Pastoral Pipes.

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highland-piper
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Re: Pastoral Pipes.

Post by highland-piper »

Cheape doesn't dispute that there were pipes in the general highland pattern in older times.

The way I see his premise is: at what point did an instrument you could play in competition today come to exist?

It seems that that happened in the late 1700's and early 1800's. The exact same thing happened with fiddles. There was a bowed, stringed instrument called a fiddle in Scotland starting in or around 1600. When the modern Italian violin arrived in Scotland, it completely displaced the original fiddle, but the name stuck. You can play all the old music on the new instrument. Well there were instruments in Scotland in the 1600's and 1700's that went by the name of GHB (at least by Joseph MacDonald's time) and had the same general form, but they weren't the same instrument any more than the Italian violin is the same instrument as that nasty old fiddle.

It's related to the topic at hand, becuase, according to Cheape, the same people who developed the first modern GHB were probably also the same people who made the pastoral pipes (Robertson and MacDonald, for instance), which, as you say, draw on oboe making techniques. They probably used that same skill set to develop the modern GHB (creating it from prior bagpipes that go back at least a hundred years earlier). They were skilled and trained professional instrument makers.
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fiddlerwill
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Re: Pastoral Pipes.

Post by fiddlerwill »

Yeah, fair enough, I think you are probably right. But, the evidence provided in B Shears 'Dance to the piper' I think needs to be taken into account in this discussion. Its certainly an excellent book full of interesting research and highly pertinent detail. Do you have a copy? If not Get it, It will make a good Xmas present for the piper in your life :D

An underlying issue would be; at what point does one thing become another through evolution? It must b a continuum surely? A slow and gradual development perhaps more rapid at certain localized hubs such as Edinburgh and Dublin.

It seems the Pastoral pipes transformed from the open pipe to a closed/open pipe. the UP, at what point was a pastoral pipe with the footjoint removed, a Uilleann pipe?

But in the case of the 2 drone Piob Mhor becoming the 3 Drone Piob Mhor..... I think they are the same instrument effectively.


listening to the Ross talk now... thanks very much.
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http://soundcloud.com/fiddlerwill/werty
http://soundcloud.com/fiddlerwill/jigs-willie
http://soundcloud.com/fiddlerwill/jigs
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Re: Pastoral Pipes.

Post by highland-piper »

I just ordered "Dance to the Piper." Says it will arrive after Christmas. Thanks :thumbsup:

It's not a question of how many drones it has (just like what makes a violin a violin isn't how many strings it has). That's part of it, but not all of it. It's also how it sounds, how it responds, and so forth. That would be true of the UP/PP too.

Do UP have irregular bores?
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"The beginner should approach style warily, realizing that it is an expression of self, and should turn resolutely away from all devices that are popularly believed to indicate style — all mannerisms, tricks, adornments. The approach to style is by way of plainness, simplicity, orderliness, sincerity."
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Re: Pastoral Pipes.

Post by fiddlerwill »

Listening to Ross Anderson's talk answered all the questions I had, I think. That was exactly what I was looking for and my thanks go to Nate 'Elbow piper' !!
Last edited by fiddlerwill on Fri Dec 18, 2009 6:23 am, edited 1 time in total.
The mind is like a parachute; it only works when it is open.


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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Re: Pastoral Pipes.

Post by Celtpastor »

I guess, it would be highly interesting for both of You to visit Mr. Robson in Heartburn/Northumberland with his extensive collection of Robertson Pastoral, UP and both of them double-chanters and complete sets. Unfortunately, this is not my speciality - I am more interested in the general evolution of pipes in all parts of the world, so I just listened and took a few photos. But Mr. Robson, high in his eighties, will be more than prepared to give You any help he can give. I personally was most impressed by a set of NSP, still keyless and probably open or half-open fingered, but yet bellows-blown, dating from (probably) about 1560 - the oldest set yet to be found...
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Re: Pastoral Pipes.

Post by fiddlerwill »

1560! That's seriously old! Who dated the set? Id love to go down one day.
The mind is like a parachute; it only works when it is open.


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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Re: Pastoral Pipes.

Post by s1m0n »

highland-piper wrote: That the Great Highland Bagpipe is a Victorian invention.
Along with clan tartans, highland dress, & the lays of Ossian, I suppose.
And now there was no doubt that the trees were really moving - moving in and out through one another as if in a complicated country dance. ('And I suppose,' thought Lucy, 'when trees dance, it must be a very, very country dance indeed.')

