Music Shop Bagpipe Kit. This is a pity, because when well made and set up it is an impressive instrument, with powerful drones tuned to the relatively unusual but probably authentic interval of a fifth, and a limited but good sounding chanter. I use mine a lot, and have relatively little trouble with it. However, this is not the experience of many people.
There are two main reasons why this instrument proves disappointing for so many people. One is that, while EMS have provided good instructions for making the pipe, they’ve left a lot unsaid about setting it up and reeding it, and this is far harder than merely putting it together. The second problem is that in order to make a good job of setting any bagpipe up it is really necessary to be able to play it in the first place, otherwise how will you know what’s right and what’s wrong? Since most makers of the EMS kit are beginners, they face almost insoluble problems. To help them, here are some ideas and methods of ‘tweaking’ that I have found useful.
The Bag
When sewing the bag it is not necessary to push the needles directly into the leather. You can use a bradawl, but it must be modified first. Grind or file it so it’s round and nice and thin, then use abrasive paper to make it perfectly smooth. Like this it will push the leather fibres apart rather than cut them so that the resulting hole will tend to close up around the thread.
Do not let the neck get too narrow as this will make the process of turning the bag inside out almost impossible. This process is aided by dressing the seams before turning inside out, see below.
The dressing suggested by EMS is grand fun to make, but having made it, the best thing to do is to throw it away as it is worse than useless as a dressing. It dries out and stops sealing, it grows huge amounts of mould, it gets on the drone reeds and stops them working - so don’t use it! Either use a proprietary brand of Highland pipe dressing, or make it yourself from beeswax and olive oil. Heat some olive oil and dissolve in enough beeswax so that when the mixture is cold it is about the consistency of Vaseline. I haven’t worked out the exact ratio of oil to wax - you’ll have to do it yourself by trial and error.
Having made this, work some into the seam and stitching while it’s still warm. This seals any leaks in the seam and lubricates the bag which helps in the turning inside out process. When the stocks are bound in, pour molten dressing into the bag and work it into the leather, particularly the areas where the bag meets the stocks. Don’t put too much in and, when it’s
cooled, use an old recorder mop to remove any dressing in the drone and chanter stocks. Getting dressing on the reeds, particularly the drone reeds, is a common source of problems. It makes drone reeds sticky and liable to ‘clap’, i.e. for the tongue to shut and stay shut.
EMS say that the bag once inflated should lose no air over the course of an hour. This is rather a counsel of perfection; if it stays airtight for five minutes that is quite adequate.
The Drones
EMS provide twine to bind the drone sections with. This tends not to hold the sections firmly enough. Most music shops stock cork for use by clarinettists and the like and this is much better than twine. Get the thick variety, cut it to size, and glue on with Evo Stik. Sand it if too thick, put Sellotape on if too thin.
The drone reeds are a bit tricky. The first thing to realise is that Highland pipers buy dozens of the things at a time, and sort through for good ones. The chances of the ones with your kit being good ones are fairly slim. This is not to say they’re not good reeds; they are. It’s just in the nature of these things that they’re very variable. The same is true to a lesser extent with chanter reeds. So stock up with half-a-dozen of each size, more if you’re feeling extravagant. A word of warning: good reeds are not often available outside Scotland. Most high street music shops have reeds by a firm called Barnes and Mullins. These are really dreadful; avoid them like the plague. You’ll probably have to write to Grainger and Campbell or another reputable Highland firm. Here is Grainger and Campbell’s address: Grainger and Campbell Ltd, 42 Westgarth Place, College Milton N., East Kilbride, Glasgow G74 5NT.
The tongues of the bass reeds particularly seem to be a bit short. If the reed tends to clap, you can try leaving it overnight with a matchstick or similar under the tongue. If this fails, you may have to make the tongue longer by splitting it. Take the bridle off, and gently pull the tongue until it starts to split. Replace the bridle, or make a new one. A bit of Cling Film round the base of the tongue can be helpful; you don’t want air escaping through the non-vibrating part of the tongue below the bridle. Another important trick, which you should try before splitting the tongue, is to put a small blob of wax on the top of the tongue (the reed’s, not yours). In fact, you’ll almost always have to do this. It lowers the pitch of the reed, but seems to stabilise it.
Always make sure the reeds are fitted squarely into the base of the drone. There is a design fault in that the stock is rather narrow, and the bass reeds especially can touch the side of it with disastrous results. I have opened out the bottom of the bass drone stock on my pipe. I did this on a lathe, but if you don’t have access to one you could do it with sandpaper.
The Chanter
Again, the main problem here is the reed, and again, it is important to get hold of a few good ones. They are ordinary Highland pipe reeds, by the way, EMS just supply them cut short. All Highland reeds have an enormous ‘shoulder’ on them which makes them very hard to blow, so this has to be removed. Do this with a Stanley Knife with a new blade, or a Swann and Morton scalpel with a No.10, 11, or 10A blade. Never use razor blades for scraping reeds. Also useful is a file made of a scrap of wood (6 mm by 0.5 mm) with a bit of 120 grit abrasive paper glued to it. You can take most of the shoulder off with this, but finish with a metal blade. I like to use a plaque in between the blades of the reed; the kind used for oboe reeds is ideal. Keep the reed wet while working, and test it frequently to see how easily it speaks. When it starts to feel right, check it in the chanter. You can get extra control over the reed by making a bridle for it from a couple of turns of 24SWG copper wire. This allows you to regulate the tip opening, and to open the blades if you’ve weakened them by scraping. As with drone reeds, some reeds won’t work; with experience you’ll recognise these quickly and won’t waste time on them.
I hope some of these ideas prove useful to EMS pipemakers and others. Everyone has their own ideas of how to do these things, and I’m not suggesting mine are right or better than anyone else’s; they’re just little dodges that have worked for me. I’d be pleased to hear of any other ideas and comments. If anyone would like help with EMS pipes, my address is:
7, The Bank
Somersham
Nr HUNTINGDON
Cambs
Phone (0487) 842601
Jim Parr
WORKSHOP
The first in a series in which makers describe the instruments they make and discuss their philosophies of bagpipe design and construction.
PIPE-MAKER BEYOND LEICESTERSHIRE
Most of the bagpipes I make are Leicestershire small-pipes. I get asked a lot of questions, not only about their design and capabilities but also about their history. I find it hard to dissociate what instruments I make from why I make them; so this account will be semi-autobiographical. It is tantalizing that no non-Northumbrian English pipes have so far been found. I feel sure that many survive but I think it is immoral, irreligious, and very unhygienic to try and unearth them, and I am proud to say that I have no evidence to support my belief that English pipers were buried with their pipes. But it is a possible line of research: a trained squad of Bagpipe Society members with torches, picks and shovels could alter the future of English bagpiping in one night’s work. But I want none of it - my approach has been different.
