Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 Part 11 (1/2)
Skilful pipers have been known to introduce warblers of as many as eleven notes between two beats in a bar.
[Ill.u.s.tration]
The use of musical notation for the Highland pipe tunes is a recent innovation; the pipers used verbal equivalents for the notes; for instance, the piobaireachd _Coghiegh nha s.h.i.+e_, ”War of peace,”[8] which opens as shown here, was taken down by Capt. Niel MacLeod from the piper John McCrummen of Skye as verbally taught to apprentices as follows:--
”Hodroho, hodroho, haninin, hiechin, Hodroha, hodroho, hodroho, hachin, Hiodroho, hodroho, haninin, hiechin,” &c.
The conclusion of the tune is thus expressed:
”Hiundratatateriri, hiendatatateriri, hiundratatateriri, hiundratatateriri.”[9]
Written down this seems a mere unintelligible jumble, but could we hear it, as sounded by the pipers, with due regard for the rhythmical value of notes, it would be a very different matter. Alexander Campbell[10] relates that a melody had to be taken down or translated ”from the syllabic jargon of illiterate pipers into musical characters, which, when correctly done, he found to his astonishment to coincide exactly with musical notation.”
[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 1.--(1) Cornemuse. (2) Irish bag-pipe. (3) Musette. (4) Highland bag-pipe, A.D. 1409. (5) Border bag-pipe.
(From Capt. C. R. Day's _Descriptive Catalogue of Musical Instruments exhibited at the Royal Military Exhibition_, by permission of Eyre & Spottiswoode.)]
A Highland bag-pipe of the 15th century, dated MCCCCIX., in the possession of Messrs J. & R. Glen of Edinburgh, was exhibited at the Royal Military Exhibition in London in 1890[11] (see fig. 1 (4)). There were two drones, inserted in a single stock in the form of a wide-spread fork, and tuned to A in unison with the lowest note of the chaunter, which had seven finger-holes in front and a thumb-hole at the back.
_The old Irish Bag-pipe._--Very little is known about this instrument. It is mentioned in the ancient Brehon Laws, said to date from the 5th century (they are cited in compilations of the 10th century), in describing the order of precedence of the king's bodyguard and household in the _Crith Gabhlach_: ”Poets, harpers, _pipers_, horn-blowers and jugglers have their place in the south-east part of the house.”[12] The word used for (bag-) pipers is _Cuislennagh_, a word a.s.sociated with reed instruments (_cuiscrigh_ = reeds; O'Reilly's _Irish-English Dictionary_, Dublin, 1864).
The old Irish bag-pipe, of which we possess an ill.u.s.tration dated 1581,[13]
had a long conical chaunter with a bell and apparently seven holes in front and a thumb-hole behind; there were two drones of different lengths--one very long--both set in the same stock. It is exceedingly difficult to procure any accurate information concerning the development of the bag-pipe in Ireland until it a.s.sumed the present form, known as the union-pipes, which belong to Cla.s.s II.
[v.03 p.0204] The _cornemuse_ and _chalemie_ were the bag-pipes in use in France, Italy and the Netherlands before the advent of the _musette_, to which they bear the same relation as the old Irish bag-pipe does to the union-pipes, or the _cornemusa_ or _piva_ to the _sampogna_ or _surdelina_ in Italy. Two kinds of cornemuses were known in France during the 16th and 17th centuries, differing in one important structural detail, which affected the timbre of the instruments. Pere Marin Mersenne[14] has given a detailed description of these varieties and of the musette, with very clear ill.u.s.trations of the instruments and all their parts. The cornemuse or chalemie used by shepherds, and as a solo instrument (see fig. 1 (1)), was similar to the Highland bag-pipe; it consisted of a leather bag, inflated by means of a valved blow-pipe; a large drone (_gros bourdon_) 2 ft. long included the beating-reed, which measured 2 in., and was fixed in the stock; the small drone (_pet.i.t bourdon_), 1 ft. in length including a reed 2 in. long, also had a beating-reed and was fixed in the same stock as the chaunter. The two drones were tuned to C. [Notation: Gros bourdon C2. Pet.i.t bourdon C3.] The chaunter had a conical bore and a double reed like an oboe, but hidden within the stock; it could be taken out and played separately, when the compa.s.s given by the eight holes (seven in front and a thumb-hole) C to C' could be increased by a third to E, by overblowing the D and E an octave by pressure of the breath and lips on the reed, now taken directly into the mouth. [Notation: C4 C5 or E5.] The second kind of cornemuse was played only in concert with a family of instruments known as _Hautbois de Poitou_, a hautbois having the reed enclosed in an air-chamber, just as is the case with the reeds of the bag-pipe. This cornemuse had but one drone which could, like the others, be lengthened for tuning by drawing out the joint; the reed was not a beating-reed but a double reed like that of the chaunter; this const.i.tutes the main difference between the two cornemuses. The chaunter had eight holes, the lowest of which was covered by a key enclosed in a perforated box.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Sackpfeife or Dudelsack. Drone G1. Chaunter G2 to G3.]
