Simon McKerrell: billed for Piping Live! and contributes on page 17
IN THIS ISSUEThe revival reviewed (4): What makes our music Scottish? (17): The Lochaber
pipemaker (22): Competition report (37): An 18 th-century teacher(44)
The bride's fancy: former LBPS secretary Rona MacDonald after her weddingreception in Drymen, ptaying with Strathclyde Fire & Rescue Pipe BandEDITORIAL
CONCERTINA wizard and traditionalmusic activist Simon Thoumire iscurrently writing a concerto for Borderpipes and folk ensemble. It will bepremiered during Glasgow's now wellestablished Piping Live! Festival inAugust - an indicator, of sorts, of howfar the cauld wind pipes revival hascome over the past threedecades. AsRobert Lowe writes in hiscompendious review of the resurgencein bellows blown pipes in this issue(see P4), things continue to consolidateand grow. As our preview on P21points out, this year's Piping Live!features some weel-kent faces on thebellows pipes scene, not least SimonMcKerrell, whose intriguing analysisof "What makes our music soundScottish?" is on P17.
In the meantime, Common Stock hasaccumulated several issues of An
Piobaire , the excellent journal of NaPiobairi Uillean, the Irish pipers'society, including the February issue,which reports on the re-opening oftheir already impressive and nowmagnificently refurbishedGeorgianheadquarters in Dublin'sHenriettaStreet. CS' readers anxious to have akeek at these journals should contactme - and perhaps ponder that the re-opening of the Dublin premises wasattended by Bertie Ahern, the IrishTaoiseach or prime minister.
Things may be changing apace, butwe've a way to go before Scotland'sFirst Minister presides over theopening of an HQ for the LBPS!
Jim Gilchrist0131 66982350771 8700 696 (mobile)[email protected] uk
THE Society's new secretary is JudyBarker, a singer and piper, and anLBPS member of some dozen years'standing.
Judy plays a set of Hamish Mooresmallpipes - she reckons one of thefirst Hamish made with thecombination of rosewood drones andblackwood chanter, "as he knew Iwanted to sing with them and feltmellow drones were required.
"I wanted to learn the pipes becauseI had played in a band with aNorthumbrian piper before moving toScotland and enjoyed the experience of
Judy with Mike at the last competition
singing with the pipes. Singing withthe pipes is absolutely myplaying passion - the sensation israther like singing in the middle of aset of organ pipes and is veryexciting. 1 enjoy experimenting withharmonies and accompaniments andam glad Hamish added the extranotes and keys to my A chanter,enhancing the possibilities. RecentlyHamish changed my small D drone toE and this has added "spice" tosongs like She Moved Through theFair and The Terror Time.
"Having said that, I love all pipemusic. I play in a folk band calledWelcome the Stranger, with myhusband Mike and flautist Sally, andhave roped them both into the "pipesand other instrument" class on LBPScompetition days. I also write myown songs and am completing oneabout LBPS competition day. Watchthis space ..."
Contact Judy on 01383 620184 [email protected]
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Early days. Top: Hamish Moore (extreme left) playing with the band Chorda, (from left) IanHardie, Rod Paterson and John Croall. Above: early LBPS session at Thirlestane Castle,Lauder, with Jim Gilchrist making heavy weather of a set of Lowland pipes as our firstpresident, the late Jimmy Wilson (centre) looks on dubiously. Bottom picture: Bill Teller
The cauld wind pipesrevival revisitedRobert Lowe gives a comprehensive review of the Lowlandpiping revival, based on interviews with some of theleading players, makers and activists involved in therenaissance of bellows-blown piping in Scotlandover the past threedecades. This extensivearticle is based on thepaper which he gave atlast November's LBPSCollogue in Edinburgh
IN 1997, I wrote a dissertation entitled A Study of the Revival of LowlandPiping as part of an MA in Scottish Ethnology and Scottish History atEdinburgh University. I was very lucky to spend four years in the School ofScottish Studies, which is a wonderful place where you can study fairies orstorytelling or indeed Lowland and Border piping and come out of it with adegree.
_ I was fortunate to have Gary West as my supervisor and he pointed me inthe right direction. I visited Hamish Moore, Colin Ross, Matt Seattle andGordon Mooney and conducted lengthy interviews with each. Theseprovided much of the material for the dissertation, along with back issues ofCommon Stock.
This year the LBPS asked me to update the work of nine years ago byrevisiting these four to see how their views had developed in the hope ofgaining a sense of the evolution of the revival. I interviewed my originalinformants again and also spoke to Nigel Richard, Iain Maclnnes, Gary Westand Robbie Greensitt.
Robert Lowe at theCollogue
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Just as the research benefited hugely the first time around from thematerial in Common Stock, so this time it has been very illuminating to readthrough the issues published since 1997. These are a most valuable recordand I thank the Society for making these available on CD-ROM because thisis a wonderful resource.
As my interviews progressed over the last few weeks, it became clear thatdevelopments in the Scottish bellows piping scene in the last decade havenot been dramatic or controversial. I found few striking differences to 1997.Rather I gained a sense that the revival has continued to consolidate andgrow steadily. A number of people felt the revival has "matured" in the lastdecade. Colin Ross described the revival in 1997 as "many coals all aglow".In 2006 he sees these coals now brightly aflame. The number of bellowspipers and activities continues to grow and most informants stressed that thestandards in bellows piping, particularly of pipe-making, have improvedmarkedly.
This paper may not always run with great,coherency, but I have tried to divide thephenomenon of the revival into a number of subjectareas. This work is by no means comprehensive ordefinitive, but I have focused on what I see as themain points as expressed by those I interviewed inboth years. I will use the actual words of the pipersand pipe-makers themselves wherever possible so asto bring out a flavour of these views.
The revivalThe stirrings of the revival must have been an exciting time for those whobegan poking around in the search for this lost tradition. The stories of thoseinvolved in the very early days appear to have been fairly similar as theylooked to develop Scottish piping outside the narrow confines of theHighland form. Gordon Mooney was especially passionate about going tofolk festivals in Newcastle in the mid-Seventies and "first actually seeing theNorthumbrian pipes, en masse ... there was all this stuff going on ... whichwasn't Highland piping, marching about, you know?"
The first pipers to revive the use of bellows in Scotland seem to have beenJimmy Anderson and Rab Wallace, while Mike Rowan came up with theidea of the LBPS in 1981. Gordon remembers the early meetings attended by
6
a handful of people and with a few sets of unplayable old pipes lying around.But slowly it grew as "at every one, more people would turn up ... with setsthey'd bought in an auction 20 years ago or something like that". CommonStock began in 1983 and the first competition was held in 1984. The qualitywas described as "extremelymixed".
The shared use of bellows and similar ancestry of the smallpipes meant itwas Northumbrian rather than Highland pipemakers who revived the art ofmaking Scottish bellows pipes. A key early development was the creation ofthe modern Scottish smallpipes by Northumbrian pipemakers who devel-oped the basic principle of putting a Northumbrian pipe reed in a chanter andplaying Scottish music on it with Highland fingering.