My interest in English pipes came from my brother John, who reached the penny whistle after the recorder and inspired me to play the whistle. Being a local historian he had come across many references to pipers in Leicestershire, which is where we are from. In 1979 I left the country with a New Generation penny whistle in my rucksack. Whilst waiting at an oasis to hitch a lift out of the Sahara, I made another penny whistle using an old tin can, some scissors, files, a penknife, and Araldite. I was amazed to find it worked and only took about four hours to make (but three days to hitch the lift). During the two years I was away I made more whistles and found that at night a recurring theme in my dreams was bagpipes. Eventually I returned to my chosen home of Galloway in Scotland.
On a trip down south to London, fate led me to Gordon Potts who introduced me to ‘Blowzabella’, who individually and together have been a major inspiration. I acquired a Ginsberg ‘Medieval English’ bagpipe. Dave Armitage made me a decent chanter for it and with the aid of an ancient metal-turning lathe I began to replace each bit of the pipes with bits made by me. Around this set of G/C pipes the ‘Thistle Dubh Ceilidh Band’ was formed. Playing in this band, mostly in Galloway and Edinburgh, has been an education for us all in performing and calling for dance.
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Leicestershire small pipes
My piping activity north of the Border re-stimulated John’s interest in English small-pipes and he asked if I could make him a set. Looking back now I am amazed at the speed at which I arrived at the design. I now see that the chanter was designed using a blend of innocence, luck, and ignorance. John wanted a simple, quiet pipe with an open chanter, but tuned to play with covered fingering. He suggested that the chanter and single drone should have bell ends. What we failed to anticipate was that fitting a bell to the chanter would amplify the lowest notes and by using covered fingering (only raising one finger at any time, but leaving the little finger off) one could provide a clear articulation between notes by returning briefly to bottom D, the drone note. Persons used to Northumbrian pipes often comment on how percussive the Leicestershire small-pipes can sound. With practice one can produce an effect similar to the trompette on a hurdy-gurdy.
This is how the musette de cour is played; but the similarity is not immediately obvious, as the musettes that survive are encrusted with keys and an extra chanter. But it leads to interesting areas of speculation about how Northumbrian small-pipes were fingered before they put the plug in the bottom of the chanter - three hundred years ago?
I make the chanters of yew. Though technically a soft wood, it is tough and springy, but very variable - from dark, full of cracks, and a tangle of knots to a much lighter coloured wood with straight grain, a joy to turn. The chanter is very thin, with a very slight conical bore.
For the chanter I modify bassoon reeds, which are cheap and readily available. Reeding takes patience and skill. I’ve got the former (though it sometimes gets stretched) and I’m acquiring the latter through persistence, experimentation, and picking the brains of any reed-makers I stumble into.
The drones and stocks are usually made of cherry. As with the chanter I take a lot of care in the outward appearance of the pipes. The shape of each part has evolved over the years and continues to develop. I enjoy that continued searching for a more pleasing shape. I have designed a bag with a graceful swan neck by making it from two separate pieces of leather and sewing it all the way round.
The initial pipes were made by me in 1983 in Galloway. Some were bellows-blown, some mouth-blown; all were in D. In 1984 I moved to Edinburgh and set up my workshop in darkest Leith. Since then I have developed an inter-changeable chanter in C - the same drone being tunable to C or D. I also make a high F set and have a B flat chanter under development. As an extra I can fit a sliding brass ring on the chanter to give the option of a sharp of flat top leading note. Thus one can play in G on the D chanter and in F on the C chanter.
They are a popular pipe, partly I think because they fill a gap which no
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other pipe does, being a very basic instrument, and partly because they are unrealistically cheap!
It is John who supplies me with ideas, research and theories. I find it really useful to have someone who I can bounce ideas off, though it does put up our phone bills. It was John who asked me to make him a double pipe, as described in considerable detail in a manuscript by James Talbot in Christ Church Library, Oxford, written in the 1690s. There is also a picture of a similar chanter in Mersenne’s Harmonie Universelle (1636-37).
I finished the first double pipes in January 1985 and the result is gorgeous. The chanter has two parallel bores, but only the bottom four note holes are drilled in one. The drone is in G. One can use it as a simple G pipe and one can also play harmonies and counter-melodies. It is a pipe with exciting and daunting possibilities.
Many are the trials and tribulations of setting up one’s own business, but one has to do so if one wants to make pipes all the time. In this country the only possible opportunities of being employed as a pipe-maker are if one wants to make Scottish Highland pipes. I don’t. But being self-employed means doing everything oneself. Book-keeping, searching for supplies, researching, doing publicity, answering queries, putting up shelves, sweeping the floor, and filling in forms all leave far less time at the lathe than I would like.
In 1985 I went to the Saint Chartier Festival for the first time and exhibited as a maker. This gained me contacts and orders for my pipes from many foreign shores. One order was for a musa, a bagpipe from northern Italy which has not survived as a living tradition. Luckily a musa has been preserved in the Scottish National Museum in Edinburgh, complete with its reeds. The chanter is in C and it has obviously been a much used pipe, as the player’s fingers and both thumbs have worn deep grooves in it (something I have never seen on a musette de cour chanter). The moveable section of the drone is peppered with eight holes seemingly drilled at random, with several of them filled with wax. Why they are drilled so haphazardly is a mystery, but they do give various possibilities for drone tunings, including C, F, and G. This could also be the purpose of the holes on drones sometimes shown in early illustrations of bagpipes. It has a fairly loud and vivacious sound and I am looking forward to hearing it played with a piff ero, the shawm still played in northern Italy.
I am at present working on making a Scottish small-pipe. There are many fine mouth- and bellows-blown examples of these in museums and there is currently a revival of interest in them. The Lowland and Borders Pipers’ Society are encouraging the revival of all bellows-blown Scottish pipes.
For busking and playing in the band I use a loud set of G/C pipes with a Jon Swayne chanter. This autumn I have started developing my own G/C
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chanter using a different bore and reed and this has greatly increased my respect for Jon’s design. I’m not attempting to copy it: but if all makers of English pipes develop their chanters from scratch then the English pipe isn’t going to evolve in the way that, for example, the Highland chanter and reed have. Today’s Highland chanter and reed have evolved through several hundred years of development and improvement. I am interested to hear other pipe-makers’ views about this.
There are many other kinds of pipes that I look forward to making eventually or copying; but I want my pipes to be useful and used. For me the most satisfying part of making is hearing my pipes being played by other people. I always like to get feedback from players to see if I can improve and modify my design in the light of their experience. In this way the pipes can evolve and improve.
I shall end with a piece of advice on social etiquette if you should ever meet an instrument-maker. Instrument-makers tend to make instruments and not a living. Thus it is not polite to say ‘Is this how you make a living?’. The tactful enquiry is ‘Do you do this full-time?’
