THE next feature in this series will be published in issue 57 of Piping Today. Each feature published in this series is a chapter summary, and each full chapter of the thesis will be made available online at
www.thepipingcentre.co.uk/piping-today-magazine
to public expectations of what a Highlander should look like.”
As Cheape suggests, these popular expecta- tions, supplemented by the work of visionary authors such as Sir Walter Scott, have shaped modern perceptions of Gaelic Scottish society and music more than any historical basis or fact ever would. As a prime example, there is a vast amount of literature available to demonstrate the invention and institutionalisation of the modern kilt as de facto period dress in Gaelic society, such as Cheape’s Tartan: The Highland Habit. Many similar re-interpretations of Gaelic culture can be seen in the realm of Highland music and dance as they came into fashion within Victorian society.
These competitions became increasingly
more structured and the technical require- ments for contending musicians also had to change. Standardised settings were one of the first and most obvious requirements that needed to be implemented. In the early days of the competitions, the music being played was taken by a player’s whim from the completely aural tradition they were part of. With the exception of Patrick MacDonald’s informal collection of Highland Vocal Airs, there would be no published collections of bagpipe music until the 19th century. Even early 19th century collections offered little in the way of congruity or standardisation and many times were written to demonstrate an individual’s own personal settings, many times of the same tunes featured in preceding collec- tions. The actual effect that these collections would have had in early competitions is also highly debatable considering that the earli- est competitors would have been completely musically illiterate. Despite inherent obstacles, standardisation
was actively promoted by the Highland So- cieties’ (hereafter referred to as HSL or HSS) competitions. Yet another modern piper/ musicologist, John Gibson cites in his book, Traditional Gaelic Bagpiping, 19th century piper and music publisher, Angus MacKay, who noted that the Society often awarded cash prizes for the transcription of pipe music. Gibson further explains how much this offends a traditionally Gaelic sense of the piping tradi- tion, writing: “These facts strongly indicate a deliberate educational agenda on the part of the Highland Society of London […] quite out of keeping with tradition and carelessly or deliberately divergent from it.”
PIPING TODAY • 44
Gibson is pointing out the inherent expres-
sive, interpretive and free flowing nature that exists, to some extent, in any culture where tunes are learned aurally, by ear and imitation. To have these tunes codified and standardised, many times by people wholly removed from the Gaelic culture that created them, was in many ways a killing blow to whatever advan- tage piping competitions could have offered to support traditional Gaelic culture. A similar sentiment was shared by Allan MacDonald in a lecture given during the 2010 Celtic Colours
drummers that played whenever the Highland units were used in a ceremonial setting. Within the new setting of the ‘pipe band’, there was a need for standardisation of repertoire and instrument that was not present during the solitary piper’s duty as the rallying cry for troops in battle. The need for instruments would be met on a large scale by various firms such as the Glens, established in Edinburgh, and William Gunn in Glasgow. The music would eventually be codified in collections made specifically for military units such as the Seaforth, Cabar Feidh
‘Tunes originating from the earlier dance-music idiom became more heavily embellished and consequently were played slower to accommodate these new ornaments’
Festival in Cape Breton. Lamenting this very sort of standardisation, he said: “This music has become frozen, like a camera shot. And as one of the great early collectors of border songs, James Hogg he was called (known as the ‘ethnic shepherd’), collected Border ballads and as he was writing them down, his mother turned to him and said, ‘What are you doing?’ He said, ‘I’m writing down the songs.’ ‘That’s the end of the song,’ she said. It’s finished. It’s now set in stone. So we [now] have this concept in piping that once it’s written down, you follow the text and that whole extemporaneous nature goes [away].” As with Gibson’s commentary, MacDon- ald acknowledges that something vital is lost when a previously oral tradition is adapted to written text or music. In this new competitive ideal, variations died and subtle nuances in performance that go beyond the written score were left behind, in favour of a ‘cookie-cutter’ performance of a regulated setting. Standardisation would come into full force after the invention of military pipe bands in the mid-19th century. These units were officially established in 1854, by order of the British War Office, providing six pipers for each of the Highland regiments. This format expanded to become the Scots Guards units two years later. In this context, based on the earlier model of British fife and drum corps, the previous role of the clan-piper, as a source of martial inspira- tion, was morphed into a band of pipers and
and Scots Guards collections, still in publica- tion today. A secondary and likely less intended effect of
the rising competition circuit was the gradual evolution of Highland pipe music, within its new setting, into something more closely re- sembling ‘art-music’. Between the middle of the 19th century and the turn of the 20th, the modern military/competition-focused style of playing was coming to fruition. Tunes originat- ing from the earlier dance-music idiom became more heavily embellished and consequently were played slower to accommodate these new ornaments. When these tunes were slowed, there became an increased need to incorporate stronger rhythmic accents, which are now so typical of the present tradition (i.e. the pointed style discussed in the second feature of this series. At the same time these aesthetic changes were occurring, tunes were also gradually being elon- gated, with the incorporation of additional and more complicated parts. While most early tunes featured only two ‘strains’ or ‘parts’ (i.e. AABB rondo form), many were expanded to include three by the mid-1800s, and up to six parts by the beginning of the 20th century as discussed in Roderick Cannon’s book, The Highland Bag- pipe and its Music. In an interesting anecdote, Cannon notes the evolution of the popular strathspey, Arniston Castle, which began as a two-parted tune, now featured as the current third and fourth parts of the larger, expanded
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