This profoundly influenced the evolution of the revival. The society wasoriginally established to promote what was then commonly called theLowland pipes, now the Border pipes. As Gordon Mooney said, "at the timewhen Colin Ross and Robbie Greensitt appeared on the scene ... the Societybegan to take two directions, really, and one was suddenly peopleclamouring for these Scottish smallpipes because they were nice and easy toplay". These people, of course, were mostly Highland pipers who transferredtheir Highland repertoire to the smallpipes and often saw them more as apractice instrument or certainly a second instrument.
The development of the smallpipes gave a huge lift to the revival. HamishMoore said, "I based the whole fact that I gave up my job as a vet and wentinto making the pipes on the fact that ... most Highland pipers in the worldwould want a set of these pipes eventually." Robbie Greensitt and AnnSessoms originally made harps but from the early 1980s found that demandfor Scottish smallpipes was increasing so steadily that they could make thisinstrument the staple of their business. Their waiting list time grew to 24months.
The wider Scottish folk music revival which exploded in the 1970screated a stimulating environment in which the bellows pipes revivalblossomed. Gordon Mooney's A Tutor for the Cauld Wind Bagpipes waspublished in 1985 and Gordon and Hamish recorded albums which did a lotto heighten what Common Stock referred to in 1985 as "cauld windconsciousness". The society began tuition courses in 1986 and, at thecompetition in 1987, Gordon Mooney could say "with a feeling of assurancethat the cauld wind pipes are emphatically here to stay". I will not continue
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Curiouser and curiouser: interested pipers at an early gathering Rank and file: a motley line-up in the early Nineties Picture Bill Sutherland
listing the achievements of the society from the late 1980s because I feel thereal "revival" period ended around this time. I will bring the story up to 1997to the present and what follows is taken from interviews in both yearsbecause much of the material overlaps.
The LBPS, the revival and the Scottish piping sceneMy original account of the revival was in the main an account of thedevelopment of the LBPS. I have not covered the wider world of bellowspiping outside the Society and, given the numbers of sets sold, it is clear thatmost bellows pipers are not involved in the Society. I asked Gordon Mooneyif he still saw potential for the growth of the LBPS given this. Be said, "Ioften wonder where these pipers are; there are lots and lots of bellows pipesout there, made by many makers ... they then kind of disappear."mishMoore agreed that the story of revival is not just that of the LBPS, but feelsthe Society has done and still does fantastic work and he would like to thinkthe stories of the Society and the revival are the same. Gary West pointedout that it is unlikely these thousands of people would be playing bellowspipes if it wasn't for the LBPS. Its influence has been very great, especiallythrough the promotional aspect - the high profile concerts and CDs havebeen very important.
Iain Maclnnes suggested, in an affectionate way, that many players ofbellows pipes probably regard the LBPS as fairly eccentric, but alsoemphasised that it has done great work. Gordon said that when the LBPS isviewed from the Highland piping world, it probably does look odd, but thenif you take a step back and look at Highland piping, it also looks a bit odd.Highland piping has clearly been changing over the last 20 years and Iainfeels there is a very healthy interaction between the two traditions.
Repertoire1997The repertoire played on Scottish bellows pipes has generated much debate.Some have been passionately committed to unearthing and promoting theold Lowland and Border music, while others show little interest and havebeen content to play Highland repertoire. Gordon Mooney began huntingLowland and Border tunes in the 1970s and found that "initially it becamequite obsessive". Matt Seattle has of course taken this work further, mostnotably with his discovery and publication of the Dixon manuscript.
At times, some members of the Society felt the movement lost sight of itsoriginal aims - only a minority of pipers play the conical bore instrument
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1995 competition: Peter Cooke, Stewart Gaudin, Steve Hall, Gordon Mooney
Matt describes the LBPS as a broad church which has supported hisefforts and he is happy that what he has done is part of the picture. He doesnot have a problem with pipers playing Highland music on bellows pipes;it's just not for him. "I'm slightly different, I'm on the edge, on the border,that is where stuff happens, you get friction, interaction. I'm not part of themainstream, and have no wish to be." Matt keeps what he calls a"Dixography", which notes the recordings of tunes from the DixonManuscript and he is fairly pleased with the number of these.
A final word on the Border music from Matt: "The really interesting thingabout the Border stuff is that it is a blend between the Northumberland styleand the Scottish technique. It has its own flavour because of where it is andwhat it is. It has a great vitality which is like a yeast." Matt is not inEdinburgh this weekend for the happy reason that Dougie Pincock invitedhim to (the National Centre of Excellence in Traditional Music at) Plocktonto teach Border Pipes.
PipemakingI gained a sense that one area which has seen some notable developments inthe last decade is pipemaking. Colin Ross is very pleased that there are now
a number of very good well-established pipemakers in Scotland. Hamishsays everyone is getting much better at pipemaking. This is clearly veryimportant, especially for the increased playing of the Border pipes. Hamishsays the biggest challenge as a pipemaker in the last 20 years has been tomake the Border pipes quieter while retaining stability. He feels he is gettingthere, but has not yet found the definitive method, as has generally beenreached with the smallpipes. Demand for Border pipes appears to havelevelled off after a large increase two-three years ago.
Nigel Richard feels his Border pipe chanter is now good and he is notminded to fiddle with it any further. He feels this is his major achievement.Improving this has been his main passion for 20 years and he now feels thathis pipes have nice pressure and volume.
Nigel explained that part of the historical problem in bellows pipemakingwas that "the makers had not been trained by another pipemaker and weremostly learning from scratch. There often appeared to be a sort ofamateurish element ... After 20 years, much of this has gone ... This hasalways been a craft market, particularly because of the variety of instrumentsbeing made. Highland pipemakers' bellows pipes have generally beenpoorer quality but some are now producing reasonable instruments and havestarted using technology such as computer-controlled lathes. This has madeand will continue to make a dent in the craft market, but the number playingis expanding all the time and there will always be people who want pipesmade by craftsmen rather than computers".
Colin does not think that there have been any significant developments inthe techniques of making smallpipes in the last decade, but Nigel is on thebrink of revealing some modifications. He feels that pipemakers can neverstand still and must keep developing.
Gordon, Gary and lain all feel that Border pipes have improved markedly.Gordon said, "You can buy a set now in the confidence that they will be inthe right pitch, be easier to play and maintain with a good sound. The earlysets, especially made by Highland makers, were a bit brutal, heavy to playand maintain. Furthermore, Border pipes have come more into the folk sceneand bands are using them very well ... where they really are the idealinstrument."
The future
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movement had grown out of itsinfancy and was clearly stable.Gary feels that bellows pipes haveclearly arrived, they are a mainpart of the Scottish musicaltradition and he no longer has toexplain to an audience what onearth they are.
However, he argues that therevival is not fully over until thereis a clear number of people whocome to bellows pipes as their first and only instrument rather than thesebeing secondary to Highland Pipes. It may be that Scottish bellows piping isnow in its second stage, or its teenage years, although I think most of theteenage angst has by now been pretty much sorted out. The next stage wouldbe to end the dependency, to leave the Highland family home, move nextdoor and pop round regularly for ceilidhs.
There is much to explore further here and Gary has some fascinatingthoughts about models of revivals and how this one is so far a fairly classiccase. We also had a good discussion about the relationship between identityand this revival - whether it is Scottish, Lowland, Border (it's certainly not"Celtic") or whatever. This is a "Lowland and Border Pipers' Society", butthese labels, especially "Lowland" are very rarely used in Scotland, as self-definition and cultural expression are dominated by "Highland" and "Celtic"styles.
