Pastoral pipes

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Pastoral Pipes
Pastoral pipes removable foot joint.JPG
Other namesUnion pipes
Classification
Playing range
2 octaves
Related instruments

The pastoral pipe (also known as the hybrid union pipes, organ pipe and union pipe) was a bellows-blown bagpipe, widely recognised as the forerunner and ancestor of the 19th-century union pipes, which became the uilleann pipes of today. [1] [2] [3] Similar in design and construction, it had a foot joint in order to play a low leading note and plays a two octave chromatic scale. There is a tutor for the "Pastoral or New Bagpipe" by J. Geoghegan, published in London in 1745. [4] [5] It had been considered that Geoghegan had overstated the capabilities of the instrument, but a study on surviving instruments has shown that it did indeed have the range and chromatic possibilities which he claimed. [6]

Contents

History

This bagpipe was commonly played in the Lowlands of Scotland, the Borders, and Ireland from the mid-18th until the early 20th century. It was a precursor of what are now known as uilleann pipes, and there were several well-known makers over a large geographic area, including London, Edinburgh, Aberdeen, Dublin, and Newcastle upon Tyne. Therefore, it is difficult to say which country the pastoral pipe and its later adapted union pipe specifically come from, although the earliest known piping tunebook — "Geoghegan's Compleat Tutor" — refers to a maker in London in 1746. As the pastoral pipe was modified it developed into the union pipe in the period 1770–1830; makers in all three countries contributed ideas and design improvements. [7] [8] Both pipes were played by gentlemen pipers of the period in Scotland, England and the Anglo-Irish Protestants in Ireland, people in society who could afford an expensive hand made set of pipes.

The term “new bagpipe” refers to the expanded compass and improvements to the instrument. Although the term "pastoral" is not historically found outside Geoghegan's London context, it is evocative of a style of music played at the time. [1] Originally the label “pastoral” may refer to the “ancient pastoral airs" played on the instrument composed in a "gentle, very sweet, easy manner in the immolation of those airs which Shepard’s are supposed to play". This style would suit the sweet tone of the pastoral pipes union/uilleann pipes of the late 18th century, when literature, art and music romanticized rural life. [9] In the 19th century oboes were being marketed in London as “pastoral” to fit the music styles of the times. The pastoral bagpipe may have been the invention of an expert instrument maker who was aiming at the Romantic market. The pastoral pipes, and later union pipes, were certainly a favourite of the upper classes in Scotland, Ireland and the North-East of England and were fashionable for a time in formal social settings, where the term "union pipes" may originate. [1]

The first reference to a pastoral pipe comes from popular and fashionable pastoral dramas of the time with music such as the Gentle Shepherd in 1725 [10] by the writer and poet Allan Ramsay, and the English Ballad The Beggar’s Opera in 1728, as a counter-measure against the influx of Pastoral Italian music. The opera featured an “en masse” dance led by a pastoral pipe and the scene was engraved by William Hogarth (1697–1764) who clearly shows a bellows blown bagpipe [11] similar to the one later depicted in the Geoghegan tutor. The Geoghegan repertoire draws on contemporary compositions namely the London organist John Ravenwood (1745), composer John Grey (1745), [1] the musical collection of William Thomson's Orpheus Caledonius in 1733, as well as operatic arrangements for the Ossian cycle. [12] The pastoral pipes were regarded in a classical or neo-baroque setting, played by gentlemen pipers and spread across the upper circles of polite society as the instrument of choice. An established bellows pipes with an extended range is noted to be played across Scotland no later than 1760 in the “Complete Theory of the Great Highland bagpipe” by Joseph MacDonald. [13]

Lovers of Ossian felt a kind of enthusiastic rapture when they beheld the guests seated, and the bards arranged in the flower-decked hall of Fingal; when they heard the sweet harmony of the harps (clarsach) and the Union pipes and the song of the bards they heard also the warlike sound of the shield of the hall of Fingal.

— Oscar and Malvina
An engraving of Billy Purvis (1784-1853) one of the last travelling minstrel pipers of the south of Scotland and the North East of England. Playing a union pipe early-19th century. Billy Purvis (1784-1853).JPG
An engraving of Billy Purvis (1784-1853) one of the last travelling minstrel pipers of the south of Scotland and the North East of England. Playing a union pipe early-19th century.

