Cabar Feidh should be familiar, as it was
presented in current Scottish and Cape Breton settings in an earlier feature. The similarities between the settings featured here and the Cape Breton settings are uncanny. There has been substantial debate in the piping com- munity over whether these early scores were actually played as written or if they were writ- ten rounded because of convenience, while the actual rhythms were simply ‘known’ to all pipers – that is, pointed in the competition manner. This argument seems fundamentally flawed when the presence of written dots and cuts are found sporadically throughout the collections. One such example can be found in fourth bar of Gunn’s setting of Cabar Feidh and are seen throughout the collection. If rhythmic accents were left out for convenience and were actu- ally used in some universal pattern, why were instances such as this included? It can only be assumed that they were played relatively round unless notated otherwise, as seen here. Cannon suggests as much in his discussion of similar collections. The scores present a stark contrast with their modern day equivalents that have been updated with much heavier ornamentation and the substantial pointing now characteristic of completion reel playing. Two modern Scottish settings have been reprinted here. Note in particular, the ornamentation
added to the first beat of bars 17 and 21 and the heavy off-beat ornaments in bars such as 7 and 17 of Cabar Feidh. Also note the consistent ‘dot-cut-dot-cut’ rhythms present throughout. Inherently less natural, are the cut-dot-cut-dot rhythms found in this setting of Thompson’s Dirk. It is widely accepted that grace noting has grown more and more complicated since the beginning of the competition era, but the effects of such changes are seldom discussed. The additions make this setting difficult to play at full dancing speed and alter the rhythm of the tune, making it nearly unrecognizable in the dance-piping idiom.
Cultural Aftermath THE romantic Victorian era interest with all things Scottish would not last forever, and eventually Gaelic music would fall out of favour with the gentry. While the impetus for many of the aesthetic changes discussed above may have receded, the ‘new traditions’ that were fostered in an effort to preserve some misconception of the ancient were now deeply ingrained in the
PIPING TODAY • 46
Cabar Feidh
Trad. Scotland / Arr. Queen’s Own Highlanders
Thomson’s Dirk
Trad. Scotland / Arr. Scots Guards
THESIS 3.1
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