I will finish with a couple of quotes from two prominent figures whichcheer me greatly and go some way towards explaining the success of thisgreat revival. Hamish Moore said, "My motivation is to make an instrumentwhich is as beautiful looking and sounding as I can. I am gloriously happy inmy work ... and am in a very privileged and enlightened position."
Gordon Mooney mused, "I still remain surprised at why there should beso many people involved in [bellows piping] ... it's not an inconsiderableinvestment ... I can't explain it ... maybe people are looking for some kindof cultural identity ... or like I got into it, it's a bit of fun ... It still gives mea buzz to play these things, you know; there's a real wild excitement aboutthem."
What makes our musicsound Scottish?Also at last November's Collogue, Simon McKerrell took alook at the underlying structure of traditional Highlandpipe tunes, the way certain recurring motifs give themtheir distinctive character, and suggested how such analysiscan enhance our understanding and teaching of piping andother music traditionsSOUNDING very much like thesixty-four thousand dollar question,What Makes Our Music Sound Scot-tish? was the title of SimonMcKerrell's talk at the LBPSCollogue last November. And as apiper with a broad span of activity,encompassing folk bands such asBack of the Moon and DeafShepherd, winning the DunveganMedal and Skye Clasp in theHighland competition stakes and his current "day job" as Head of PipingStudies for the BA (Scottish Music - Piping) degree at the National PipingCentre, he seems as well placed as anyone to try and answer it.
What he did, illustrating his lecture with snatches of piping (on Borderpipes) and canntaireachd, and issuing photocopies of notation, was todeconstruct some well-established Highland tunes, mainly marches, and pickout certain musical motifs or phrasings which recurred over and over again,the musical "thumbprints", as he called them, which gave tunes such asthese their distinctive character. In doing so, he illustrated not only the wayin which these thumbprints recurred throughout the Highland piperepertoire, but also the genius of the composers, known and unknown, whoabsorbed these characteristics and preserved them while using them anew tocreate such enduring music.
Julian Goodacre playing in the backroom of Stuart's Bar, Edinburgh
Simon McKerrell
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He made the point that while the motifs he was examining here were verymuch the quavers, semi-quavers and demi-semi-quavers of Highland piping,"in the bellows piping tradition and in the 19th-century Highland pipingtradition, those would be quavers and not so polarised in terms of therhythm". Furthermore, he added, those other traditions would have uniquemotifs characteristic of their particular style.
Certain individual motifs occur throughout all pipe music, said McKerrell,and these are common building blocks. Other motifs were specific to certainmodes and composers tended to favour particular modes, although nonehave their own motifs exclusive to them alone - which, he claimed,supported the idea of a communal tradition. "For example, John MacCollfavoured the MO mode, which is a double tonic arrangement that has veryspecific motifs that characterise the sound of his tunes. His example of thecommon motif A-E-C-E can be seen in many tunes such as the marchDonald Cameron, in this case to emphasise emphasise a certain note that isimportant to the development of the tune."
Other such key phrases included A-B-C-A , E-D-C-A and, the mostcommon motif in pipe music, the C-B-A motif. All these motifs, heexplained can be realised around different tonics, "and they become evenmore pervasive in the pipe repertoire when you remove the specific pitch.So, for example, the A-B-C-A motif is often seen as the G-A-B-G motif.This retains the essential elements of the motif, which are the rhythm andcontour.
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"The ornamentation used on each of these different motifs is identicalnow in the Highland piping repertoire, although we know that in the 19thcentury those motifs, now crystalised in our own performance, were playedin quite a different manner." And he alluded briefly to the Lowland Scottishballad tradition, in which there were many similar motifs - phrases such as"`Blood red wine and lily-white hands, down by the greenwood side ...'Many of these literary motifs are much easier, in a way, for us to latch on tobecause they involve particular images, whereas in music, you only have thefunction of that particular motif to go by in the story of the tune."
Among the examples of pipe marches, he played - "just to get the pointhome" - were The Stornoway Highland Gathering, Millbank Cottage andThe Conundrum, letting us hear these "thumbprints" recurring over and overagain, in different positions.
It was important to labour that point, he said, "because, to me, this is thegenius of traditional musicians who compose in the oral tradition, and part ofthat genius is that they absorb the music, and they recreate new music usingall of those structures and systems that they've learned. And in all thetraditional music of Scotland there are fantastic geniuses of composers, rightfrom. the early dynastic composers, such as the MacCrimmons and theMacGregors, through to other geniuses of Scottish music like the Gowfamily, to any tradition you care to mention".
One of these, in his opinion, was Pipe Major Willie Lawrie, the first partof whose well-known pipe march The Braes of Brecklet he played, with theA-B-C-A motif coming in yet again. In tunes such as this he demonstratedthat these composers were using the motifs at various levels of the tune in asophisticated but previously unacknowledged way. Here, below, is hismusical example of the first part ofThe Braes of Brecklet, where you can seethe A-B-C-A motif in the first crotchet of bar seven ...
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He had also written out the "underlying skeleton" of the tune, showing thesame notes, A-B-C-A used as an underlying structure supporting the finaltwo bars of each part.
Braes of Brecklet: structural tones (first part
"The point I'm trying to make is that, in traditional music, the genius ofcomposers, and of the tradition itself, can be made apparent through quitecomplex structures if we take that same motif that we've been looking at inThe Braes of Brecklet." He played the tune: "The observant will havespotted that the motif we've been talking about has been used in thestructure of the tune to underly the last two bars, because the most importantnotes in the last two bars of that tune are A, B,C and A - which is, in fact,the motif that starts off that last few bars.
"Willie Lawrie has taken the basic tune, and whether or not he thoughtabout the underlying structure I don't know, but, unconsciously perhaps, hehas laid under the tune the traditional motif that he used on the surface. It'sfairly easy to see if you play the tune, but these motifs occur on differentlevels right throughout pipe music - particularly, as we're beginning tonotice, in pibroch repertoire, the use of these motifs to underly the structureof the tune but also to be emphasised in the surface structure as well.
"That is the genius of the oral tradition - and also the genius of WillieLawrie."
McKerrell identified two particularly useful applications for thisknowledge: "One is to understand what we mean by the word `tradition' inmusical terms. What I'm interested in here is the idea of different traditions -what do they mean within the notes themselves? I think that, through the
analysis of performance, we could come to understand quite specifically thenotion of a tradition, and for the Lowland and Border Pipers' Society, I thinkthat scholarship around modes could begin to answer some of the questionsabout what makes Border music sound like Border music.
"The second aspect, which I'm particularly interested in, is a pedagogicalone: how can we use this knowledge to best effect in terms of teaching? Iwould like to experiment with the teaching of Highland pipes through anaural method where students absorb these motifs, rather than learningthrough the very systematic route that is current today. I think the quickerand more effective way is to absorb these things is as a whole, as units inthemselves, as other traditional musicians have been doing for generations."