Julian Goodacre
LEICESTERSHIRE PIPER IN ITALY
I want to account for the generous reception of my piping at a festival in northern Italy last June, the first Folkermesse at Casale Monferrato. The revival of the Leicestershire small-pipes which my brother Julian makes (cylindrical chanter, with open end but closed fingering, and one drone), has only been going on for a couple of years and I had played no other pipes before.
We were both impressed by the recordings of the Italian revival group ‘La Ciapa Rusa’ (The Red Patch) and when they visited England in May 1984 I went down to Cecil Sharp House to hear them play at a Friday dance. The group includes Beppe Greppi on the organetto (melodeon), Gerardo Cardinale on the piffero, the folk shawm which is a surviving tradition in the region, and Maurizio Martinotti, who researches and arranges many of their tunes, songs and dances (all local material), and plays the ghironda (hurdy-gurdy). They have so far failed to revive the musa, the bagpipe to play with the piffero, and so they were intrigued to hear our pipe, especially when I demonstrated it by playing several of their tunes I had learnt from their record.
The result was an invitation to perform at the three-day festival they were putting on in mid-June 1985 in their own city of Casale Monferrato, which is between Milan and Turin. Their aim was to bring together all the best Italian revival groups using drone instruments. Italy retains a surprisingly diverse culture. Italian folk musicians known abroad were often hurdy-gurdy playing beggars from Savoy. As might be expected the revival of the ghironda is well under way. Apart from ‘La Ciapa Rusa’ three other Italian groups included a ghironda player, one of whom was exhibiting as a maker as well.
The surviving or recently extinct piping traditions vary enormously. Most mysterious and isolated is the launeddas of Sardinia (two unequal cylindrical chanters and a drone, all inserted directly into the mouth). The exciting and progressive music of ‘Ritmia’ (Rhythms) takes its inspiration partly from the launeddas, without actually using the instrument. The southern bagpipe, the zampogna (two unequal conical chanters with drones), is still played in more than one region, with or without its shawm the ciaramella. One group, ‘Re Niliu’ (King Niliu), make good use of two zampogne in their progressive music; but it would have been a great expense to bring them all the way up from Catanzaro if they had been free. A group from the Friuli area, ‘La Sedon Salvadie’ (The Savage Spoon) did include a zampogna, but with only one chanter playing. In the north-east towards Trieste the bagpipe is a priva of a Balkan type (unequal double cylindrical chanter with no drone).
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Massimo Fumagalli played one in the group ‘Calicanto’ from the Veneto area.
Across the rest of the north of Italy there were several varieties of a more orthodox bagpipe, the piva (pipe), typically with conical chanter, no thumb hole, one drone an octave below and sometimes another an octave below that. The enthusiast for the revival of the piva del carner (pipe with bag) from Emilia is Bruno Grulli, who issues a magazine with that title. Besides his Balkan-type pipes, Massimo Fumagalli also played and exhibited his handsome re-creation of a piva from the Veneto, the baga (bag). The group Calicanto has made a couple of very cheerful recordings. Another maker exhibiting his different sizes of piva from the Alpine region was Walter Biella from Bergamo. The pipe in the western mountain region was the musa. ‘Prinsi Raimund’ from Turin, another group unable to attend, have used a bagpipe in their recordings, but a French cornemuse and not a musa. Maurizio Martinotti is determined to revive the musa for playing with ‘La Ciapa Rusa’. Several reconstructions have so far failed. On my first meeting with him he immediately asked if Julian would make one for him.
In pioneering this festival Maurizio Martinotti and Beppe Greppi hoped to encourage Italian revival groups to take inspiration from their own regional folk music. For, as so often happens, much of the craze for folk music recently has been for foreign music, either American Old Time, Country and Bluegrass or so-called ‘Celtic’, Scottish, Breton and ‘The Chieftains’/ ‘Bothy Band’ style of Irish music.
So some of the most skilled young Italian groups are singing in American and serving up their own selection of Irish tunes. One from the Milan area, ‘Celtag’, included a piper using both union pipes and Breton biniou. It struck me that to free himself from the Irish tradition what Lorenzo Galantini needs is something simpler - a Leicestershire small-pipe perhaps? Or why not some sort of piva? Another group, from La Spezia on the west coast, with the ‘Celtic’ name of ‘Lancelot’, included a piper using a fully elaborated set of Northumbrian small-pipes. Mauro Mancardi realised he could make things simpler for himself and ordered a Leicestershire small-pipe for a start.
The encouragement offered was to invite representative groups from elsewhere in Western Europe. So we heard ‘The House Band’ from Edinburgh, with Jimmy Young using his Northumbrian small-pipes forcefully, more like a folk bagpipe than highly developed parlour pipes; and the tactful union pipe playing of Dave Munro merging into the friendly sound of ‘Setanta’, the Irish/Scottish group from Glasgow. Did I dare to think that they both might use simpler instruments to advantage? ‘Cabestan’ (Capstan), a group from Brittany, specialising not in biniou and bombarde dance music but in sea shanties and fishermen’s songs, include a piper using their regional pipe, the veuze. I found Bernard Subert mastering the double chanter complexities of a facsimile Baroque musette de cour, which he cannot play with the group as it is in Baroque pitch. I showed him that what he needed was a simple musette and he ordered a Leicestershire small-pipe. To represent the vigorous piping traditions of central France, the chabrette, cornemuse, etc., there were ‘Cafe Charbons’ from the Auvergne with Dominique Paris and ‘Lo Jai’ (The Jay) from Limousin with the incomparable Eric Montbel. One of only two solo performances was by John Molineux, the English singer and magic player of dulcimers. He betrayed the drone theme of the festival as he has developed his playing so far to liberate his dulcimer from being a drone instrument.
On the Saturday evening, straight after the home group ‘La Ciapa Rusa’, there steps onto the stage a lone piper from the British tradition, with the simplest of small-pipes (not to mention his double chanter pipes, which are another story) and plays not Celtic music for once but his own personal English tunes. John Molineux has suggested that the good reception of my limited playing was due to my image as a typical Englishman - certainly the report in the Italian magazine Hi Folks! says I seemed to have stepped straight from the pages of a vintage Wodehouse novel - and that if concentrate on the image it will not matter what I play. But I promise I wore no deerstalker hat or bowler and rolled brolly. And my busking in the vast open market during the week went down well too. I earned enough for my breakfast, an Italian straw hat, and a real leather belt for my bellows, When I discovered it has a buckle of solid brass I went on playing to buy another as a spare.
