Pastoral Pipes.

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highland-piper
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Re: Pastoral Pipes.

Post by highland-piper »

AaronMalcomb wrote:
There are documented rules stating that pipers were not to tune on the platform suggesting some level of tunability or at least a sense of tuning by the pipers. The old pipes may not have been refined but I'm not convinced they were "crap" to use your word.
True enough, but that's 1821, right? That's 107 years later. It took much less time for the Italian violin to completely displace the native fiddle.

The old pipes may not have been kept because of lack of value but that doesn't necessarily equate lack of quality.
How can a quality musical instrument have no value? I can't think of any examples of hand made instruments that sound good that aren't valuable. The only way it makes sense to me that "This new bagpipe" (Quoting Donnchadh Ban Macintyre in 1784) could so completely displace the previous instruments is if it sounded dramatically superior. My Scottish Small Pipes aren't suitable for playing in competition, but that doesn't mean they have no value.

I have read most of Barry Shears book (referenced previously in the thread) and I don't really see anything that furthers the discussion at hand (The development of the bagpipe). Except that it documents the value that 19th c. gaelic culture placed on bagpipes (and pipers).
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Re: Pastoral Pipes.

Post by paul roberts »

The origin of the pastoral pipes is something I have been mulling over in my head for years. For what its worth, this is pretty much the scenario inside my head as of this moment - and sorry, I really don't have time to lay out all the evidence, you'll have to wait for me to write this up in one of the journals! In any case, its all too provisional at the moment.....but FWIW....

I think the "pastoral" instrument came about more by evolution than sudden invention, as people playing "Border" type instruments experimented to increase their range and keep up with the new violin. Some people found that lowering the pitch and narrowing and lengthening the bore was one way forward, and by the late 17th century a distinctive "flat" pitch overblowing bagpipe had taken shape in northwest England, distinctive enough to be given a regional identity as the "Lancashire" bagpipe. In the early 18th century this instrument was refined and standardized by urban professional woodwind makers, certainly in London and probably Dublin, and was named the "Pastoral or New Bagpipe" in Geoghegan's tutor of 1745.

By the end of the 18th century this had evolved into the "Union pipes" with their with regulators, wider range, cleaner accidentals/high notes, as ideas and techniques travelled between the pipe makers of Edinburgh, Tyneside, London, Dublin, and probably elsewhere. However, from around the mid-18th century the instrument gradually starts to get a particular association with Ireland, and by the early 19th century - though still made played in both England and Scotland - this national identity has begun to supplant the older pan-islands identity. Which leads me to think that Dublin probably played the major role in the development of the Union from the Pastorals, though this narrowing of identity would be helped by the decline of all bagpipes in England and the rise to exclusive prominence as a national symbol of the GHB in Scotland.

You can now buy Pastoral and early Union re-creations from various makers. But if you want the Lancashire bagpipe, I'm inclined to see John Swayne's border pipes - key of low D with 1.5 octaves - as an accidental reinvention.......
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Re: Pastoral Pipes.

Post by fiddlerwill »

Highland piper, it was the examples Barry has photographed of old pipes that I thought related to this discussion. Hope you dont feel I sent you off on a wild goose chase!

Well, I have a pastoral chanter on order to fit my UP drones so in a year or so I hope to have a better understanding of the whole subject!


As for the pipes being banned after '45, well its clear that under the British Law of Precedence that the pipes were'' in the eyes of the law a weapon of war'' and so the Disarming acts effectively proscribed pipes as well as all articles of highland dress.
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Celtpastor
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Re: Pastoral Pipes.

Post by Celtpastor »

The Disarming Act has been widely ovverated considering its influence on the bagpipe.
Actually, only ONE piper is reported to EVER have been condemned in its consequence - and that was, because he was directly involved into fighting. You may read all of this in Gibson's "Traditional Gaelic Bagpiping", a book I usually dislike for the generally very unscientific tone in which it is written in, but I can't help but agree in certain facts such as these...
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Re: Pastoral Pipes.

Post by fiddlerwill »

POh , yes I have the book, Thought it was interesting, I just disagree with his conclusions in this regard! . It seems to me to be a very academic book somewhat distant from realities of life. Anyone who has been on the receiving end of Military or Police heavy handedness will have an understanding of the behavior of an occupying, brutal,quasi military force with little in the way of constraint who were actually actually encouraged to lay waste to the region! British law is clear. A precedent was set. From that moment on, under British law, the pipes were classed as a weapon of war. Do the records actually state which particular weapon of war a 45'er was prosecuted for? History is write by the winners, but our own oral records are quite clear.

Yes at some point the Crown forces were restrained and a trooper or two censured for their excesses, but up untill then creating a climate of fear, oppression, was the Aim. To break the spirit of the common people , whos tacit support is essential to maintaining an insurgency.
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Heres a few tunes round a table, first three sets;

http://soundcloud.com/fiddlerwill/werty
http://soundcloud.com/fiddlerwill/jigs-willie
http://soundcloud.com/fiddlerwill/jigs
Ian Lawther
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Re: Pastoral Pipes.

Post by Ian Lawther »

There was an article written some years ago in a Na Piobairi Uilleann publication that linked in the development of oboes with teh development of pipes. I can't remember who wrote it but it firmly put the pastoral/uilleann development into a context with orchestral woodwind development.

Like others who have contributed to this thread I have been aware of the multiple centres in the evolution of uilleann pipes from pastoral pipes with Dublin, Edinburgh, Glasgow and Newcastle all involved. For a long time I didn't see an obvious way that these cities connected. However I read a book called "How The Scots Invented The Modern World" a few years back which examined "the Scottish renaissance". It mentioned how young gentlemen would study not just at one university but that they would travel between Edinburgh and Glasgow Universities and on to Queen's in Belfast and Trinity in Dublin. It struck me that if some of these fashionable young men were playing the new types of pipes they would likely be visiting makers in the university cities to get suppplies and have repairs done. All the makers of worth that I know will measure up an instrument that comes in for repair and copy (and improve upon) new ideas. Perhaps this is the way the makers in different cities evolved the instruments we now know.