Glasgow piping fest flourishes
NOW an annual fixture in the weekleading to the World Pipe BandChampionships in Glasgow, the PipingLive! Festival (6-12 August) once againfeatures a varied programme, ranging frompipe band "heavies" such as ScottishPower and top competition Highland
pipers such as Willie McCallum, as well asrenowned younger players such as FinlayMacDonald , Fred Morrison and Rory Campbell. Folk bands include ourcontributor Simon McKerrell with his new Rough Tides trio, Back of theMoon, Daimh and other combinations such as "the two Iains" - fiddlerMacFarlane and piper MacDonald, and Gaelic singer and piper AnnaMurray with Irish singer Brian O'Headrha.
Other guests include Allan MacDonald, Brittany's Patrick Molard and,from the ancient launeddas tradition of Sardinia, Luigi Lai. The programmealso features a version of one of the groups from the LBPS's notable Scots-Indian night last November, Indian Alba, with Nigel Richard, Ross Ainslie,Gyan Sinh and Sharat Srivastava. Nigel Richard, until recently the Society'schairman, is organising some LBPS representation at the festival.
For the full programme, visit www.pipinglive.co.uk
Finlay MacDonald
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Ian Ketchin in his workshop: `a fascination with the nature of materials'
The view from LochaberIn the latest of our interviews with pipemakers, JimGilchrist asks Ian Ketchin, who is based at Banavie, FortWilliam, about how he came to make small pipesWhere are you from originally, Ian, and what took you to your present homeand workshop?
I'm from Edinburgh and lived there for most of my life, with a spell in theBorders. Then, 13 years ago I moved to the Isle of Muck, the smallest of theSmall Isles in the Inner Hebrides. My grandfather came from Papay Westrayin Orkney, and I always knew that small island living was in my genes.Muck is only one-and-a-half by one by mile wide, with a population ofabout 30, no mains electricity, no shops, no car ferry till very recently, andsometimes only one boat a week in the winter when the weather is bad. Weloved living there, but life got increasingly hard when I developed a chronicspine condition (couldn't work in the garden, work on the building or go outto catch a few fish in the wee boat I'd built any more) and eventually last
year we made the reluctant decision to move back to a more conventionallife on the mainland.
We wanted to stay in the Lochaber area to keep the connection withfriends and family locally and on Muck, so here we are! In a small lockkeeper's cottage on the Caledonian Canal with a stonking view of BenNevis, and a small byre (which used to be the stable for the canal ponies)which is now my workshop.
Are you getting enough business?
Because of my back problems, I'm not able to work full time or at fullspeed, but given my reduced capacity, yes, I'm fairly busy. But I do try tokeep delivery times as short as possible for people so I don't mind nothaving years of orders ahead of me.
You make Scottish smallpipes and Northumbrian small pipes. Which camefirst, and what got you into pipemaking in the first place?
Northumbrian smallpipes came first. Traditional music and traditionalcraft have been the two strong threads throughout my life.
I started on the euphonium at primary school, then quickly became moreinterested in traditional music as a teenager. I was only 12 (way back in the1960s!) when I went into Glen's in the Lawnmarket in Edinburgh to get anew mouthpiece for my euphonium when I first saw a set of Northumbrianpipes in the window. I was bowled over ... completely and utterly fascinatedand mystified by them. It was an antique set, small, intricate, such abeautiful object. Every time I went past I'd have to stop and have anotherlook at them until eventually they were sold.
But I didn't hear them being played till I went to a Corries concert four orfive years later and heard Roy Williamson playing a slow air, singing againstthe drones ... can't remember the name of the tune but it was the mostbeautiful sound I'd ever heard (but definitely not traditional Northumbrianpiping!). I knew then that f wanted to play them but couldn't remotely afforda set and at that time had no idea where to start looking for one.
At that time the guitar was my main instrument, and I dodged about onthe fringes of the folk scene while I was at Edinburgh College of Art, was
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doing sculpture, and was really lucky to catch the tail end of a verytraditional course that taught skills like casting, modelling, forginglettercutting etc. My father was a woodturner to trade (served his time inPeggy's Mill, a water-powered turning mill near Cramond outsideEdinburgh) and I learned woodturning from him.
When I left college, I set up on my own as a turner and carver, working inwood and stone, and in my spare time made my first set of NSP for myself,working without any help or drawings, just a lot of trial and error, and theywere fairly crude, but they played, if not entirely well, and I learned a hell ofa lot, and I was even more hooked. In the late 1970s I decided I'd have tobuy a set if I was going to get any further with my playing, so bought an 11-key F set and played that for a few years, but Iwas disappointed with quite a few aspects ofthem, and immediately resolved to make myselfanother set. I used all my spare time working onprototypes, learning how to make reeds andfiguring out how everything worked and why.
At this time I also started making Scottishsmallpipes, and started to sell a few. I was keenat that point to start making pipes for sale fulltime, but other pressures prevented me till Imoved to Muck. I then spent another five yearson development and tooling up, before I felt I had both SSP and NSP thatlooked, sounded and played the way I wanted.
Do you have an apprentice/assistant?
No, though I did when working as a turner and carver in Edinburgh. I'ma great believer in apprenticeships, so I feel sorry that I don't have one at themoment, but my turnover's too modest to justify an apprentice, and becauseof my back, my working hours are too irregular to make it workable.
Do D and A still tend to be the most popular keys for Scottish small pipes?
Yes, about 60 per cent A sets, followed by D sets, with the occasional Cand, very rarely, enquiries for B flat. My own favourite is D because I likethat extra brightness, but I know it's a minority taste.
As well as the standard bass and two tenor drones or bass, baritone andtenor, you also make a four drone set with two interchangeable chanters inD and A? Elaborate?
The drone set is usually A D and with a tuning bead on the D to give E.I've also made combination sets that have an NSP drone configuration withan SSP chanter as well as an NSP chanter. The most elaborate would be tohave a D set of NSP with additional SSP chanters in A D and E! But Iusually try to persuade people to opt for simpler sets - the more elaborate aset becomes, the more compromises the player has to make, so less is oftenmore.
Your website has a "stop press" about your "new Lochaber pattern SSP".Can you describe it, and what prompted you to start making it? Response soit soJàr?
The idea behind these was to make a less expensive instrument, so I'veintroduced various simplifications that make the set a bit less labour-intensive to make without sacrificing any of the sound quality.
I'd been using lined sliders and sleeved tuning pins for all my SSP for anumber of years now and also tube sliders on all my NSP ... my workshopon Muck was only 20 feet or so from the sea, and vulnerable to humidity, soI wanted to make sure that the drones would still be tunable wherever theywere eventually sent in the world. I now have much better control of theenvironment in my new workshop and can make an ordinary wood-on-woodslider with complete confidence, so I took the opportunity to design aslightly different style from the SSP I'd been making. As many of my SSPcustomers are Highland players rather than Lowland, I thought it would benice to incorporate the traditional combed pattern into the design ... but I'llbe making them plain uncombed as well.
The result is a pipe that's much more affordable. So far, everyone who'sseen or heard them seems to have really liked them, and I'm selling more ofthese just now than my original Lowland pattern. The Lochaber setsdefinitely still have the appearance and sound of a smallpipe, though.
Any other innovations you've made, either in design or materials, reeds,etc?
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a drone reed seems to be far less significant, and styrene tongues just makelife a bit easier in extreme humidity.
Are most of your customers existing Highland pipers?
Yes, most of my SSP customers are already GHB players. Quite a fewseem to have lapsed from playing GHB and are looking to SSP as a quieteralternative to get their hand back in.