The first reference to the instrument in Ireland is provided by John O'Keefe in 1760 as an instrument of polite society [14] and the emerging pastoral and prototype union pipe influenced the folk tradition of the 18th and 19th century in Scotland and Ireland. This can be thought of as a shared tradition which served a neo-baroque orchestral and concert fashion but also drew strongly on the ‘native traditions’ of both Scotland and Ireland and the music styles of the times. [9]

The pastoral pipes can be played either standing or in a seated position using a set of bellows, and the chanter is similar to the later union pipes, but it had an added foot joint that extended its range one tone lower. [3] This added foot joint had holes in its sides in addition to the hole at the bottom of the bore. The pastoral pipes are like the Highland pipes in that the sound is continuous; notes are articulated by finger techniques such as gracenotes. The union pipes, which evolved from the pastoral pipes, enable the player to interrupt the flow of air by stopping the end of the chanter on his knee; this doesn't work for the pastoral instrument because of the side tone holes. Many later pastoral sets, though, have a dismountable foot joint; when this is removed they can be played as union pipes. The surviving instruments indicate that the pastoral pipes had two or three drones and generally one regulator.

Tuning

The conventional view was that the pastoral pipes were difficult to shift between the lower and upper registers. Recent reconstructions and refurbishments have shown that this is not the case. In modern Uilleann pipes, the player will move from the lower to the upper register by stopping the chanter momentarily while increasing the bag pressure, causing the reed to double-tone. However, in the pastoral pipe, the same effect can be achieved by increasing the bag pressure while playing a suitable gracenote. For example, to go from first octave A to second octave A the player can use an E gracenote. Surviving Pastoral pipe manuscripts have many tunes that leap vigorously between registers. The ability to stop the chanter does help, though; it also gives the instrument much better dynamics, as the chanter can be raised and lowered from the knee to modulate the volume. This may have motivated the evolution into the union pipe by removing the foot joint from the pastoral pipes. [15]

The pastoral pipe had a narrow throat bore of 3.5–4 mm and an exit bore seldom larger than 11 mm. Its bore was very similar to later flat set Union pipe chanter bores made in the early 18th century. The reeds had a head width of 9.5–10.5 mm and staple bores of 3.6 mm. The chanters were made in a variety of pitches with a quiet tone and an E flat pitch being very common among surviving instruments. [16] Later examples include a slide on the foot joint to change the lower leading note from flat to sharp as required and on a further set an on/off mechanism is fitted to control the drones with the two regulators fitted neatly to the top of the common stock and the addition of key in "e" to increase the compass of the chanter in the second octave.

Chanter

The Pastoral chanter is used to play the melody and is similar to later flat set union pipe chanters in tone. It has eight finger holes giving middle C, D, E, F♯, G, A, B,C or C♯, D' using open fingering in the first register. Most of the accidentals can be obtained by cross-fingering and a second register is available by increasing the bag pressure. [17] With a suitable reed, a few third-octave notes can also be played. Later sets included fully chromatic chanters using as many as seven keys. The chanter uses a complex double-bladed reed, similar to that of the oboe or bassoon. This must be crafted so that it can play two full octaves accurately, without the fine tuning allowed by the use of a player's lips; only bag pressure and fingering can be used to maintain the correct pitch of each note.

Removal of the footjoint

The Pastoral pipes gradually evolved into the union pipes as baroque musical tastes favoured a more expressive type of instrument. [16] The foot joint may have fallen out of use as early as the 1746–1770s [1] as oboists of the period, who usually played pastoral pipes, would frequently removed or invert the foot joint in order to remove the low C# foot joint to play the chanter upon the knee. [15] The fall from grace of the open chanter was slow to take effect as pastoral pipes with removable foot joints were still being made till the 1850s [18] and played until after the First World War. [16] In time the instrument would be tuned for performance on the knee rather than off it, and the foot joint remnant today is the tenon cut around the foot of the modern uilleann chanter. [5]

Instrument makers of the pastoral and Union pipes

Union pipes early-19th century ebony, ivory and silver mounts with two regulators with a keyed D-Chanter; by the pipe maker Robert Reid of Newcastle-upon-Tyne. Union pipe Robert Reid.JPG
Union pipes early-19th century ebony, ivory and silver mounts with two regulators with a keyed D-Chanter; by the pipe maker Robert Reid of Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

