The Pastoral Pipes

Ross Anderson

Outline of Talk

• The written sources

• The instruments

• Getting a period instrument playing again

• Geoghegan

• Tuning

• What this teaches about 18th century music

• What we still don’t know

Earliest Days

• Many European countries have pipes that play an octave plus a few notes (gaita, cornemuse, …)

• Pipes were based on shawms, and the typical shawm plays a few second-octave notes depending on the reed and the player

• By the second quarter of the 18th century, we find evidence of a more developed chanter

• Maybe someone put an oboe into a set of border pipes, or based a chanter on an oboe

Border Pipes

• ‘Old Geordy’ Sime, Dalkeith town piper and retainer to the Duke of Buccleugh

• Painting by John Kay, about 1789

• Contemporary of travelling piper Jamie Allan

Oboe, Grand Bourbonnais, Pastoral Chanters, Union Chanter

Beggar’s Opera, 1728

The Written Sources

• ‘The Compleat Tutor for the Pastoral or New Bagpipe’, John Geoghegan, 1743

• First book of bagpipe music published• Describes an instrument with an open end and

range from low C to third-octave D, A drones• Text describes both Scots and Irish piping

gracings • Repertoire: a mixture of traditional Scots/Irish

tunes, popular airs, and pieces for the oboe

Objections to Geoghegan

• There’s certainly some interesting material (e.g. “A Bagpipe Concerto call’d the Battle of Aughrim, or the Football March”)

• But also tunes in keys like F and B flat – surely these don’t work well with A drones?

• One tune has a low C sharp!• Consensus up till now: Geoghegan

overstated his expertise

Advocates’ Manuscript

• Found in National Library of Scotland• Classed as union pipe music, but several tunes

have low C• I got permission to scan it and put it online (see

www.piob.info)• Mostly Scottish dance tunes; some Irish• Wrote ‘The pastoral pipe repertoire, rediscovered’,

Common Stock v 20 no 2 (Dec 2005)

The Sutherland Manuscript

• In the Mitchell Library in Glasgow• Hundreds of tunes – mostly Scots, many Irish,

also variation sets and popular airs• Only three ‘pastoral’ tunes with low C – the rest

are playable on modern uilleann pipes• There’s also a fingering chart for the highland

pipes showing two second-octave notes!• See ‘The Sutherland Manuscript’, An Piobaire,

2006

Later Sources

• O’Farrell's Collection of National Irish Music for the Union Pipes, 1804

• O’Farrell taught music in London and played on stage – ‘Oscar and Malvina’ was a hit in 1791

Later Sources (2)

• O’Farrell's Pocket Companion for the Irish or Union Pipes, 4 volumes 1805-10

• The MacKie Manuscript, 1828

• The Millar Manuscript, 1830

• Colclough’s Tutor, 1840

Late Pastoral Pipes

• The MacKie set of pastoral pipes, 1828

• National Museum of Scotland

• Came with manuscript of music, now online at www.piob.info

Iconographic & other sources …

• ‘The Dance of the Little People’, William Holmes Sullivan (early 19th century)

• Other references to ‘the long chanter’ up till about WW1

• Sam Grier

The Instruments

• Pastoral and early union pipes are found in many collections – notably the National Museum of Scotland and the Chantry at Morpeth

• See Hugh Cheape, ‘Bagpipes’, NMS, 2008• Replicas have been made by Brian McCandless,

Sean Folsom, Michael McHarg, Chris Bayley, Jon Swayne

• I have two sets that were sold and Sotheby’s in 1994, then owned by John Hughes and Ken McLeod

Getting an old instrument playing

• Ken McLeod fitted a new bag • Bass drone reed borrowed from another old set• The big problem with old pastoral chanters was

always thought to be the chanter reed – the C, E always out of tune

• Breakthrough at WKPF 2007 – I got a few narrowbore D reeds from Joe Kennedy and also played two chanters owned by Hamish Moore

• All four chanters played the same!

The Late 18C Pastoral Scale

• Open – with the foot joint – the chanter plays like a highland chanter (but LH notes slightly flat unless some RH fingers raised)

• Closed it plays like a union pipe except that C nat is x oxo xxxx and C# is o xxo xxxx

• So you can play either Irish or Scots style!• The cost is that the open second octave has

some out-of-tune notes (notably E!)

The Key Insight

• The reason people have struggled to reed pastoral chanters is not that making the reed is an impossible lost art…

• It’s just that the scale is fingered differently!• I visited Jon Swayne and we played all

combinations of our reeds and chanters• It turned out that when he’d copied my chanter,

he’d moved the first finger hole up 3mm to make the open C#, as on a modern chanter

• Looking at old fingering charts, this is obvious!

Voicing for an Open Scale

• Jon Swayne’s copy of my set, with the first finger hole 3mm up the chanter, is also voiced to give a more in-tune E with the foot joint on

• It plays well open across two octaves• Performance closed is OK but lacks bite, the low

C tends to autocran, and it’s easy to get into the wrong octave (the reed is much softer than mine)

• But it seems an appropriate instrument to play the Sutherland repertoire

Chanter Evolution?

• 1700: border pipe: octave plus a few notes

• 1740: baroque oboe, in-tune played open

• 1760: people start playing staccato

• 1780: chanters being optimised for this

• 1800: recognisably modern chanters

• 1820: foot joints stop being made

Unexpected Research Holdup…

Later Chanter Evolution

• The earliest chanter with modern fingering is the James Kenna set donated by Ken McLeod and played by Ronan Browne

• Even so, this has some slightly odd cross-fingerings (as do sets until the 1840s)

• See for example fingering charts from O’Farrell, 1804 – he has a cross-fingered second octave C nat, and some notes must be played open

• Fully modern fingering – 1815?

Implications for Music

• First, we can rehabilitate John Geoghegan!• Pastoral chanters have small finger holes and so

cross-finger well, like a recorder• No problem playing in F, G minor …• Geoghegan’s set had A drones (as did a set in

Newcastle in early 20C) which probably could tune to B flat

• The low C sharp was the bell note with foot joint off for the oboe – and for Sean Folsom’s repro set

Implications for Music (2)

• Older tunes tend to use C nat – e.g. listen to Kitty’s Rambles by Leo Rowsome

• Even although C# is playable, it’s simpler to play the natural scale in fast dance music

• Big source of ‘pastoral’ tunes is the Goodman manuscript – tunes from West Ireland in 1860s

• Johnny Doran’s music also has pastoral flavour• Older instruments likely to remain in use longer in

more remote and marginalised communities

Next steps

• Let’s get more 18th century sets going

• Even if museum sets can’t be refurbished their chanters can still be played

• Then look again at manuscript sources once we understand chanter evolution timelines

• Precedent: the early music movement – ‘historically inspired performance’

Conclusion

• The pastoral pipe is the missing link in the evolution from the 17th century border pipe / gaita / cornemuse design to the 19th century union pipe

• It wasn’t one single design, but a progression • The music also evolved through the 18th century• Instruments stayed able to play ‘highland’ too• Their footprints in modern Scots and Irish music

are evident once we know what to look for• And it’s time to rehabilitate John Geoghegan!