International contacts, influences and even borrowings are often the stimulus for progress. In England ‘Blowzabella’ have looked abroad to France and taken on something of the live tradition of bal folk and its music. This way they may be better able to tackle the conscious revival of similar English traditions. I hope that revivalists like Maurizio Martinotti will succeed in encouraging their compatriots to draw parallels between what is being achieved abroad and what they can do with their own various traditions and instruments. Of course they will fail to secure a return to some hypothetical ‘purity’ of national or regional tradition; piping, even of Italian music, may never be quite the same again for Italians who have heard and played cornemuse, biniou, union pipes, Northumbrian small-pipes or even Leicestershire small-pipes. Meanwhile Julian continues to play and make English bagpipes in Scotland. Now he is developing an Italian musa suitable for its revival in Monferrato. Here he has one advantage; the most complete example to survive has been preserved in an Edinburgh museum.
John Goodacre
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THE BLOWZABELLA WORKSHOP WEEK END
DANCE TUNE COMPETITION
The competition at the Blowzabella workshop weekend, held in Newbury last September, produced several interesting ditties. The tunes were to be written during the weekend, which is not easy when there is so much going on. Jon Swayne won the competition with his ‘Hasty Jig’. The title refers to the speed with which the tune was written, not how it should be played - Jon was still putting the finishing touches whilst other competitors were performing their entries! It was written to be played on his new Northumbrian-style half-longs (six-finger note, g; drones in G; range, g to c’’ with the seven-finger note sounding f).
The other entries were two bourrees and a hornpipe. John Goodacre’s bourree, ‘The Fruits of Newbury’, was written to be played on a Leicestershire bagpipe made by his brother Julian (six-finger note, d’; drones in D; range d’ to d’’ with the seven-finger note sounding c#). Peter Stacey named his entry ‘Bourree Michelle Fromenteau’ after the organizer of the St. Chartier Festival in France. It was played on a gaita galega (six-finger note, c’; one drone sounding c; range c’ to e’; seven-finger note, b). ‘Bourree Michelle Fromenteau’ is given here in the key of G which is probably a more convenient key.
There will probably be another competition next year, and hopefully there will be many more entries.
Judy Tarry
Octave and Pitch: An Editorial Note
In an attempt to avoid too much confusion in the discussion of musical pitch, particularly the business of locating the octave in question, the following system has been adopted:
C is the C below the bass stave and so upwards, D, E, F, etc., to B, until c (2nd space, bass stave), and so on until: c’ (‘middle C’), and so on until c’’ (3rd space, treble stave); and then c’’’ (C above treble stave, etc.)
This is the system used by Anthony Baines in Bagpipes (Oxford: Pitt Rivers Museum, 1960). It would be useful if readers would make a note of this system and use it when discussing pitch in articles submitted to Chanter.
[Musical scores titled:
Hasty Jig © Jon Swayne 8.9.1985
Weekend Hornpipe © Judy Tarry 8.9.1985
The Fruits of Newbury © John Goodacre 8.9.1985]
A REPERTOIRE FOR THE ENGLISH BAGPIPE?
Introduction
In the British Isles and Ireland there are three distinct and well-established surviving bagpipe traditions. The best known of these is that of the Scottish Highland bagpipe whose heroic style has been carried to far-flung parts of the world thanks to its military associations at a time of British Imperialism. The recent vogue for all things Irish (at least in the folk world) has left few unaware of the distinctive sound of the Irish uillean pipe - one of the most sophisticated of bagpipes, and very much an indoor instrument. The Northumbrian small-pipe, like the Irish uillean pipe, is a cold-air instrument with its own distinct style and repertoire.
But a wealth of evidence in literary and visual sources points to the existence of various forms of bagpipes and proto-bagpipes in parts of England from as early as the tenth century to as late as the eighteenth century. Convincing research carried out by Francis Collinson attests the wide dissemination and varied forms of the instrument in England in this extensive historical period.¹ Another leading researcher in this field, Roderick Cannon, throws himself behind argument claiming that bagpipes ‘were popular throughout England and Wales.’ ‘Not until the sixteenth century was there any substantial decline’, he argues. ‘For a considerable time after that, bagpipes remained fairly familiar to English ears, and yet were not associated with Scotland so much as with Northern England, especially the hills and dales of Derbyshire, Lancashire and Yorkshire.’² He draws these conclusions from a review of literary and historical evidence relating to the English bagpipe ‘from the time when it first began to be regarded as a regional “folk” instrument, down to its final extinction in the early nineteenth century.’³ In a later piece of research, Roderick Cannon examined the visual evidence for the English bagpipe: paintings, engravings, and ceramic figures from c.1550 to 1800.⁴ From this examination he concludes that the illustrations of the instrument are largely spurious, being copied from older works or foreign sources. He regrets that he has to conclude that there is ‘no picture that we can confidently accept’⁵ as a good illustration of the English bagpipe in this period. He emphasizes, however, that because the illustrations and figures that he has examined appear to be spurious, this does not mean that there were no ‘loud-sounding mouth-blown bagpipes’ to be heard in England in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
The fact that there are no extant instruments, or any authoritative visual sources for the English bagpipe has not deterred modern makers of historical instruments from attempting to reconstruct the instrument. Indeed, it may be
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argued that the mystery that surrounds the subject has helped to fire the imagination. Bill O’Toole and Alan Ginsberg created single-drone instruments. Andrew Heywood constructed a two-drone instrument which I believe is loosely based on an illustration from Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. Jon Swayne’s ‘Early English Bagpipe’ has an exterior design which intends to ‘convey the flavour of the pipes illustrated in manuscripts and pictures of the fifteenth to seventeenth centuries.‘6 More recently Julian Goodacre has constructed an instrument that he describes as the ‘Leicestershire Small-pipe’ - a single drone instrument which may be mouth- or bellows-blown. The instruments made and marketed by Julian Goodacre and Jon Swayne are popular and quite widely distributed. Apart from these instruments from the more well-known professional makers, other instruments have been constructed by players and amateur makers. Francis Baines, for example, has built a convincing copy of the double-chanter small-pipe described in the Talbot MS.7 Clive Palmer has constructed an instrument inspired by the Cornish source at Altarnun Church.8 No doubt many other instruments have been made…
As well as the instruments that have been constructed as copies of early English bagpipes, several players have used instruments from other traditions, or instruments constructed after non-English models, for the performance of early English music. The gaita gallega, for example, is commonly regarded as a typologically more or less unchanged version of the western European bagpipe, and as such it may be used for English medieval music as well as any other single-drone reconstruction. At least it has the advantage that, like many other instruments from surviving folk traditions, it works extremely well and does not have the difficulties that so often beset reconstructed instruments. Other players use reconstructions of Flemish pipes. This is an instrument that is very accurately depicted in sixteenth and seventeenth century sources, and one that has been successfully built by makers in Belgium and England for a comparatively long period now.9 Moreover, the two-drone Flemish bagpipe may be regarded as a fairly close relative of its English counterpart.