Some of the oldest surviving instruments date from the 1770–1790s, notably James Kenna of Mullingar, Hugh Robertson of Edinburgh [19] and later Robert Reid of North Shields. Pipemakers started to optimise the instrument for performance on the knee rather than off it, so that players could take advantage of the better dynamics this offered. It is possible that the performer community diverged for a while into union pipers playing without the foot joint, and old-style pastoral pipers who retained it and could play in both styles. In any case, both "long" and "short” pastoral/union chanters were documented in both Scotland and Ireland until around World War One. The evolution of the union and uilleann (a term originating in 1904 by Irish nationalists) pipes was also driven by competition between makes; throughout the late 18th and early 19th century, pipemakers in Aberdeen, Dublin, Edinburgh and Newcastle competed and copied each other's ideas and innovations. [20] It is now thought that the existence of regulators, already a common feature of the pastoral pipes, a characteristic keyed stopped ended system, was the inspiration for the keyed Northumbrian smallpipes, probably first produced by John Dunn, who made both pastoral and Northumbrian pipes in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. [21]

Instrument variations

Historical examples of various designs have turned up over a wide geographical area, and several pipemakers have offered reconstructions. They are not widely played, though research and interest in them is currently increasing.

Related Research Articles

Bagpipes Musical instrument

Bagpipes are a woodwind instrument using enclosed reeds fed from a constant reservoir of air in the form of a bag. The Scottish Great Highland bagpipes are the best known examples in the Anglophone world, but people have played bagpipes for centuries throughout large parts of Europe, Northern Africa, Western Asia, around the Persian Gulf and northern parts of South Asia.

Uilleann pipes National bagpipe of Ireland

The uilleann pipes are the characteristic national bagpipe of Ireland. Earlier known in English as "union pipes", their current name is a partial translation of the Irish language terms píobaí uilleann, from their method of inflation. There is no historical record of the name or use of the term uilleann pipes before the 20th century. It was an invention of Grattan Flood and the name stuck. People mistook the term 'union' to refer to the 1800 Act of Union; this is incorrect as Breandán Breathnach points out that a poem published in 1796 uses the term 'union'.

Chanter

The chanter is the part of the bagpipe upon which the player creates the melody. It consists of a number of finger-holes, and in its simpler forms looks similar to a recorder. On more elaborate bagpipes, such as the Northumbrian bagpipes or the Uilleann pipes, it also may have a number of keys, to increase the instrument's range and/or the number of keys it can play in. Like the rest of the bagpipe, they are often decorated with a variety of substances, including metal (silver/nickel/gold/brass), bone, ivory, or plastic mountings.

Great Highland bagpipe Type of bagpipe native to Scotland

The Great Highland bagpipe is a type of bagpipe native to Scotland, and the Scottish analogue to the Great Irish Warpipes. It has acquired widespread recognition through its usage in the British military and in pipe bands throughout the world.

Scottish smallpipes

The Scottish smallpipe is a bellows-blown bagpipe re-developed by Colin Ross and many others, adapted from an earlier design of the instrument. There are surviving bellows-blown examples of similar historical instruments as well as the mouth-blown Montgomery smallpipes, dated 1757, which are held in the National Museum of Scotland. Some instruments are being built as direct copies of historical examples, but few modern instruments are directly modelled on older examples; the modern instrument is typically larger and lower-pitched. The innovations leading to the modern instrument, in particular the design of the reeds, were largely taken from the Northumbrian smallpipes.

The border pipes are a type of bagpipe related to the Scottish Great Highland Bagpipe. It is perhaps confusable with the Scottish smallpipe, although it is a quite different and much older instrument. Although most modern Border pipes are closely modelled on similar historic instruments, the modern Scottish smallpipes are a modern reinvention, inspired by historic instruments but largely based on Northumbrian smallpipes in their construction.

Swedish bagpipes

Swedish bagpipes are a variety of bagpipes from Sweden. The term itself generically translates to "bagpipes" in Swedish, but is used in English to describe the specifically Swedish bagpipe from the Dalarna region.

