Authors: Kirsty Gunn
| | Piping Grading Table | | |
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| | Level 1: Complete Beginner | No experience at all. Has not played any scales or exercises. | |
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| | Level 2: Learner | Progressing towards or can play a simple tune(s). Has played some scales and simple exercises – e.g. ‘G’ gracenote, strikes, ‘D’ throw. | |
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| | Level 3: Lower Novice | Able to play most movements including doublings, birls, grips, taorluaths and can play several tunes quite competently with a reasonable sense of timing. Has not yet started on pipes. | |
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| | Level 4: Novice | Can competently play tunes of varying time signatures including marches, strathspeys and reels on the chanter. Is starting or has started on pipes and can perform some simple tunes. Needs assistance tuning. Developing finger technique. | |
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| | Level 5: Intermediate | Working on 4-parted marches, strathspeys and reels; also can play some hornpipes and jigs. Can perform all on the bagpipe. Perhaps ready to progress to piobaireachd. Can tune pipes reasonably well or attempt to tune. Technique quite developed but needs some work. | |
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| | Level 6: Advanced | Fluent with all aspects of light music. Able to play some piobaireachd on the bagpipe. Can tune pipes accurately. Perhaps ready to compete in solo competition or able to attain that standard at good junior level or beyond. | |
The above provides an example of one of the smaller schools of piping available today. In addition, as previously noted, there are larger national colleges and institutions affiliated with piping that conduct tutorials and classes over the year. One
well-known must be the Army School of Piping (later renamed the Army School of Bagpipe Music), generally regarded as the smallest unit in the British Army. This school is now commanded by a director who is a qualified Army pipe major and who usually holds the rank of Captain or Major and is assisted by a chief instructor who is the Senior Pipe Major of the British Army.
The school forms part of the Piping and Drumming Qualifications Board, which is a collaboration among the Piobaireachd Society, the Royal Scottish Pipe Band Association, the College of Piping and the Piping Centre. Together, the Board sets a standardised piping certificate programme for students from around the world.
The Piobaireachd Society was formed in 1903 to encourage the study and playing of piobaireachd and to that end has collected the available piobaireachd manuscripts and, from these and the knowledge of the existing experts and players, published fifteen books with the piobaireachd written in staff notation accompanied by notes on the sources. The Society has also published the
Kilberry Book of Ceol Mor
by Archibald Campbell, a collection of 112 of the better-known tunes. There are notes, separately published as
Sidelights
and
Further Sidelights,
that tell of Kilberry’s own famous teachers and what they taught him.
The Society has published a book of modern piobaireachd and more recently new editions of important works such as Joseph MacDonald’s
Treatise
(1994), The
MacArthur MacGregor Manuscript
(2001, in conjunction with the John MacFadyen Trust) and Donald MacDonald’s book of piobaireachd containing twenty-four tunes (2006).
Publication of these books has helped the Society fulfil its main aim. In addition to this, the Society has now developed a comprehensive website providing sound files, manuscripts, new music, photographs and other information, all designed to encourage the understanding and playing of this music.
A sense of the atmosphere, range and type of musical activity promoted by the Society is evident in an extract taken from a report by the Society’s Jack Taylor of a recent conference that is available in transcript in the List of Additional Materials section at the back of this book.
In addition to hosting events such as the one detailed above, the Piobaireachd Society has set itself, since its formation, the aim of broadening the general
performance
repertoire through a programme of new publications.
As previously mentioned, since 1925 fifteen books have been published, … a nominal total of 268 tunes. We can be precise about the nominal total, as the title of each book follows essentially the same format, thus:
Piobaireachd, 12 tunes edited by Comunn na Piobaireachd
followed by
Piobaireachd, a Second Book of 12 tunes
… and so on, with 12 tunes in books 1–3, 16 in books 4–10, and 20 in books 11–16. The real total, however, could be considered to be larger, as there is often a question of whether two pieces should be considered as distinct or as ‘versions’ of each other.
Nominally, each book is the work of a committee, that is, the Music
Committee
of the Society, to whom all questions of selection and editing were delegated. But the committee has always had other responsibilities as well, and in practice the editorial work has been undertaken by only a few people. The prime movers were John Grant and Archibald Campbell; later Archie Kenneth took an increasing part, the books from 11 to 15 being largely his. Less well known is the major contribution made by James Campbell, especially in the later books. Roderick Cannon took over in 1996. The foundation of the work was the collection of manuscripts and rare printed books which John Grant and Archibald Campbell had built up personally since they started working together in the early 1900s. These and some others acquired by the Society itself are now mostly preserved in the National Library of Scotland.
The Society’s editorial policy was stated from time to time in resolutions
formally
adopted by the Music Committee, and in the prefaces to the various books, especially Book 1 and the revised Book 6, and in the separate ‘General Preface’ which supersedes the original preface to Book 1. This new preface also gives a full
bibliography
of sources and their present locations.
The Society writes:
The Piobaireachd Society has never had premises of its own, and this may be the reason why it has not retained an archive set of its own publications. Nor has there been, until now, any attempt to catalogue the books comprehensively. The Music Committee felt that the centenary of the Society would be a good occasion to make such an attempt with the publication of the new Bibliography. Although great care has been taken, it cannot be claimed that this Bibliography is completely accurate or comprehensive. It is in fact a preliminary publication and we hope that it will lead to new discoveries. Most books have been reprinted many times over. We catalogue here about 90 printings of the fifteen books, but less than half of these printings have actually been seen and handled by the present editor. It seems likely that examples of every edition and reprint are still in existence in one private collection or another. The Society will be very pleased to hear from anyone
who knows of editions which we have not managed to locate, and even more pleased to hear of others which we have omitted altogether, or errors in the information given. If anyone would like to donate examples of the missing books they will be most gratefully accepted. They will be catalogued and added to this list, then handed on to the National Library, with full acknowledgement.
