Letter from America

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FESTIVAL OF EUROPEAN PIPING IN EDINBURGH by John Gardacre

Although the bagpipe is the national instrument of Scotland and the Edinburgh museums together contain a magnificent collection of bagpipes, it is only recently that efforts have been made to develop the Edinburgh International Folk Festival at Easter into a European Piping Festival. The work has already for some years included a Harp Festival. Last year Hamish Moore contributed his first week of ‘could wind’ piping classes and there was a varied piping concert at the end. This year these were repeated and the whole programme broadened to cover many aspects of piping and pipe making.

Traditional Scottish piping was represented by two striking bands, the Shotts and Dykehead Caledonia Band and the Monckton Hill Band, and by two promising young soloists, Martyn Bennett and Stuart Reid. Anyone who thinks that such players are committing themselves to a hidebound tradition should listen to some of the more progressive music being played by both soloists and bands. Jim Sutherland, though not a piper himself, has contributed some smashing new-style tunes to the ‘Scottish rhythm and swing’ played by his group the Easy Club at their concert. They were not the only ones to be playing this jaunty piping ‘jazz’. The Easy Club Reel. In another direction Mark Duff, who plays recorder and whistles in the young group Capercaillie, slipped in a line on the Leicestershire small pipe to effect in one song.

Another departure from the main Scottish tradition is the revival of the solo Ireland tradition of border and small pipes. In his recitals Hamish Moore has the advantage of being able to draw on his experience as a highland piper and to select techniques and music from the Highland tradition that suit his fellows pipers. He also has the gift of being able to explain to his pupils the minute details of what exactly he is aiming at, at each point in a tune and to give them precise comment even though their individual techniques may never be in the copies of his own. For many pipers interested in this repertoire the week began with the annual competition of the Lowland and Border Piper’s Society, although this was not mentioned in the Festival programme. This is intentionally a relaxed event, to dispel any idea of a formal championship, and many styles of playing are welcomed, from border pipes played as if they were Highland pipes to small pipes sounding more like Northumbrian pipes and with an overlapping repertoire. This year the range was extended in more ways than one by Jonathan Swann’s entry, playing his own developed half-long pipes. If Scottish pipers had difficulty in accepting these as border pipes rather than as a French chanter with common stock-drones, they might welcome them instead as a new form of the pastoral pipes of the eighteenth century.

The Northumbrian tradition was represented by Chris Miller, who is pushing his technique to the limits, especially concentrating on high speed repeated notes with the left thumb, like the Scottish doubling and trebling on the top A. Irish pipes were played by Peter Smith from Dublin and Eugene Lamb from the west coast of Ireland, who is also a distinguished maker. They both can produce that sparkling trickle of tiny notes that dance on the edge of the drones without counting themselves to plunge into haronny with them. The Glasgow group Setanta, who play Scottish and Irish music, were playing for the last time with their Irish pipes player David Munro, who is moving south.

A Hungarian group, Makirag, played exciting string music and also a couple of tunes using a bagpipe. One aim seems to have been to obtain some western currency by selling the instrument between returning home. The central French tradition was represented by Andre Kierus, the virtuoso cabrette player from the Auvergne, accompanied on diatonic accordion by Jacques Laveigne. Arresting Spanish music was contributed by Los Raperigos, a group from Galicia who play gaita, whistle and percussion.

An innovation this year was an exhibition or trade stand event of two days, ‘Meet the Pipemakers’, an opportunity to browse, ask questions and even try out pipes of different kinds. It was also a chance for interchange between the various makers there; but there was never a sufficient crowd of visitors at any one time to justify the planned sequence of lectures and demonstrations by makers.

Another innovation was the series of Piping Festival lectures given on the last day. Hamish Moore sketched in some of the historical background to present day lowland piping, the transition from pitch tuning to modern chromatic tuning, the hunt but reported an hopes for the future of ‘breaking down the barriers’ between lowland and the construction of Irish pipes and Peter Brown spoke about their music. He maintained that while there were distinct regional styles of fiddle playing, piping styles were more personal. This might be because until recently there were so few pipers playing in Ireland. He prefers jigs and reels to hornpipes, which are ‘more European than Irish’ and have ’no sadness’.

Xan Silver, with Los Raperigos, gave an expert introduction and demonstration of their music, starting from simple percussion instruments and the gaita as a solo instrument and concluding with ‘composed’ music and ‘classical arrangements’, sometimes using three gaitas in harmony.