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Re: Pastoral Pipes.

Post by highland-piper »

I just took a look at Cheape's chapter on pastoral pipes. If I'm reading it correctly, he seems to be saying that the pastoral pipe and the Uilleann pipe are the same instrument at different points in evolution -- that it started out being the pastoral pipe and as time went on the name changed first to union and then finally uillean (in Ireland).

In the "Coda" section of the book he says (paraphrasing) the fact that the GHB is a fairly recent invention and doesn't come from the highlands doesn't mean that there wasn't highland piping (nor bagpipes in the highlands) prior to it's invention. I guess you could think about it in exactly the same terms as the modern kilt.
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Re: Pastoral Pipes.

Post by AaronMalcomb »

The kilt analogy isn't far off the mark. What Cheape probably means is the standardization of the GHB was cemented in the Victorian era. There are varying accounts of pipes with and without bass drones up into the early 19th c. There was certainly piping in the Highlands and Islands before but the instruments were not quite the same as they have been for the last 200 years. There is just not much material evidence to tell us what those earlier pipes were like. Interestingly the early manufacturers of the new GHB were also making union pipes and some noted Highland pipers of the time are documented as having played the union pipe as well (as Ross Anderson demonstrated, they could be played with essentially Highland technique).
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Re: Pastoral Pipes.

Post by highland-piper »

AaronMalcomb wrote:The kilt analogy isn't far off the mark. What Cheape probably means is the standardization of the GHB was cemented in the Victorian era. There are varying accounts of pipes with and without bass drones up into the early 19th c. There was certainly piping in the Highlands and Islands before but the instruments were not quite the same as they have been for the last 200 years. There is just not much material evidence to tell us what those earlier pipes were like. Interestingly the early manufacturers of the new GHB were also making union pipes and some noted Highland pipers of the time are documented as having played the union pipe as well (as Ross Anderson demonstrated, they could be played with essentially Highland technique).
I think it's more than just a lack of standardization -- what we call today a highland pipe sounds better than anything that came before 1800. It took the skills learned from the baroque oboe makers to create the sounds we appreciate today. Probably the reason there are no early historical examples is because they sounded like crap. Exactly the same thing happened with violin bows. It's almost impossible to find a violin bow that predates Tourte. They were all crap and no one felt like holding onto them. And there are (and always have been) way more violin players than GHB players.

I quoted your whole post for the last bit. I've just been reading Glen's "Collection for the GHB". I don't know when it was published, but someone wrote May 27, 1882 on the cover. Glen said that (referring to Highland, Lowland, and historic Northumbrian) "the three instruments so distinguished are essentially the same. The scale is all alike. The only difference between them is in the size.... It does not materially alter the character of the instruments that the Highland is inflated by a blow-pipe, and the two others (as also the Irish) by bellows).... The disparity in size, teh position of the drones, and the two methods of inflation have no doubt led the superficial observer to consider them as three different instruments."

Thus sayeth one of the most highly regarded experts of 130 or so years ago.
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AaronMalcomb
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Re: Pastoral Pipes.

Post by AaronMalcomb »

Perhaps an over simplification regarding quality. The older pipes probably weren't crap, they just weren't viable anymore in a piping economy driven by the competitions where the standardized GHBs were given to the best players. The older style pipes were essentially banned. The 2-drone instruments actually were banned. The pressures of economy, war and social change didn't leave many resources for sentimentalism outside of the privileged classes. If you weren't using it there was no sense in keeping it [the old style pipes]. I haven't read enough about the influence of the oboe makers to comment on that topic. My hunch is that their influence is not as substantial as it seems, at least in terms of the GHB. Just based on reed design alone their influence on the pastoral pipe seems rather more substantial.

I would imagine you posted the Glen quote tongue-in-cheek.
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Re: Pastoral Pipes.

Post by highland-piper »

AaronMalcomb wrote:

I would imagine you posted the Glen quote tongue-in-cheek.
I don't think he wrote it that way, no. As far as I can tell, that's the way he felt about it -- to him, bagpipes were bagpipes and you played the ones that made sense for the occasion.

Since there are very few bagpipes from before the late 1700's, it's impossible to know what bagpipes from the 1600's would have sounded like. But take a look at this guy, from 1714:

http://www.clangrant-us.org/grant-piper2.htm

Image

This is a lifesize painting, and it's very detailed. There are no tuning slides. Hmmm.