Several important points emerge from this exciting and diverse picture. The fact that there is no single instrument that represents the English bagpipe reflects the varied nature of the sources. Probably there was no single instrument that achieved the status of a standard national instrument in the way that the instruments of the living British and Irish traditions have. Possibly there were several types of instrument associated with different regions in the country. In attempting to create a repertoire of early English bagpipe music we must be aware that we are not looking for music to fit a single standardized instrument with a distinct sonority, technique, and chanter range. Instead we are looking for types of music that may fit on a variety of instruments constructed after the various sources of inspiration. In short, we are not looking for one repertoire, but several. And if one is aiming at historical authenticity it is not only necessary to consider the regional variants of the instrument, but also the form of the instrument that would have been played at the point of time in question. However, until material comes to light that will enable us to reconstruct the instruments and associated repertoire of early bagpiping traditions in the various English regions in specific historical periods, we are bound to use one of the several reconstructed or surrogate instruments as a generalized representative of the early English bagpipe.
Having created an early English bagpipe, or adopted an instrument as a surrogate, one faces the problem of repertoire. Quite simply, now we have an instrument what are we going to play on it? It seems to me that there are three main possibilities.
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To seek out the melodies that formed the authentic bagpipe repertoire of the early English bagpipe, and of course here we are looking at a wide historical spectrum.
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To examine contemporary collections which, though they may not contain authentic bagpipe repertoire, have melodies that work on bagpipes, or may be successfully adapted for bagpipes.
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To borrow repertoire from other established bagpipe traditions. Here a wide spectrum of possibilities presents itself, from the traditions of the Celtic countries (Scotland, Ireland, Brittany, and Galicia) to those of Central France, and Eastern Europe.
Looking at the third option first, the great advantage of borrowing from other established bagpipe traditions is that the repertoire that comes from these sources contains melodic forms that are adapted to the drone aesthetic. It is very satisfying to play French bourrees, for example, because they fit so beautifully on the drone. And it is important to play music that fits well — simply to develop an awareness of what good drone music is, and how it works. However, ultimately do we want to become honorary Frenchmen or women?
The first option is much more problematical: it is my belief that it is virtually impossible to re-discover the original repertoire of the early English bagpipe, although Roderick Cannon has made a bold effort in this direction. As he suggests, the ideal source for this enquiry would be:
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A collection of tunes set down by some old piper in his own hand, or failing that, a transcription from the live performance made by a competent folklorist. Such documents exist in plenty for the three surviving bagpipe traditions of Ireland, Scotland, and Northumberland, but we have nothing comparable from other areas.’ ¹⁰
Unfortunately we have no such source and the effort to discover the authentic repertoire is a piece of detective work that seems doomed to failure due to the severe paucity of material and evidence.
This leaves us with the second option: to create a repertoire for early English bagpipes using similar proportions of science and imagination as have the makers of the instruments themselves. Perhaps this is something of a compromise, but, in constrast with the first option, it is a possible solution; and, unlike the third option, it does involve working with early English sources. While this introductory article has been devoted to theoretical problems and background issues, later articles to be published in this journal will examine particular English sources from medieval times to the eighteenth century, and discuss techniques of selection and adaptation of the melodies.
Peter Stacey
NOTES
- See Francis Collinson, The Bagpipe: The History of a Musical Instrument (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1975), pp.65-114. In this interesting chapter Collinson suggests that all sorts of bagpipe and proto-bagpipe were played in England from the mouth-blown divergent pipes (or tibia) and the droneless chorus, to the single-drone and two-drone instruments.
- Roderick Cannon, ‘The Bagpipe in Northern England’, Folk Music Journal II, No.2 (1971), p.127.
- Ibid.
- Roderick Cannon, ‘Bagpipes in English Works of Art’, Galpin Society Journal (forthcoming).
- Ibid.
- See Jon Swayne’s recent publicity leaflet, available from Jon Swayne, 1 Gilbert’s Corner, Baltonsborough, Glastonbury, Somerset, England BA6 8RB.
- The Talbot MS is discussed in some detail by William Cocks in an article entitled ‘James Talbot’s Manuscript. III Bagpipes’, Galpin Society Journal V (1952).
- For an illustration of this source see Anthony Baines, Bagpipes (Oxford, Pitt Rivers Museum, 1960), p.102.
- The renaissance of the Flemish bagpipe is now well-established and there are several makers in Belgium and England. Notable makers in Belgium include Herman Dewit, who performs with the group ’t Kliekske, and Remy Dubois. Makers in England include Andrew Heywood and Jon Swayne.
- Roderick Cannon, ‘English Bagpipe Music’, Folk Music Journal II, no.3 (1972), p.176.
FOCUS ON BLOWZABELLA
Blowzabella’s Peculiar Bit in the Middle
An Interview with Paul James
At the first Annual General Meeting of The Bagpipe Society on December 1, 1985, Sangit Jashan (alias German Jo) interviewed Paul James about Blowzabella’s repertoire and their approach to arranging their music.
The Learning Process
Sangit Jashan:
So, to get down to the nitty-gritty, you start from knowing a tune, o maybe you actually start from hearing a tune, you tape it, or write it down from tape. Sometimes you just play it I guess. Obviously you might mis the odd note, you might get something wrong and you don’t bother abou that.
Paul James:
Tunes come from various sources - like somebody’s heard somebody els playing it and either it’s been recorded or more often we’ve just learnt f from someone at a pub or a festival - and we’re reasonably accurate I think There are some tunes that we’ve collected and we play which are actuall quite different from the traditional ones, but I think that’s part of th process. Obviously you try to reconstitute the tune, say you know 98% of and if you put in another 2% that’s different, then that’s completely vali Sometimes I even find, when we check back with the original, that we ha improved a tune. So we change quite a lot of tunes very subtly. That just nothing to worry about really.
You might get people turning round and saying ‘that’s not right.’ But m attitude is that if it sounds good and is a functional tune then that surely the only point.
S.J. It’s a bit of a purist thing . . .
P.J. Yes, but I’m all for trying to get the tune right where we can, ofte the tune’s good because it’s got those bits in and the design of the tune as good as it’ll ever be.
Aural Arrangement
S.J. Right, and then you start playing the tune all together?
P.J. In an evening of dancing we probably only play three or four s arrangements, the rest of the time we’re just playing tunes that either son or all of us know.
Often we all know the tune but we don’t have an arrangement for it. We know each other so well that we can knock out an arrangement that changes from gig to gig and so if a new tune comes in — say Nigel’s got a really nice tune, maybe Jon’s heard it too, and I know it, or half know it, we just play it at a dance, play it at the next dance, and the dance after that. Dave Shepherd will pick up on it, and he’ll write some chords . . .
S.J. That’s on the melodeon is it?
P.J. No, the violin, because he plays a lot of unusual chords on the violin, which Dave Roberts will pick up on the Melodeon. Then we find that we’ve got a ‘half’ arrangement and everybody likes it. So then when we have a rehearsal (which isn’t often I must say) we’ll actually say what we thought was good about it and we’ll make some conscious decisions. We’ll sort out what the chords should be and make sure that everybody is abiding by them. Really what we do is to edit it. We take all the rubbish out — the bits that weren’t working.
