Chris:
> Seriously, though, you make an important point about use of ornaments
> BY CHOICE. Without this we'd never have had the raw expression of
> Billy Pigg ("He was a wild piper, but a lovely bloke" - Tom Clough IV)
> or the edgy earthiness of the first Cut & Dry LP.
As someone who came to the Northumbrian pipes later in life, having
first learned the highland pipes and Scottish smallpipes, I hear at
least two different traditions in Northumbrian playing. There's the
northern strand (Billy Pigg, Kathryn Tickell, ...) which has a Scots
flavour not just in the use of gracings but in some aspects of
expression. And then there's the other strand - what should I call
it, the Newcastle orthodoxy? - in which choyting is wicked, and all
notes must be as distinct as peas.
In my view both are quite valid ways to play. And different styles
work for different tunes. I wouldn't try to play 'Maggie's Foot' in
the northern style, or 'The Old Drove Road' in the Newcastle style.
Ross
PS: how many people here have had a go at the a Monty pipe - the
replica made by Julian Goodcare of the Montgomery smallpipes from
1757? This is a set that, if you stop the end of the chanter, plays
perfectly as a keyless Northumbrian pipe, and if you open it, plays
very well as a set of Scottish smallpipes (except that the high F is
sharp rather than flat). I suspect strongly that this is a missing
evolutionary link between the Scottish and Northumbrian smallpipes
for a number of technical reasons. So one test for an 'authentic'
style of playing is how well it runs on the Monty.
FWIW I reckon the old players would have combined gracings with
staccato, just as uilleann pipes still do. After all, Tyneside was a
centre of the `union pipes', as they were then called, as well as the
Northumbrian pipes, up till the early 19th century. I can imagine that
the the Clough / Newcastle style evolved out of that
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