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Re: Pastoral Pipes.

Post by fiddlerwill »

That does seem to be the case. The Baroque Oboe, when placed next to a pastoral pipe can hardly be distinguished from each other. It was suggested that a maker/repairer put a baroque oboe into a set of Border pipes and the Pastoral pipes were born.Thanks for that piece of the puzzle Ian.
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Heres a few tunes round a table, first three sets;

http://soundcloud.com/fiddlerwill/werty
http://soundcloud.com/fiddlerwill/jigs-willie
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billh
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Re: Pastoral Pipes.

Post by billh »

Ian Lawther wrote:There was an article written some years ago in a Na Piobairi Uilleann publication that linked in the development of oboes with teh development of pipes. I can't remember who wrote it but it firmly put the pastoral/uilleann development into a context with orchestral woodwind development.
Perhaps you're thinking of Ken McLeod's article in Volume I of the Seán Reid Society Journal: From Hotteterre to Union Pipes. Lots of food for thought there.

Bill
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Re: Pastoral Pipes.

Post by Ted »

Bates, in his book, "The Oboe", states that the oboe is a descendant of a french bagpipe, which overblew into the second octave, not from some shawm. The Hotteterre family, credited with the invention of the oboe, were bagpipe makers and made the musette de cour. The early oboe reeds certainly look very much like modern UP reeds, sans collar. There was plenty of exchange between continental and British Isles musicians and instrument makers. No need to imagine a separate evolution of the pastoral pipe in the Isles. Even a version of the regulators were in use in Italy in the surdulina. Swayne may not be too far off by developing his "lowland pipes" based on french chanters. The distinctive closed chanter, sans foot joint, and additional regulators could be the Irish modifications to the instrument. The bellows was certainly in use on the continent earlier than the pastoral pipes.
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Re: Pastoral Pipes.

Post by Dominic Allan »

My 2c: (a few random responses to stuff in this thread)
The highland bagpipe chanter and the oboe (C18/19/20 examples) have little in common besides being conical bored , double reed instruments. While similar skills are required to make them and I don't doubt that several makers (myself included) have learned their trade on one instrument then shifted to another, I don't see any oboe genes in the GHB.

Jon swayne makes a pastoral pipe based on an instrument in a museum in (Brussels?), while demonstrating it he removed the foot joint, it played horribly out of tune...until he put the open end on his knee and played it closed fingered.

All of the uilleann pipe reeds that I have seen were much bigger (in every way) than any oboe reed (ancient or modern).

I haven't seen an original pastoral pipe reed , but I'm told that they are a different shape to the uilleann.

Bare in mind when comparing uilleann and pastoral pipes that the modern "post Taylor" wide bore chanter has taken a further evolutionary step.I understand from talking to a uilleann maker that the throat of the chanter is wider, this generaly requires a bigger reed.It would be better to look more closly at earlier narrow bores chanters.

Jon Swayne's chanters are not based on French instruments and are in fact his own designs. While he has borrowed ideas such as a second thumb hole for a flat third any similarity is down to the laws of physics. His low D chanter is distinctly different in bore , tone , reed and fingering to it's french counterpart.
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Re: Pastoral Pipes.

Post by Ted »

I don't see a relationship with the GHB chanter and baroque oboe either, nor did I point one out. The old flat chanters and the oboe, yes. This was pointed out to me by a maker of baroque oboes, who has old reeds astonshingly similar to antique reeds for flat chanters, black-waxed thead wrap, rolled copper staple and all. They are nothing like modern oboe reeds. Swaynes pipes sound remarkably more french than any historical or modern "lowland pipes". This may be coincidental, but his old band, hurdy-gurdy and all, are francophilely influenced. The historical pastoral pipe (in Eb) which I got to try didn't play in tune, played like an uilleann chanter, with the foot joint removed, either.
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Re: Pastoral Pipes.

Post by Black Rose »

Yeah, Pastoral Pipes is a marketing name from the several pastoral opera themes they appeared in onstage. They're the "New Bagpipe." And if you take the foot off the chanter you have a set of Uilleann pipes. They were probably invented in the early 1700's In Scotland and England. There aren't any Uilleann pipes older than that, in fact the first reference to either UP or Pastorals shows up in Ireland in 1760.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pastoral_pipes
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Re: Pastoral Pipes.

Post by stringbed »

[Thread revival. - Mod]

There is a clear illustration of what might be called classical pastoral pipes in a painting from 1862. Presumably because of the unexpectedly late date and the context of the illustration, they have been seen as union pipes. Details are provided in a blog post here.
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Re: Pastoral Pipes.

Post by fiddlerwill »

A recent understanding came to me in relation to N Carolans article where he quotes a letter written in 1756. "The Irish pipes had 16 notes..... "need i say more?
The conclusion is obvious, the Pastoral pipes were the Irish pipes renamed due to the political situation of the day.
Funny to come to a thread I started 13 yrs ago.
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Heres a few tunes round a table, first three sets;

http://soundcloud.com/fiddlerwill/werty
http://soundcloud.com/fiddlerwill/jigs-willie
http://soundcloud.com/fiddlerwill/jigs
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Steve Bliven
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Re: Pastoral Pipes.

Post by Steve Bliven »

fiddlerwill wrote: Sat Feb 04, 2023 8:25 am Funny to come to a thread I started 13 yrs ago.
And your avatar doesn't look a day older...

Best wishes.

Steve
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