There’s a lot of give and take. You know what bands are like - you’re constantly compromising - and because we’ve been at it for some time we’re good at compromising. We always reach a situation where most of the band like the arrangement and often we’re totally unanimous. I think that’s the hardest thing about bands - you’re forever compromising your ideas, in Blowzabella’s case with five other people. The bigger the band the more compromises there are, but we get on well enough that we can manage.
S.J. Is the arrangement totally written out in staff notation?
P.J. No, it’s all in our heads. We’ll write the bass line out, we’ll write the chords out — that’s just so that we can remember what they are for reference - and then they get stuffed into the bottom of a melodeon case or something . . .
Then sometimes we’ll decide that a tune will benefit from an introduction or adding a peculiar bit in the middle and we’ll consciously compose those. That’s the way we do it. It’s a largely aural arrangement that has developed. We keep notes, we sometimes just tape-record them. Often we don’t even bother . . . So that’s how we develop a nice melody that we’ve heard somewhere into a piece that is immediately recognizable as a Blowzabella arrangement.
Blasting Away From A to Z
P.J. One of the problems with folk music - and we’ve all found this - is that you get a tune and you all blast away from A to Z. It’s far more interesting to try to get away from that and start leaving holes. Because I’m used to playing pipes and woodwinds, I’m used to playing the tune. I start at the beginning and at the end of the thing I stop. What I’m more interested in doing now is not playing, is leaving gaps. It’s a cliché of arranging really, but sometimes it doesn’t occur to people playing folk music.
Another thing is to start thinking about dance music as being a music where the rhythm is first and the tune is a completely secondary issue - it’s just the icing on the cake. The primary thing in any dance music, whether it’s tango, or tex-mex, is the rhythm. The tune is nothing. The tune is just a way of making the rhythm more palatable.
S.J. So you take the rhythm and the chords . . .
P.J. How we tend to do it now is to work far more on the chords and the rhythm. Sometimes we can go right off the tune and it’s more or less the chords pumping away against the rhythm: percussion of trompette of the hurdy-gurdy. You can actually stop playing the tune, they’ll keep dancing because they’re dancing to rhythm. When you come back in with the tune it’s a huge crescendo . . .
Blowzabella started off as a monophonic band - six people playing the tune, and that’s ludicrous. The second thing we did was to have six people playing the tune but we’d interweave the harmonies. Now we see it as a completely different thing: a layer of melody, harmony against melody, then chords in the middle, and a bass line at the bottom. Within this structure everybody has the potential to play or not to play. So that adds an extra element to the texture.
S.J. So you write down the melody line. Somebody plays it all the time, presumably.
P.J. We don’t write it down! We just agree on it. Different people play the tune at different times.
S.J. Say the hurdy-gurdy plays the tune and you have the bass line and harmony in between . . .
P.J. So then we have a nice structure, it’s always the same chords, it’s always the same bass-line, and then on top of that we can improvise. Once you know what the structure is you can mess around and improvise on it.
Making Sure it Works
S.J. And how do you make sure that if you drop out and Jon picks up the whistle and you pick up the rauschpfeife that the improvised arrangement still works?
P.J. Well, at dances we don’t. Sometimes it goes terribly wrong, you know. We’re playing away, say Jon and I are playing bagpipes, and I decide to put my bagpipes down and come in on another instrument when we change to another tune. At the same moment Jon’s thought of the same thing and we
both stop playing at the same time and it sounds terrible! So we do have our disasters, sometimes it sounds awful, and sometimes it sound really good. For concerts we decide which intruments to use and we stick to it. You have to because in concerts people expect us to put on a certain level of professional performance. So concerts are much more organised.
Influences
S.J. I used to think that people like Jon Swayne - who play keyboards and have a vast understanding of harmony and music - that they’d do a lot of the arranging . . .
P.J. Surprisingly, it rarely happens that way. It does in some cases where it just needs a clever thing that has to be worked out technically. I can think of three or four instances where Jon has written out three recorder parts in harmony. That’s really nice, but I wouldn’t want it to be that way all the time. I think the essence is to do all these things, have a bit of a free-for-all and a bit of worked-out stuff and everything in between. If we improvised all the time it would be too hit-and-miss. On the other hand, if we worked in a very technical way we’d get bored with the band. We’re not an orchestra, we’ve got a lot more to do with jazz (I suppose). There’s a bit of folk music, a bit of jazz influence, even a little bit of rock music influence. You probably can’t hear it, but you can feel it as a sort of attitude. There’s a little bit of classical music influence as well, you know, just a little bit . . .
S.J. I listened to some French group - and their sound was very close to Blowzabella’s. I don’t know who was around first, but there’s this French group with a ’cello …?
P.J. Oh, Les Ecoliers de Saint Genest. Well, actually we were around before them, but there were other French bands that influenced Blowzabella. In England we sound unique, but on the Continent we didn’t. Initially, we based a lot of our ideas on French and Flemish bands. Now I think we’ve got our own style. When we started we were basically a rip-off of the Continental bagpipe and hurdy-gurdy bands.
S.J. Importing French ideas …
P.J. Yes, that’s right. But now we’ve got our own identity simply because we’ve been doing it for a certain amount of time and we’ve developed our own musical character.
Composing
P.J. We compose a lot of our tunes now. A growing part of the repertoire is self-penned. I think this is a brilliant area. There’s nothing wrong with playing traditional tunes, but it’s nice to try and invent something of your own.
S.J. Who does the composing?
P.J. Jon, Dave Shepherd, Nigel, Cliff Stapleton. I’ve composed a couple. Writing simple dance tunes is very easy. If you play the pipes or something when you knock out a little tune what you tend to do is to write something that you’ve already heard. All the tunes I’ve composed are really pastiches of everything I’ve heard. But the traditional tunes were probably composed in the same way, they were pastiches of four or five other tunes. There’s nothing very complicated about it.
(Interview transcribed and edited by Peter Stacey)
BLOWZABELLA: A Factual History
BLOWZABELLA was formed in late 1978 by 4 students studying Musical Instrument Technology at the London College of Furniture. Primarily the band was formed for fun, to play for dancing at fairs and alternative festivals and secondarily to play bagpipes with hurdy-gurdies, which, at that time, was an innovative direction to take in the context of the British folk music scene.
The band’s first repertoire was French, Belgian, English and Balkan dance music. They played ‘English’ bagpipes, Macedonian bagpipes, melodoon, bouzouki, tapan, flutes, kavals and hurdy-gurdy.
Although it seems from the constantly changing line-ups that the band was in a constant state of flux, the group have always followed one particular musical direction; creating an interesting sound using unusual acoustic instruments and experimenting with British and European traditional folk music by devising their own arrangements.