I disagree with your premise regarding competition. There wern't that many pipers involved in the competition in the first place, and it only happened once a year, but even so, pipes don't take up that much room. If you had a good sounding whistle would you toss it out just becasue you couldn't compete with it? Why toss out a good sounding set of pipes?

Going back to the Piper to the Laird of Grant (the painting) -- at some point GHB makers figured out that drones sound a lot better with tuning chambers. It could well be that when the oboe makers were inventing pastoral pipes they also invented tuning chambers. No matter who invented tuning chambers, someone did, and once they did, all prior bagpipes would sound like crap, and there'd be no reason to keep them.
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Re: Pastoral Pipes.

Post by elbowmusic »

What do you mean by tuning chambers? You mean tuning pins and slides? I wouldn't go by that painting to prove that drones couldn't be tuned in 1714. He also has a blowpipe the diameter of a toothpick and a huge flag tied to his drone that is only the diameter of his pinky finger.
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Re: Pastoral Pipes.

Post by s1m0n »

AaronMalcomb wrote:The kilt analogy isn't far off the mark. What Cheape probably means is the standardization of the GHB was cemented in the Victorian era. There are varying accounts of pipes with and without bass drones up into the early 19th c. There was certainly piping in the Highlands and Islands before but the instruments were not quite the same as they have been for the last 200 years.
For certain. Both plaid and piping were banned in Scotland during the penal laws (Act of Proscription 1746) passed by the English after the battle of Culloden ended the Jacobite rebellion of 1745. Banned, that is, for anyone not in a highland regiment of the (british) army. This tells us that tartans and bagpipes were already a major part of highland culture, because no one passes laws banning something that isn't happening. The fact that for a generation or so the only legal kilts and legal piping were in the army is also the likeliest explanation for the fact that once the penal laws were repealed making it legal for civilians again, both had become much more highly regulated than before.
And now there was no doubt that the trees were really moving - moving in and out through one another as if in a complicated country dance. ('And I suppose,' thought Lucy, 'when trees dance, it must be a very, very country dance indeed.')

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Re: Pastoral Pipes.

Post by AaronMalcomb »

s1m0n wrote:For certain. Both plaid and piping were banned during the penal laws (Act of Proscription 1746) passed by the English after the battle of Culloden ended the Jacobite rebellion of 1745. Banned, that is, for anyone not in a highland regiment of the (british) army. This tells us that tartans and bagpipes were already a major part of highland culture, because no one passes laws banning something that isn't happening. The fact that for a generation or so the only legal kilts and legal piping were in the army is also the likeliest explanation for the fact that once the penal laws were repealed making it legal for civilians again, both had become much more highly regulated than before.
Piping was never actually banned. Those disarming acts meant actual weapons and the great kilt but no scholarly investigation has been able to substantiate that the pipes were banned (there is documentation of piping before the act was repealed). There was one instance of a conviction of a piper for stirring Jacobite sentiment but the instrument and its art was never banned. And there was tartan before of course but not to the extent and distinction as there was in the Victorian era.
highland-piper wrote:This is a lifesize painting, and it's very detailed. There are no tuning slides. Hmmm.
I'm with Nate on this. I am always skeptical of artistic depictions of bagpipes. While it is very detailed it isn't necessarily accurate or at least not precise. There are too many proportional oddities. We don't know either way but I'm not convinced by that painting that the old Highland bagpipe drastically differed organologically from other types of bagpipes that it wouldn't have had tuning slides. 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.
highland-piper wrote:I disagree with your premise regarding competition. There wern't that many pipers involved in the competition in the first place, and it only happened once a year, but even so, pipes don't take up that much room. If you had a good sounding whistle would you toss it out just becasue you couldn't compete with it? Why toss out a good sounding set of pipes?
The Edinburgh competition wasn't the only one, and granted there weren't many, but it was major. Even if many pipers weren't playing in it, many would have tried. Benefactors had standing to gain by having the best piper so they would have interest in getting their piper to the competition and pipers that didn't earn there living from piping would have a chance to gain such employment by playing. They timed the competition to make it accessible to pipers who still made their living from agriculture (even pipers with a benefactor still often worked the land) and they had trials or auditions so even if most pipers didn't play in the competition, they had the opportunity to try.

The old pipes may not have been kept because of lack of value but that doesn't necessarily equate lack of quality.
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