[Ill.u.s.tration: Bock. Drone C2. Chaunter B2-C3 to C4.]
The _Sackpfeife_ or _Dudelsack_ of Germany was an instrument of some importance made in no less than five sizes, all described and ill.u.s.trated by Michael Praetorius.[15] They consist of the _Grosser Bock_ or double-ba.s.s bag-pipe, a formidable-looking instrument with a single cylindrical drone of a great length, terminating, as did the chaunter also, in a curved ram's horn (to which the name was due). The chaunter had seven finger-holes and a vent-hole in front, and a thumb-hole at the back. The drone was tuned to G, an octave below the chaunter.
The _Bock_, of similar construction, was pitched a fourth higher in C.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Schaferpfeife. Drones B3b F4. Compa.s.s of chaunter F4 to F5.]
[Ill.u.s.tration: Hummelchen. Drones F4 C5. Compa.s.s of chaunter C5 to C6]
The _Schaferpfeife_ had two drones in B flat and F. Praetorius explains that the upper notes of the chaunter of this sackpfeife had a faulty intonation which could not be corrected owing to the absence of the thumb-hole, usual in all other varieties of the instrument.
The _Hummelchen_ had two drones tuned to F and C.
The _Dudey_ or treble sackpfeife was the smallest of the family, and had three drones tuned to E flat, B flat and E flat, and a chaunter with a compa.s.s ranging from F or E flat to C or D.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Drones E4b B4b E5b. Compa.s.s of chaunter F5 to C6 or E5b to D6.]
Praetorius also mentions a different kind of sackpfeife he saw in Magdeburg (see _op. cit. Theatrum_, pl. v., No. 4), which was somewhat larger than the schaferpfeife and pitched a third lower. There were two chaunters mounted in one stock, each having three holes in front and one for the thumb at the back. The right-hand chaunter sounded the five notes D, E, F, G, A, and the left-hand chaunter, G, A, B, C, D. [Notation: Drones G3 D4.
Compa.s.s of chaunter D4 D5.] The performer was thus able to play simple two-part melodies on the Magdeburg bag-pipe. Praetorius mentions in addition the French bag-pipe (_musette_), similar in pitch to the hummelchen, but inflated by means of the bellows.
The _Calabrian bag-pipe_ has a bag of goatskin with the hair left on, and is inflated by means of a blow-pipe. There are two drones and two chaunters, all fixed in one stock. Each chaunter has three or four finger-holes and the right-hand pipe has the fourth covered by a key enclosed in a perforated box; both drones and chaunter have double reeds.
The ancient Greek bag-pipe (see ASKAULES), and the Roman _tibia utricularis_, belonged to this cla.s.s of instrument, inflated by the mouth, but it is not certain that they had drones (see below, _History_).
II. The second cla.s.s of instruments, inflated by means of a small bellows worked by the arm, has as prototype the _musette_ (see fig. 1 (3)), which is said to have been evolved during the 15th century;[16] from the end of the 15th century there were always musette players[17] at the French court, and we find the instrument fully developed at the beginning of the 17th century when Mersenne[18] gives a full description of all its parts. The chief characteristic of the musette was a certain rustic Watteau-like grace. The face of the performer was no longer distorted by inflating the bag; for the long c.u.mbersome drones was subst.i.tuted a short barrel droner, containing the necessary lengths of tubing for four or five drones, reduced to the smallest and most compact form. The bores were pierced longitudinally through the thickness of the wood in parallel channels, communicating with each other in twos or threes and providing the requisite length for each drone. The reeds were double ”hautbois” reeds all set in a wooden stock or box within the bag; by means of regulators or slides, called _layettes_, moving up and down in longitudinal grooves round the circ.u.mference of the barrel, the length of the drone pipes could be so regulated that a simple harmonic ba.s.s, consisting mainly of the common chord, could be obtained. The chaunter, of narrow cylindrical bore, was also furnished with a double reed and had eleven holes, four of which had keys, giving a compa.s.s of twelve notes from F to C. [Notation: F4 to C6.]