The College of Piping, established in 1944 and situated in Glasgow, is the
international
centre of world piping, with more than sixty-five years’ experience in teaching Scotland’s national instrument, the great Highland bagpipe. A registered charity, the college keeps its lessons as affordable as possible by subsidising them with profits from the college shop.
Each month the college publishes piping’s most authoritative journal, the
award-winning
Piping Times.
The magazine has a global monthly readership of 10,000. The college also publishes and distributes a large selection of tutor books, manuals and historical writings on the bagpipe and its music, including its Tutor Book 1, which has sold more than 395,000 copies worldwide.
In 2008 the college opened a new lecture hall, which completed the re-development of its premises and means it can now host some of the most important competitions and concerts in the piping calendar.
Also situated in Glasgow, in a historic building and with as its Patron HRH Prince Charles, the Piping Centre incorporates a school with rehearsal rooms and an
auditorium
not only for the Highland pipes but also Scottish smallpipes, Ulleian pipes, fiddle, accordion and drumming. There is also a museum and interpretation centre, and a reference library, as well as conference facilities and a hotel.
To that end, it is popular with visitors from abroad as well as around the UK, as detailed knowledge or skill of bagpipe playing is not a prerequisite for the
enjoyment
of the many facilities available – whether one is coming for performance or simply pleasure.
Of the range of regular newsletters and journals made available to further the education and understanding of the playing of piobaireachd, and of the history of the pipes in general, the best-known and most established publications are the Piobaireachd Society’s regularly updated editions of work and the monthly
Piping Times
published by the School of Piping.
When read through as a body of publications, the complete output of the Piobaireachd Society provides as comprehensive a history of the music as has ever been made available, from the famous Kilberry manuscript onwards. In addition there are many other books and recordings on piping and piobaireachd and those of particular interest to the C eol Mor enthusiast will be
Binneas A Boreraig
and the
MacArthur MacGregor Manuscript.
As we read in the definition that appears at the beginning of this book, piobaireachd is an ancient form of composition that may be described simply as a theme with variations, a structure of music that has gone unchanged for hundreds of years and is known to have been elevated to its status as a pure art form by the MacCrimmon family who together wrote some of the finest pieces of music for the Highland bagpipe ever known.
Piobaireachd is divided into two types, known in Gaelic as Ceol Mor, for ‘Big Music’, the grand and solemn laments and salutes that are played to mark formal occasions and are grave and serious in tone; and Ceol Beag, for ‘Small Music’, such as reels, strathspeys and marches played at weddings and gatherings and is
lighthearted
in mood. As the Highland bagpipes are known in Gaelic as ‘piob mhor’, and as a piper is a ‘piobaire’, so the word ‘piobaireachd’ may be known, literally, as pipe music – but in fact, over time, it has come to stand for the great classic music of the bagpipes, the Ceol Mor for which it is celebrated today.
The music is not easy to define or even to describe – it has been called, by some, the voice of uproar and the music of real nature and emotion. Many hear in the sound a cry that is near human – bringing to mind the ancient belief that once upon a time the pipes could actually ‘speak’, and that the playing of the music is nothing more than the extension of poetry recited by the bards as a way of passing down tales of genealogy and line, the story of the clan’s history told in sound.
Each piobaireachd was composed for a particular purpose, breaking down into the following categories as mentioned above: gatherings, marches, laments, salutes and certain titled tunes: ‘Lament for Himself’, being a composition made up of the sounds and story of its composer’s life, is an example of such a tune. That the individual notes of the chanter take on discrete definitions associated with certain people or themes is an idea that is present in ‘The Big Music’ and surely was in the mind of the man who composed ‘Lament for Himself’. The following code may serve as a guide here, but only by reading the pages of the four movements of the tune that precede these Appendices, that is, the body of ‘The Big Music’, can one truly understand the ‘lexicon’ of notes that belong solely to John Sutherland of Rogart.
As it is, the code stands:
| | Chart of notes | |
| | Low ‘G’ | Note of Gathering |
| | Low ‘A’ | The Tune’s note |
| | ‘B’ | Note of Challenge |
| | ‘C’ | Most Musical note |
| | ‘D’ | Note of Battle |
| | ‘E’ | E choing note |
| | ‘F’ | Note of Love |
| | High ‘G’ | Note of Sorrow |
| | High ‘A’ | Piper’s own note |
As we have read, in the days before written manuscript piobaireachd was
composed
and taught by being sung – by the teacher to his pupil – in Gaelic, with each note and inflection carrying its own word and sound. This type of instruction, known as canntaireachd, a singing-down of a tune from one generation to the next, is as detailed and fine in its oral and aural transcription as any completed manuscript on paper. My own father was taught his repertoire this way, by the great piper Pipe Major Donald MacLeod of Lewis (1917– 1982), and the method is still believed by most serious pipers to be the only true way to learn a piece of music, instruction about inflection, phrasing and dynamics being carried in the vocables themselves as well as the sheer sound of the musician’s voice in conveying it.