The main differences between the original Blowzabella and the present line-up are firstly a move towards playing much more British and self-composed music and secondly a change of emphasis from a situation where the bagpipes/hurdy-gurdy were the primary instruments to a situation where all the instruments carry equal weight in the sound and texture of the arrangements!
Paul James
Formed at the London College of Furniture in 1978
1979 - Jon Swayne, Dave Roberts, Sam Palmer
Passage Of Arms – Dave Roberts, Sam Palmer, Chris Gunstone, John Orford
Bagpipes -
Melodeon, Hurdy Gurdy
Bouzouki, Tapan, Flutes
Jon Swayne, Bill O’Toole, Dave Roberts, Sam Palmer, Chris Gunstone
Bagpipes, Melodeon, Hurdy Gurdy
Jon Swayne, Dave Roberts, Sam Palmer, Chris Gunstone
1981 - Jon Swayne, Dave Roberts, Sam Palmer, Chris Gunstone, Paul James
FIRST ALBUM - BLOWZABELLA - Paul James, Cliff Stapleton
Bagpipes, Melodeon, Hurdy Gurdy
Violin
1982 - Jon Swayne, Dave Roberts, Sam Palmer, Chris Gunstone, Paul James, Cliff Stapleton
SECOND ALBUM - N’COLOUR – Paul James, Cliff Stapleton
Bagpipes, Melodeon, Hurdy Gurdy
Violin
P.V. 1983 - June 1982
1983 - Jon Swayne, Dave Roberts, Sam Palmer, Chris Gunstone, Paul James, Cliff Stapleton
THIRD ALBUM - BOBBINSIGHT – Paul James, Cliff Stapleton, Dave Shepherd
Bagpipes, Hurdy Gurdy, Violin
1984 - Dave Roberts, Dave Shepherd, Nigel Eaton, Dave Shepherd
1985 - Dave Roberts, Dave Shepherd, Nigel Eaton, Dave Shepherd
1986 - Jon Swayne, Dave Roberts, Paul James, Nigel Eaton, Dave Shepherd
NEW ALBUM BEING RECORDED IN MARCH 1986. TO BE RELEASED IN MAY ‘86.
Jon Swayne - Bagpipes, Melodeon, Hurdy Gurdy,
Dave Roberts - Ian Luhr - Bass Guitar, Cliff Tern - Percussion
Paul James - Nigel Eaton - Dave Shepherd
Violin
Hurdy-Gurdy
Bagpipes
Vocals
Fiddles
Whistle
RECORD REVIEWS
ABERJABER Sain/Cambrian
The second and final record by the Welsh group CROMLECH featured, as its finale, an instrumental set of three traditional Welsh tunes played by Peter Stacey (gaita), Stevie Wishart (fiddle) and Delyth Evans (harp). From a slow buildup on the beautiful slow air ‘Hindeg’, the perfectly judged entry of the bagpipe provides one of my favourite moments of recorded music. This line-up now comprises ABERJABER and it was hoped that their debut album would take up where CROMLECH left off. This record does not disappoint, and it points to a brave new direction for Welsh folk music, away from the bland Eisteddfod formality or the artificially imposed Irish style. The music on this album, both traditional and composed, exhibits a delicacy and restraint which can, where appropriate, flex its muscles to great effect. The arrangements have obviously been thought out very carefully and the wide range of sound textures invariably complement the tunes.
The record opens with a Stacey composition, ‘Hofedd Mistress Wishart’, a simple but memorable tune in which the gaita makes a quiet entry, coming more to the fore for the Galician ‘Aires de Pontevedra.’ The latter track is, unfortunately, taken at a rattling pace which does not leave enough space for the stately nature of the tune to come across. The drum part sits rather uneasily on the tune, particularly as Stevie’s trompetting on the hurdy-gurdy provides ample rhythm. That aside, the blend of gaita, hurdy-gurdy and harp is very successful and is enhanced by being well-recorded and sympathetically produced. The normal problem on recordings of drone instruments seems to be missing out the drone entirely and consequently missing out one of the main features of the instruments (particularly with pipes where chanter and drone are some distance apart). Happily, the balance is achieved on this record with the drones present but not overwhelming, particularly when the harp provides a chordal accompaniment.
Delyth’s harp playing, whether as accompaniment or melodist is often understated but is a vital presence; her composition ‘Berwyn’ is gentle and moving, and is given a very sympathetic reading by the group.
Stevie’s fiddle playing is an essential cornerstone of ABERJABER’s sound and her use of double-stopping, especially on the faster pieces, allows her to play solo without any diminution of the energy or presence of the tune. She has a very distinctive style which transfers well to the crwth, the bowed lyre which only went into decline in Wales in the nineteenth century. The stringing of this instrument with its flat bridge and two drone strings is exploited to good effect in ‘Three fires,’ a piece based on a melody from
the Ap Huw manuscripts. It provides the perfect foil for the gaita in the Breton An Dro which follows it.
Other high spots are ‘Cynghansail Cymru’, a set of twenty-four variations on a ground by Edward Jones (a composition first published in 1784 in his Musical and Poetical Relicks of the Welsh Bards) which is given a very spacious and baroque treatment, ‘Diddanwch Gruffydd ap Cynan’ a slow air from the same collection, and ‘Stevie’s Tune’, composed by Stevie for flute, fiddle and harp.
Peter Stacey is a fine bagpipe player and has avoided the easy course of using the pipes at every possible occasion, playing flute or recorder on most tracks, and only bringing in the pipes when they make most impact. The open, sweet tone of the gaita gallega makes it an ideal choice for an ensemble such as this. Since double-tracking is used on some tracks it would have been nice to hear two pipes in harmony as in traditional Galician music, this might be a point worth bearing in mind for future records. Allowing for the paucity of written and iconographical evidence for the bagpipe in Wales, it is a reasonable assumption that a cylindrical-droned, conical-chantered bagpipe such as the gaita galega would have been used in Wales (although the double hornpipe chanter in St. Fagan’s, the National Museum of Wales, points to the possible existence of a quite different instrument). The pipes lead the finale of three Welsh dance tunes (Machynlleth, Pwt ar y bys, and Llanfoer Reel) and demonstrate most eloquently the place of drone instruments in Welsh music.
I cannot think of any folk group with which to compare ABERJABER in terms of the sound they create, and I find it most pleasing that, in this age of synthesizers, they have managed to create such an original sound using instruments of such an antique and venerable pedigree. An important album for Welsh folk music, this, and let us hope only the first step along a new path.
Simon Owen
42 43
HAMISH MOORE, CAULD WIND PIPES DUNKELD RECORDS DUN 003
Old Schoolhouse, Butterstone, Dunkeld, Perthshire
The title of this record refers to the fact that it features Scottish bellows-blown pipes (hence cold-blown air), and a very interesting variety of instruments is on display here. While the Lowland pipes are in the midst of a revival and are becoming increasingly common, such things as the Scottish small-pipes and the Pastoral pipes were only previously known (to this reviewer) as museum specimens.