Any pipemaker in particular who has influenced your approach?
No one in particular, but I hugely respect all the great craftsmen of the pastwho managed to make superb instruments of allkinds with much less sophisticated equipment thanwe have now ... and no access to the internet totrack down supplies.
Have you considered making Lowland/Borderpipes or "reel pipes" at all?
No, not really. I've played around with conicalchanters in the past but feel very happy stickingwith smallpipes.
Is there a thriving music scene in your area?
Yes, absolutely - this is Lochaber, home to some of the very best pipersand fiddlers in the world! And the feis movement is really strong here, sothere's a great surge of youngsters coming up all the time. The LochaberCeildih Trail for example is a fantastic opportunity for young musicians toget a taste of live performance with a variety of audiences and venues. TheScottish Traditional Music Awards are being held in Fort William again thisyear, which is great.
Do you play much yourself?
I play less than I used to because my back problems sometimes affect thenerves in my fingers and wrists (I recently went to record some soundsamples for the website and managed to break down on every tune, whichwas really embarrassing, then crashed the car on the way home - not a good
day, and hence still no sound clips on website, sorry! ) but I still play guitarand NSP for my own enjoyment. I think I can play SSP well enough to geta good sound but not well enough to inflict tunes on other people. And I alsoplay a bit of mandolin and whistle. I love the smallpipes for their expressivevoice and versatility. I play traditional music but don't feel I have to play inany particular style. I love the colour you get from using vibrato, slurs, andbends - great for ballads and airs.
Have you any particular "philosophy" or ethos when approaching yourcraft?
I suppose it all stems from a love of making things, and a fascination withthe nature of materials and with technologies both ancient and modern.There's incredible satisfaction in making an artefact that in itself can makebeautiful music. I always get a real buzz, from hearing someone play a newset I've just finished for them - it's like alchemy.
I've spent most of my life making things by hand. I very rarely jig thingsup or use form tools; it's the way I was taught. This does have its advantagesin that it gives you flexibility over everything that you make; you can changethings very quickly and easily. I also tend to make one set of pipes at a time,from start to finish, and tend not to do batches of anything. And I'm alwayslooking for better ways of doing things.
But it's the voice of a set of pipes that drives everything and I'm fairlyobsessive about tuning and balancing and always looking for smallrefinements in design that help people get the best music they can out ofthem.
Anything else you'd like to add that you feel is relevant?
Life on Muck was great but very isolated from the piping scene. It wasreally difficult to get to LBPS or other piping events as any trip involved atleast three days away, and often a week. Now I'm on the mainland it shouldbe easier, but I'm still not always able to travel much, so sadly I still don'tmanage to get to as many things as I would like. It's not that I'm beingunsociable - so do drop in for a cup of tea or a dram if you're passing.
Contact details: Dervaig Cottage, Banavie, Fort William, Inverness-shire,PH33 7L Y. Website: www.ianketchinsmallpipes.co.uk
28 29
Melrose music: Carol-Anne Mackay at the March teaching weekend
In a class of their ownOnce again, the Society held its annual spring teachingweekend in the George a Abbotsford Hotel, Melrose, overthe weekend of 9-11 March. We carry accounts from two ofthe students, David Taylor, a seasoned player, and RichardHatlyburton, a beginner, plus a report of the after-dinnertalk given by our chairman, Jim Buchanan
HAVING BEEN away from the society for a few years, and having been atutor in the early days at Dunkeld and Melrose, it was rather strange beingback as a student. I must admit to wondering if I would really enjoy theexperience or whether I was totally mad. I needn't have worried - it was agreat weekend.
It was good to meet up with some of the old faces from the past - the "oldfaithfuls", some of whom have been attending these weekends since theSociety started, but there were many faces I didn't recognise and it was goodto get to know people in classes or at meals. The social aspects of theseweekends are every bit as important as the music. The venue was great, staffaccommodating and friendly, and food remarkably good for a big hotel.
George Greig (extreme right) and company going through their pacesClasses were excellent, well-organised and with excellent tutors. Hamish
Moore, of course, is well known to all, but it is always good to have newinfluences, and Carol-Anne Mackay (piper with the band Dachas) andAngus MacKenzie (of Daimh) proved to be great tutors - both exceptionallymusical and with a lot of good new tunes which were fun and challenging. Iwent home with a lot more new tunes than I expected, and I must admit itwas quite refreshing to be on the learning end of the classes for a change -no regrets at all about going back as a student!
On the social side it was good to hear all the old arguments still ragingabout the best ways to teach and learn, the "correct" rhythm for tunes, therespective merits of small and border pipes, the merits of professional asopposed to amateur reed-making, and the perennial Dixon debates. Nothinghas changed since the early days of the society!
How did this weekend compare with the early Dunkeld models? Just thesame, and just as good in many ways. I noticed particularly three things thatreally have improved over the years, the first being the quality of small-pipes, most of which now have a good sound, tune well, and are easy to play- all credit to the makers (I still feel uncomfortable with the sound of manyof the Border pipes, some of which are a bit rough and are much moredifficult to play in tune). The second factor was the standard of playing -generally a lot better all round than in the early days. The third, and mostinteresting, was improvement in style of playing - most of the pipers I
30 31
encountered were playing much more rhythmically and with less of the"pipe-band" timings and ornamentations that dominated the first fewcourses. Music is beginning to win over technique!
Are there any areas for development or improvem ent? The only "weak"area I felt was the way the evening sessions develo It was a shame tohave two brilliant young musicians as tutors and not hear them display theirtalents - could there be some tutor performance slot incorporated? Listeningto real high-class performers (especially two experts on Border pipes) reallyshould be part of the weekend learning experience.
Should there be an organised slow jam for beginners? (I remember, formy sins, leading many such a session at Dunkeld, where for an hour thebeginners had their own wee session with better players being encouraged tojoin in and enjoy playing the more relaxed tempos.) More controversially,should there be a fixed slot, or separate area, for a Border-pipe session?Border-pipes and small-pipes cannot sit comfortably together in a session -the small-pipes simply get lost. Also from a listener's point of view, alengthy border-pipe session is quite hard to take.
These are just ideas that might be worth committee discussion before nextyear. But they in no way diminish the enjoyment of the weekend. Thanks toall involved in the hard work of organising it. - DT
IT WAS with a certain amount of trepidation that I walked into the Georgeand Abbotsford Hotel in Melrose. I had never been to a teaching weekendbefore, being reasonably new to piping. I was just in time for pudding andthe first session of the weekend. I'd never seen so many right elbowsmoving in the same place before, and it was also the first time I'd seen andheard Border pipes in the flesh. I chose to remain a spectator, my playingabilities not quite up to the pace, and my repertoire small.
Things began in earnest the following morning with a lesson taught byCarol-Anne Mackay. Fortunately the attendance for the weekend was largeenough to have beginners, intermediate and advanced classes. It was the firsttime I'd been taught tunes entirely by ear, and I found the process delightfuland refreshing, with the essence and feeling of the tunes coming acrossimmediately. It was also the first time I'd been given free reign overembellishments, which was quite liberating.
Taking it all in? One of the classes at Melrose
By the end of the morning we'd learned three tunes, a slow air, astrathspey and a reel, and I was surprised to find that I was able to play themrather better than if I'd spent the same amount of time with "the dots" infront of me.
