"Seems to me that as the pipes have been around for about 500 years in their present form, ..." With the keys, 200 is more like it. 'Peacock's New Invented Chanter', illustrated just after 1800. So the core repertoire, at least in the earliest local version (Dixon, in the 1730's), predates the modern instrument.
Were even keyless smallpipes (rather described before the 17th century? If not, then we can't push the instrument back beyond 350 years. It is also worth bearing in mind that the northeastern musical tradition has long been at least semi-literate: e.g. Henry Atkinson, William Dixon, William Vickers, John Peacock, Robert Bewick, Harry and Tom Clough... It also stretched higher up the social scale than some people like to think. The picture (of Dixon himself?) in the Dixon MS is of a gentleman in a rather snazzy coat. The other common misconception here is that aural tradition is far more corruptible than the literate version - I know many musicians who learn complex tunes accurately by ear. On the other hand, manuscript and printed sources often disagree widely among themselves, see Matt's article on Cut and Dry Dolly in the magazine a few years back. Literate sources can only notate the version they 'know', and were often (Vickers especially) not all that literate either. John -----Original Message----- From: tim rolls BT [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: 02 October 2008 12:23 To: Robert Greef Cc: nsp@cs.dartmouth.edu Subject: [NSP] Re: Piping under threat! Seems to me that as the pipes have been around for about 500 years in their present form, but much of the repetoire is from the last 200-250 years and is probably a sample of popular tunes of the day that you could argue that the "traditional" tunes at least of the pipes have already been lost. As to the way of playing, who knows, each player is likely to have learnt at the knee of another, and added his own foibles. The traditional way now, and probably then, is what is in the living memory, although there is a degree of calcification due to recordings of early 20th century players, much as spelling became more fixed with the advent of the printing press. This site has recently shown that there is no certainty as to the meaning of notation, so how can we know how things were played. I'm sure that Chris Ormston, widely regarded as one of the finest players around today, will have a great influence on how the pipes are learnt and played for many years, and because there are recordings of his style, that will now go on into perpetuity, I don't think you need fear Chris, that your style will die out in the near future. Now for my pebble in the pond, As some wise chap said a while back, "In my father's house there are many rooms", or words to that effect. I think there should be not just tolerance, but acceptance of a wide range of not only playing styles, but music types as well. If it was OK in the 1850's to play hit songs of the day, then why not now accept tunes from the last 40-50-60 years, which I'm sure most of us will agree has been an incredibly rich and diverse period of music writing. So, preparing to be shot down, how about "In the Mood", "Moon River" ,"Popcorn"(by Hot butter if my memory serves)"I am sailing" (Rod Stewart) "Money, money,money" by ABBA. You can see wher I'm coming from. But before you do shoot, think how much poorer we would be musically if the Sax had only ever been used to play orchestral music, it's original purpose as a crossover between brass and woodwind. Tim RollsOriginal Message ----- From: "Robert Greef" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <nsp@cs.dartmouth.edu> Sent: Thursday, October 02, 2008 9:22 AM Subject: [NSP] Piping under threat! >I saw the post from Chris Ormston: > >>I'm seriously concerned that the traditional > > way of playing our instrument will be swept away in a wave of >> Pan-Celtic "syncopated jiggery" > > This made me wonder what 'Pan-Celtic "syncopated jiggery"' is, and what > the > nature of the threat. > > Cheers, > Robert Greef > > > > > > To get on or off this list see list information at > http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html ------------------------------------------------------------------------ -------- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG - http://www.avg.com Version: 8.0.173 / Virus Database: 270.7.5/1702 - Release Date: 10/1/2008 9:05 AM