The cylindrically-bored chanter of the Scottish small-pipe produces a sound not dissimilar to that of the Northumbrian pipes. However, it is open-ended (unlike the closed Northumbrian type), and allows one to play using Scottish-style gracing. This record features four different types of Scottish small-pipe chanter (all reconstructions of actual 19th century examples): plain chanters in D and B, one double chanter (two bores in one piece of wood) and a keyed chanter (with a wider range).
The Lowland pipe used here is a 19th century instrument very similar in tone and style to the Highland pipe and is played in a stylistically very similar manner, though considerably quieter.
The pastoral pipe has three drones and one regulator in a common stock, and a chanter with a similar length and bore to an uillean pipe. In addition it has an extended ‘foot’ joint which is open-ended, thus the overblowing of this instrument cannot be facilitated by knee-stopping and relies on bag pressure alone. The set on this record, made by Chris Bailey, has a very sweet sound and seems to handle the transition between octaves very easily.
An album which features such rare instruments as these could be forgiven for putting the sound of the intruments before the tunes that they play, but fortunately this is not the case. The pieces composed by Hamish Moore are as strong as the traditional pieces, and the contributions of the other musicians, especially Dougie Maclean, are complementary but not obtrusive. A poem spoken over a piece of music is usually bad news all round, both the artists suffering in the process, but Harvey Horton’s poem in Lowland Scots bears repeated listening. Playing the small-pipes against the rhythm of a watermill is a successful and unusual combination, but not as unexpected a combination as that of small-pipes and didgeridoo on the hornpipe ‘Sailor’s Lass’. Providing drone and rhythm, the didgeridoo establishes a formidable presence, while rhythm of another kind is provided by Jim Sutherland’s very exciting and upfront bodhran part on his composition ‘The Dogs’. ‘Calanish’, the tune which opens the record is an atmospheric and mysterious tune and shows off the rich tone of the double-bored chanter, which must have been very meticulously set up (by Colin Ross) since there is very little dissonance across the compass. ‘Roslyn Castle’, which features
Pastoral pipes is an outstanding traditional tune and the sweet tone of the pipes blends with the clarsach to make it the best tune on the whole record, in my opinion.
The Lowland pipes and small-pipes are played with the same fingerings as Highland pipes and show the same stylistic approach. This similarity is particularly evident when the pibroch ‘Macrummen’s Lament’ is played on the small-pipes and is then taken up by Highland pipes in a seamless changeover. The token appearance by the Highland pipes serves to put the rest of the instruments used into perspective and demonstrates the richness of the tradition of Scottish pipes and piping.
This record is a valuable addition to the canon of recorded bagpipe music both for the rare instruments it introduces and for the quality of the tunes played and a high level of skill by Hamish Moore. The whole set is recorded and produced with crystal clarity and a sympathetic ear, and features a lovely cover painting by Jennifer Maclean.
Simon Owen
L’Art de la Cornemuse, Eric Montbel; Arion ARN 36796
A brand new addition to Arion’s L’Art de … series from one of the great exponents of bagpipes from the central part of France. Side One contains six tracks of simple but imaginative arrangements of traditional waltzes, bourrees, schottishes, polkas and airs using different sizes of cornemuse Bourbonnais and chabrette Limousin accompanied, here and there, by violin, hurdy-gurdy, accordeon and percussion. The detailed sleeve notes (in *French) give ample information about the music and background information on the various types of central French bagpipes. More interestingly though, Eric Montbel takes the opportunity to describe the three periods of development of French bagpipes. The 17th and 18th centuries, the period from the middle of the 19th century up to the Second World War and, most importantly, the modern period, the revival which started in the 1970s.
Side Two of the record is devoted to the French bagpipes as an instrument for the 1980s. Five self-composed pieces for bagpipes with largely electronic accompaniment. (Synthesisers, bass guitar and drum machine). Bagpipe records are normally exercises in re-hashing traditional or idiomatically traditional music and it is very refreshing to see Eric Montbel confidently striving for innovation. The results are not totally successful, ‘Cinema’ ends up sounding like background soundtrack material for a dull but worthy film but ‘Dancing Fairy’ (hate the title Eric), ‘Train de Nuit’ and ‘Calme’ are superb fusions of the distinctive bagpipe sound and, for the want of a better word, jazz-rock. There is something here, traditional and modern, good music, well played, recorded, and arranged. The Arion label is widely distributed in Britain, so you can order this record from any decent record shop.
Paul James
BLOWZABELLA
MARA!
ROSBIF
CONCERTS : DANCE : WORKSHOPS
Newbury. SEPT. 5 ~ 6 ~ 7.
S.A.E; PAUL JAMES. TILTHAMS. GUILDFORD RD., GODALMING, SURREY.
Special rates for Bagpipe Society Members!
The YORK WAITS (£5, p+p 40p) & THE MEDIEVAL STREET BAND (£4.50, p+p 40p) Renaissance and medieval music played on Shawms, Curtals, Crumhorns, Recorders, Trumpets, hurdy-gurdy, and various bagpipes from: James Merryweather, Biology Dept., University of York, Heslington, YORK, YO1 5DD.
SINFONYE PUBLICATIONS
Bagpipes and Hurdy-gurdies by Peter Stacey and Stevie Wishart
“a delightful little book that could serve equally as a basic introduction to the two instruments or as a valuable source book for the already initiated person.” Keith Hudson in Taplas
“Informative, well-produced, ideal for people between the ages of ten and one hundred years old.” Paul James in Folk Roots
24 pp. litho, 23 photos, 14 drawings £3.75 inc p+p
Fingering the Gaita Galega by Peter Stacey
A brief survey of methods of fingering the gaita galega (the bagpipe from Galicia, North-West Spain) including fingering charts from master gaiteiros Ricardo Portela, Juan Silvar and Pepe Ferreiros.
7 pp. mimeo, 6 charts £1.25 inc p+p
The Other Pipe Book
English melodies for bagpipes and hurdy-gurdies — currently being prepared for publication.
Also available from SINFONYE PUBLICATIONS…
Chanter: The Journal of the Bagpipe Society
Vol. 1, Part 1: Interview with Paul James of Blowzabella; Julian Goodacre on the Leicestershire Small-pipes… £2.75 inc p+p
SINFONYE PUBLICATIONS, 63 Lonsdale Road, Oxford OX2 7ES
JULIAN GOODACRE
bagpipe maker
29 Bellevue Rd.
Edinburgh EH7 4DL
Scotland
031 556 4151
Leicestershire smallpipes
mouth blown
key of F £137
key of DorC £145
bellows blown
key of F £150
key of DorC £158
Doublepipes
bellows blown
key of C or F £165
Italian Mūsa
key of C £140
write for details
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