The afternoon saw Angus MacKenzie teaching us Skylark 's Ascension, anice four-part tune, and by the end of it my brain was starting to feel veryfull, but I was also feeling quite pleased with myself. Another lively eveningsession followed, with some great playing extending in to the wee smallhours.
Sunday morning's lesson contained helpful maintenance tips fromHamish Moore, and he also managed to fit in another three tunes. By thistime, however, my brain must have reached capacity and I found myselfstruggling to keep up, my fingers no longer doing quite what I was tellingthem to do. One thing that did stick in my mind though was how Hamishshowed it was possible to play a tune beautifully and engagingly with veryminimal embellishment carefully placed to bring out the rhythm of the danceit was written for.
The weekend was an invaluable opportunity to meet and learn from thebest in the bellows piping world. I'll definitely be back next year, and in themeantime my goal is to find enough practice time to get me to a level whereI can join in with the sessions. -RH
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Meanwhile, chairman Jim Buchanan catered for the brandyand cigars brigade ....
JIM HAD just returned from visiting his daughter and grandchildren on theisland of Waiheke in the Hauraki Gulf, in New Zealand. While there, he'dbeen asked to give a talk to the local Rotary Club and had chosen as hissubject Border piping.
As soon as he arrived in New Zealand, Jim had discovered the extent ofScots influence there: "Our taxi driver was a member of the Auckland PipeBand and came to NZ from Hamilton, Lanarkshire when he was about six -60 years ago. He still had a Lanarkshire accent and was passionate aboutpiping." Affection for the old country, however, didn't prevent Jim'sproposer at the Rotary Club to come out with a string of stereotypicalbagpipe jokes - eg, what's the difference between a bagpipe and atrampoline? You take off your shoes to jump on a trampoline.
Clearly a serious lecture on Border piping was going to be a non-starter,so Jim responded with a few non-bagpiping musician jokes - eg (and we'reprinting no more - ed), who was that piccolo I saw you with last night? Thatwas no piccolo, that was my fife ...
Anyway, on this fine evening in New Zealand, with the comet McNaughtan amazing sight, its tail trailing across a cloudless night sky, Jim finally gotround to explaining to his Antipodean hosts the role of the LBPS since itsformation in 1982. And in Melrose, he told the weekend gathering what hetold the New Zealanders: "The Scottish small pipes and Border pipes are`revival' instruments and for any revival, you must have interest, enthusiasmand, of course, the pipes themselves, but being made of wood and leatherthey don't last for ever. However, we do have pictures and carvings of whatthey looked like [not to mention surviving museum examples - ed], andthanks to the genius of pipemakers - some of whom are here in Melrosetoday - they have been recreated. As for interest and enthusiasm, just lookaround you."
Jim said that he explained to his Kiwi audience that "as well as revivingbellows-blown pipes and piping, members of the Society are activelyresearching the music and the styles of Lowland and Border piping, which itis believed did not have the complex gracings so characteristic of musicplayed on the Great Highland bagpipe. Many players of these `revived'
Hamish Moore (extreme right) and company in session
bellows-blown pipes now play music which is characterised by simplegracings used sparingly, mostly either for rhythmic emphasis or to separaterepeated notes. The emphasis is now on musicality rather than complexitysuch as is demanded in the world of the GHB where competitiveness rules.Many Highland pipers now use the Scottish small pipes to play Highlandmusic in the Highland style, treating it as an indoor version of their owninstrument - and there is nothing wrong with that.
"Our revival instruments have only been around for about 25 years, andare therefore still young. Ideas on playing style are still evolving. It isgenerally believed that the body of distinctly Borders music, probablymostly learned by ear, died out in the early to mid 19 6 Century. However,some survived in manuscript, notably the early Dixon MS of c. 1733, whichMatt Seattle has published. Many of these must have been of Northumbrianorigin, since William Dixon lived in Stamfordham, Northumberland."
This took Jim on to a more recent preoccupation in the Society, that ofbuilding bridges with fellow societies such as the Northumbrian Pipers'Society, the Bagpipe Society and the College of Piping and the PipingCentre. "We should build bridges with Irish piping societies (as suggestedby Hamish Moore) and this we aim to do." He then paid tribute to ourrecently retired secretary: "Some of us here tonight were at RonaMacdonald's wedding. The fact that there was an eclipse of the moon thatnight was purely coincidental and can have no significance in connection
3435
with the fact that Rona has chosen to retire into the shadows this year. "Itwas a marvelous moment at the party when the entire pipe section of theStrathclyde Fire and Emergency Service band marched in playing theirHighland pipes, complete with Rona, still in full bridal attire, playing intheir midst."
"Rona (now Mrs Tony Dawson) has been such a force on the LBPSCommittee over the last 14 years. She said, in a letter in the last issue ofCommon Stock, that it was 16 years ago that she bought her pipes fromHamish and took those fateful steps to the front door of his workshop inimam, and she paid tribute to the many people who have made massivepersonal contributions to the Society."
Jim had further tributes to pay: "To Nigel Richard - our past chairman - andto Rona, I'd like to say that the Society owes them a major debt of thanks forall their hard work over the years."
Jim regretted having missed much of the collogue as it had been on thesame weekend that he retired from his job as secretary of the British MarineFinfish Association and had to attend a farewell dinner on the banks of LochFyne. Now, at Melrose, it was his great pleasure to be starting a new"career" as chairman of the Society, so, amid much applause, he proposed atoast to the Lowland and Border Pipers' Society.
Collogue 2007Plans are underway for this year's Society Collogue, to be held on 10November in the Birnam House Hotel, near Dunkeld, Perthshire. Furtherdetails to be confirmed but, so far, speakers include Professor MurrayCampbell, an expert in the acoustics of wind instruments, who hasinvestigated both Highland and Border pipes.
Also speaking will be David Moore, an expert in timbers (and father ofHamish), who will speak on the physical and chemical properties ofhardwoods used in pipemaking.
The fine Highland band Skipinish has been hired for the evening ceilidh.Fort further details as they appear, check the Society's website onwww.lbps.net
Back on the tilting groundGeorge Greig reportson the Society's 24
th
annual competition,held once again inBruntsfield PrimarySchool, Edinburghlast April
THANKS TO the hard workand splendid organisation ofAnita and Richard Evans Judges George Greig and Julian Goodacreand Jim Buchanan, this feeling the burden of responsibility ... or is ityear's competition, held simolv thoughts of lunch?again in Bruntsfield Primary School in Edinburgh, was a great success.There was a good sized and appreciative audience and most of thecompetition classes were well subscribed. The hall had good acoustics andthere were plenty of side rooms for tuning up and last-minute practice.Perhaps the only disappointment was that there were no entries in the noviceclass.
In previous years, there has been criticism that perhaps too manycontestants relied on a "Highland" repertoire, forgetting that this is a Societyformed to promote Border music as well as bellows pipes. There could havebeen no such complaints this year since Border tunes were well representedin a varied programme.
The full listing of the prize winners follows this article and I will highlightjust some of the performances which I enjoyed from the time-keeper's desk- and as time-keeper, I would note how well prepared people were on thisoccasion with only one contestant being penalised for a programme whichwas too short: thankfully, no one went on too long. How things havechanged!
