version. The modern first and second parts were formerly a separate tune, known as J.D.K. MacCallum’s Strathspey. They were combined over the course of two decades and became standardised as the modern version of Arniston Castle in 1899. The current competition standard is four parts for any march, strathspey, or reel. The fundamental reason for these changes was the competitive atmos-
phere and the growing focus on difficulty, rather than the original rhythms of the older dance-music tradition. John Gibson in his book comments on the peculiarity of this situation in which competitors play “marches to which the soldier does not march, and dance tunes to which the dancer does not dance”. Cannon corroborates this, noting that even in competi- tion marches, which retain perhaps the most unadulterated rhythms of the three; “the piper does not so much ‘march’ around the platform, as stalk around in a stilted manner, sometime with an up-or-down motion exaggerated to the point of parody”. Through this competition ideal, these marches, as with strathspeys, reels, and jigs, have grown to represent ‘art’ more than the original purposes they served in Gaelic Highland society.
Cabar Feidh Trad. Scotland Arr. William Gunn
MUSICAL EXAMPLES THESE dramatic structural changes can be tracked over a gradual evolu- tion seen in the settings featured in a progression of written collections. Collections written as late as the middle of the 19th century often feature arrangements much more reminiscent of dance-music than modern com- petition settings. In the not so distant past, there were even competitive pipers whose performance style represented a legacy that indicated much the same. Cannon, who has been a major reference throughout this paper, gives firsthand testimony about his own teachers who played marches in a more functional style, as taught by their predecessors, dating back to the 1900s. Cannon characterises their playing as “faster” with “fairly even semiquavers”and states that this appears to have been the norm during earlier periods. He also notes that when an uncle of his came back from a stint piping with the army in the beginning of the 20th century, he brought back a new style that was “slower and more pointed”. All of these changes can be witnessed through the printed scores beginning in the latter half of the 19th century. The starting points for this analysis are two of the most widely pub-
lished collections from this time period, William Gunn’s Caledonian Repository (1848), and Angus MacKay’s Piper’s Assistant (1843). Both of these collections feature tunes set in a very similar manner to what is perhaps the closest written record of the Gaelic dance-music tradition – modern collections published in Cape Breton, often based on the playing of 20th century pipers and fiddlers. In both Gunn and MacKay’s works, tunes are generally written with even divisions of the beat (rounded), with minimal ornamentation, focused on emphasising a fluid rhythm, rather than difficulty. Two examples featured in both collections are the reels Cabar Feidh and Thomson’s Dirk. This latter tune’s English title is listed as Frazer’s Rant in MacKay’s collection, but the Gaelic title, Tha Biodag Air Mac Thòmais, and the basic melody are the same in both. Settings of these tunes are included here:
Cabar Feidh Trad. Scotland Arr. Angus MacKay
(Gunn, 24) Thomson’s Dirk Trad. Scotland Arr. William Gunn
(MacKay 11) Thomson’s Dirk
Trad. Scotland Arr. Angus MacKay
(Gunn, 57)
(MacKay 24) PIPING TODAY • 45
THESIS 3.1
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