The Intermediate Solo class attracted only players of smallpipes - perhapsnot surprising since Border pipes can be a bit more challenging - and the
36 37
The audience ponders as a competitor leaves the platformstandard of play was commendably high. In many cases, they would nothave been out of place in the Open class. This class was won by ChrisCooke who had the good sense to follow the Duncan Johnston tune Farewellto Nigg with Cuckold Come out of the Amrey. Officially, there are no extrapoints for playing the Border repertoire but clearly it did Chris no harm,
There were only two entrants in the Pipe and Song class, with Judy Barkeremerging as the deserved winner. Judy also scooped 3rd place for her duetwith Mike (on box) with a set of Northumbrian tunes. However that latterclass was won by Tristan Legovic and Jean Luc Lefaucher (both fromBrittany) who gave a fine performance on harp and border pipesrespectively. It was a lovely combination.
As always, there was a large entry for the new composition class. Thisyear it was won jointly by Pete Stewart and Dan Houghton, Pete's piecebeing written to honour one of his ancestors who came from Deeside. I waspleased to pick up third with a jig (Jim Buchanan's Halibut), written tothank Jim for his contribution to the Melrose teaching weekend. I almostsuspect that some of the audience believed me when, in introducing the tune,
Matt Seattle, Border pipes, and John Bewes, fiddle, go through their pacesI remarked that a "halibut was, of course, a 17 th century courtly dance" - thetrue allusion being to Jim's involvement in fish farming.
This leads me to the observation that, year by year, the introductions seemto get more and more fanciful. It is remarkable how many people seem tohave tunes come to them in a dream; or in Matt Seattle's case, the notesforming themselves in the pattern on the wall of an Indian restaurant.
As for the Seasoned Pipers, it was David Hannay's turn to come out ontop. He played, in true border style, Because He was a Bonny Lad; just onetune but with lots of variations. I found it interesting to compare thisperformance with that of lain Maclnnes who plays it more as a Highlandquickstep. Both equally valid and enjoyable.
It was good to see Steven Blake, one of our younger members, win theOpen Solo for Smallpipes with a set of jigs and reels. It is only a year agothat I recall helping him with his tuning before he went on to win theIntermediate class; clearly he is progressing rapidly. Rona (under her
38 39
married name of Dawson) and I came2nd
and
3rdrespectively; and I have no
complaints since Rona gave a delightfully phrased performance.
For me, one of the highlights the winning performance in the duet forpipes class. Holly Taylor and Dan Houghton, playing well matched sets ofBorder pipes, gave a lovely performance of The March of the King of Laoise- involving proper harmony, not just the mindless playing in thirds that wehear all too often. I don't think that anyone would make "Border" claims forthe tune, but whether it is of Scots or Irish origin is less than clear. There is aCD (which 1 would recommend) on which Allan MacDonald plays this tuneback-to-back with the piobaireachd Duncan MacRae of Kintail's Lament todemonstrate the common origin of the two. Both favourites of mine.
Dan also came out, deservedly, on top in the Open Solo for Border Pipesclass. The return to the Border repertoire was carried off splendidly by MattSeattle who described the various origins of the tune, Holy Ha fpenny, andhow it appears elsewhere in a variety of guises including The Herring Wife.Matt's version included all manner of variations, some including fiendishruns which would tax any player.
All in all, a good day of friendly competition and meeting up with friendsold and new.
Competition resultsIntermediate - The Julian Goodacre Trophy (5 entries - judge: GaryWest)
1, Chris Cooke - Farewell to Nigg, Cuckold Come Out The Amrey; 2, GuyHall - Seonaidh's Tune, Lads of Duns; 3, Jeannie Campbell - LochaberGathering.
Pipe and song - The Jimmy Wilson Memorial Cup (2 entries - judge:Gary West)
1, Judy Barker - Mingulay Boat Song; 2, David Hannay - Tesco Song.
New composition - The London Trophy (8 entries - judge: JulianGoodacre)
I (Joint Winners), Pete Stewart - John Stewart of Balnacroft and DanHoughton - Fear nan Meur Sleamhna (The Man with the Slippery Fingers);3, George Greig - Jim Buchanan's Halibut.
Duet for pipes and other instrument - Dunfermline Tassies (6 entries -judge: Julian Goodacre)
1, Tristan Legovic and Jean Luc Lefaucher - Drummond Castle, ScarceO'Tatties, Ward's Jig; 2, Richard Fernande and Donald McKay - Brose andButter, Highland Jig, An Drochaid Cluteach, Skyeman's Jig; 3, Judy andMike Barker - Horses Brawl, Bordy Terror, Throwing the Ball Downstairs,The Bear Dance.
Seasoned pipers - The Nigel Richard Trophy (4 entries - judge: HamishMoore)
1, David Hannay - Because He Was A Bonny Lad; 2, Alex Barty - TomTully's Air, The Banks of Allan Water; 3, Jim Buchanan - Noble SquireDacre, Brave Willy Foster, Sunderland Lasses, Go To Berwick Johnny.
Novice - The Heriot and Allan Quaich (0 entries)
Open solo for Scottish small pipes - Colin Ross Trophy (4 entries - judge:Hamish Moore)
1, Steven Blake - Jigs and Reels; 2, Rona Dawson - 79th's Farewell toAberdeen, Greenside, Struan Robertson, Aspen Bank, Brolum, Kalabash,Untitled; 3, George Greig - Melrose Tunes
Duet for pipes - Mains Castle Medals (3 entries - judge: Iain Maclnnes)
1, Dan Houghton and Holly Taylor - The Ass in the Graveyard, Sonny'sMazurka; 2, Eric Joncour and Jean Luc Lefaucher - Bells of Dunblane,Steam Train to Mallaig, 3, Jock Agnew and David Hannay - Kenmure's Upan Awa', Dockside Reel.
Open solo for Lowland/Border pipes - Hamish Moore Cup (7 entries -judge: lain Maclnnes)
1, Dan Houghton - Untitled; 2, Matt Seattle - Holy Halfpenny; 3, EuanWhitmore - The Maids of Colmore, Bannockburn Road The Kitchen Piper.
40 41
Pete Stewart's joint winning tune, John Stewart of Balnacroft
earnan Meur Sleamnha.(The .\an w ith Slippery F ingers)
Dan Houghton's joint 1st entry , Fear nan Meau Sleamhna
42
Buchanan's Halibutig
George Greig's third-place entry, Jim Buchanan's Halibut
The LBPS is embarking on a programme of reprinting several teachingpublications, including Jock Agnew's More Power To Your Elbow(including its CD ROM), also tunebooks by Gordon Mooney and MattSeattle. Keep up to date on www.lbps.net
43
to
An Edinburghbagpipe teacherKeith Sanger suggests that a late 18 th-century pipingteacher in Edinburgh's Blackfriar's Wynd was givinginstruction in something other than Highland pipes
ACCORDING to the Edinburgh Post Directories, one Charles Campbell,described as a "teacher of the Irish pipes" was living in Edinburgh from1793 through td 1802, with an address given as "foot of Blackfriar's Wynd",an area that no longer survives, since most of it, especially the east side ofthe Wynd, has been demolished and replaced by the wider modernBlackfriars Street. Inclusion in the Edinburgh Directory required a paymentso the fact that Charles Campbell felt it worthwhile to appear every yearwould suggest that students continued to be forthcoming, so what was the"Irish" pipe he claimed to teach?
Students need instruments and the most likely supplier would have beenHugh Robertson on the Castle hill. Robertson also features in the Edinburghdirectories but with some interesting changes of description which, since hewas paying for the entry, must reflect how he primarily wished to be seen. Inhis first entry for 1774-1775, he was just described as a "Turner", but in thefollowing directory for 1775-1776, his description expands to "turner andpipe maker, and curious in making all kinds of wind musical instruments".However in the following years he reverts to just "Turner" until the directoryfor 1793-1794, the year that Charles Campbell first appears, whenRobertson's entry changes to "Ivory Turner and Bagpipe maker". Thisdescription continues through until 1798, but for the 1799-1800 entry hisdescription changes to just "Ivory Turner" and this continues until 1805, thelast year in which Robertson has an entry in the directory.
While Hugh Robertson may have regarded bagpipe making as just oneincidental part of his occupation as a turner, he was clearly producinginstruments to order throughout his working life, (while he was ageing andwith failing health, the Highland Society had returned to getting the prizepipe from him in 1816), so his own description of himself as an "Ivory
Turner and Bagpipe maker", occurring at the time that Charles Campbellcomes on the scene teaching "Irish pipes" looks like more than acoincidence. To further add to this coincidence, the existence of a set ofivory and silver mounted bellows-blown pipes with an additional regulatorwith an Edinburgh Assay Office mark for 1793-94, may indicate that 1793marks the start of Hugh Robertson's production of that type of instrument. 1
Returning to the teacher, Charles Campbell, there is some evidence thathe may have been a performer on the bellows pipe for a while, Charles is notthe most common of Campbell forenames, so it is probably the same piperwho signed a receipt at Gordon Castle on the 15 September, 1787, "MrMenzies will please pay Charles Campbell Piper, two Pounds, ten ShillingsSterling for his trouble incoming from Badenoch & playing on the Pipeshere for 8 days, by order of the Duke, Same day received payment"! Clearlyas there were other estate pipers available it would suggest that piperCampbell was offering something more exotic that they were not andAlexander, the 4" Duke of Gordon clearly had an appreciation of piping, asdemonstrated by an account from 1756 when he was an 11-year-old boyattending Harrow School in London when two shillings and three pencewere paid for ribbons for the Bagpipe. 3
Notes
1. Cheape, Hugh, A Check List of Bagpipes in the Edinburgh UniversityCollection, 1983, p7, no 1054.2.National Archives of Scotland (NAS), GD44/51/3.3.NAS, GD44/51/263/2 page 23.
Charles Campbell's entry in the Edinburgh Directory, 1799
44 45
Geordie Syme & CoWe continue our extracts from `The Burgh Pipers ofScotland', a chapter in W L Manson's The HighlandBagpipe, published in 1901, starting with the author'sevocation of Geordie Syme, the famous piper of Dalkeithwho is immortalised as this Society's emblem, as well assome of his successorsOLD GEORDIE Syme, thetown piper of Dalkeith, wasa famous piper in his day.The exact period when heflourished cannot now beascertained, and little isknown of him, even intradition. The piper ofDalkeith was a retainer ofthe house of Buccleuch, andthere was a small salaryattached to the office, forwhich in Geordie's time hehad to attend the family onall particular occasions andmake the round of the towntwice daily - at five am andeight pm. Besides his salary,he had a suit of clothesallowed him regularly. Thisconsisted of a long yellowcoat lined with red, redplush breeches, whitestockings, and buckles in hisshoes.
Geordie Syme - 'a famous piper in his time' -as immortalised by the Edinburgh caricaturistJohn Kay in 1789
when he died. His successor in office was Jamie Reid, who lived long toenjoy the emoluments of position and about whom there are some interestinglocal traditions. Jamie was succeeded by Robert Lorimer, and at his deathhis son was installed in his office, which he held as late as 1837, probablymuch later. The practice of playing through the town was discontinued about1821, the custom being considered by the inhabitants a useless relic ofbygone days. A long sarcastic poem, printed and circulated about that time,is believed to have helped greatly to finally abolish the practice.
The editor adds: One suspects that the poem referred to by Manson was ascurrilous parody of the long established poem about Habbie Simson byRobert Sempill of Beltrees, The Life and Death of the Piper of Kilbarchan.The verses below give an idea of the Dalkeith version ...
O Lorimer! Thou wicked wag,l wish thee, and thy dinsome bagWere twal feet `neath a black peat-hag
Wet as the Severn,Or pipin' to the Laird o' Lag
In Belzie 's Cavern.
E 'r daylight peeps within my chaumerIs heard thy vile unearthly clamour,Wauks the gude wife - the young anes yammer
WI 'ceaseless din;I seize my breeks, an' outward stammer
Compell 'd to rin.
Advertisement: Pipes for saleAstounding set of small pipes by Julian Goodacre with regular chanter,double-bored chanter, hard case and More Power To Your Elbow withDVD. The pipes are in Alresford, Hampshire (midway between Altonand Winchester).
Contact Mike Costello on 01962 734429
Geordie was much takennotice of by the gentry ofhis time. It is not known
46 47
Meetings and EventsLBPS Summer School, 29 July - 3 August 2007, with CommonGround, Scotland at Craigie College, Ayr. Tuition in smallpipesand Border pipes. Contact David Hannay 01 557 840 229.
Pipers' Gathering, 10-13 August, 2007, Killington, Nr Rutland,VT, USA. Billed as "North America's most comprehensive bagpipeevent", a celebration of bagpipes from the British Isles andEurope. See www.pipersgathering.org
Edinburgh - the ALP (Adult Learning Project) at BoroughmuirHigh School on Wednesday nights. Smallpipe tutor Lee Moore.Visit www.alpscotsmusic.org or phone 0131 555 7668.
Penrith: Annual Pipers' Day - hosted by North Cumbria Pipers on3 November. Workshops for NSP, SSP and Border pipes, 'mini'concert, informal session at local hostelry. Contact RichardEvans: [email protected] or phone 016974 73799
SESSIONSGlasgow: Friday night sessions in Laurie's Bar/Acoustic MusicCentre, King Street, kicking off about 7.30pm. Contact MalcolmMaclnnes on 0141 429 4755North-East England: 1st and 3rd Thursday of the month at theSwan pub, Greenside. Contact Nigel Critchley 01661 843492.
North-West England: Monthly sessions, formerly at DACE Centre,Carlisle, currently at Old Crown Pub, Hesket Newmarket. Checkwith Richard or Anita Evans, 016974 73799
London: 3rd Thursday of every month, except July a August.95 Horseferry Rd. Contact Jock Agnew 01621 855447
LBPS Publications for sale include...More Power to your Elbow. Manual/tutor with CD-ROM. £25 (£20 mbrs)
Suggested Session Tunes £8 (£6 members)Suggested Duets and Harmonies £14 (£9.50 members inc P&P) NEW
50 Lowland and Border Tunes (the revised "Pink Book") £5.00 (£4 mbrs)Contact Pete Stewart (see website below). Trade prices available on
request.
LBPS WEB SITE www.lbps.net