Northumbrian smallpipes Bellows-blown bagpipes from North East England

The Northumbrian smallpipes are bellows-blown bagpipes from North East England, where they have been an important factor in the local musical culture for more than 250 years. The family of the Duke of Northumberland have had an official piper for over 250 years. The Northumbrian Pipers' Society was founded in 1928, to encourage the playing of the instrument and its music; Although there were so few players at times during the last century that some feared the tradition would die out, there are many players and makers of the instrument nowadays, and the Society has played a large role in this revival. In more recent times the Mayor of Gateshead and the Lord Mayor of Newcastle have both established a tradition of appointing official Northumbrian pipers.

Here Northumbria is defined as Northumberland, the northernmost county of England, and County Durham. According to 'World Music: The Rough Guide', "nowhere is the English living tradition more in evidence than the border lands of Northumbria, the one part of England to rival the counties of the west of Ireland for a rich unbroken tradition. The region is particularly noted for its tradition of border ballads, the Northumbrian smallpipes and also a strong fiddle tradition in the region that was already well established in the 1690s. Northumbrian music is characterised by considerable influence from other regions, particularly southern Scotland and other parts of the north of England, as well as Irish immigrants.

Duda Traditional bagpipe of Hungary

The Hungarian duda is the traditional bagpipe of Hungary. It is an example of a group of bagpipes called Medio-Carparthian bagpipes.

Cornish bagpipes are the forms of bagpipes once common in Cornwall in the 19th century. Bagpipes and pipes are mentioned in Cornish documentary sources from c.1150 to 1830 and bagpipes are present in Cornish iconography from the 15th and 16th centuries.

Welsh bagpipes

Welsh bagpipes The names in Welsh refer specifically to a bagpipe. A related instrument is one type of bagpipe chanter, which when played without the bag and drone is called a pibgorn (English:hornpipe). The generic term pibau (pipes) which covers all woodwind instruments is also used. They have been played, documented, represented and described in Wales since the fourteenth century. A piper in Welsh is called a pibydd or a pibgodwr.

This article defines a number of terms that are exclusive, or whose meaning is exclusive, to piping and pipers.

Electronic bagpipes

The electronic bagpipes is an electronic musical instrument emulating the tone and/or playing style of the bagpipes. Most electronic bagpipe emulators feature a simulated chanter, which is used to play the melody. Some models also produce a harmonizing drone(s). Some variants employ a simulated bag, wherein the player's pressure on the bag activates a switch maintaining a constant tone. As with other electronic musical instruments, they must be plugged into an instrument amplifier and loudspeaker to hear the sound. Some electronic bagpipes are MIDI controllers that can be plugged into a synth module to create synthesized or sampled bagpipe sounds.

English bagpipes

When bagpipes arrived in England is unknown, there is some evidence to suggest Anglo-Saxon times, however the oldest confirmed proof of the existence of bagpipes anywhere in the world comes from three separate sources in the 13th century. Two of them English; the Tenison Marginalie Psalter from Westminster and an entry into the accounts books of Edward the I of England recording the purchase of a set of bagpipes. The third from the Cantigas Del Santa Maria published in Spain. From the 14th century onwards, bagpipes start to appear in the historical records of European countries, however half the mentions come from England suggesting Bagpipes were more common in England.

Hugh Robertson (1730–1822) was a Scottish wood and ivory turner and a master crafter of woodwind instruments such as pastoral pipes, union pipes, and great Highland bagpipes.

John Dunn was a noted pipemaker, or maker of bagpipes. Born in Newcastle upon Tyne, England, Dunn was a cabinet maker by profession, initially a junior partner with George Brummell. In the trade directories, he also appears in his own right as a turner and a plumb maker and turner. His address was Bell's Court, off Pilgrim Street. He was buried on 6 February 1820 in St. John's, Newcastle. His father may have been one John Dunn of Longhorsley; if so, he was born on 3 September 1764. He should not be confused with one M. Dunn, the maker of several surviving sets of Union pipes.

Great Irish warpipes

Irish warpipes are an Irish analogue of the Scottish Great Highland Bagpipe. "Warpipes" is originally an English term. The first use of the Gaelic term in Ireland was recorded in a poem by Seán Ó Neachtain, in which the bagpipes are referred to as píb mhór.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 Brian. E. McCandless. “The Pastoral Bagpipe” Iris na bPiobairi (The pipers review) 17 (Spring 1998), 2: p. 19-28.
  2. ↑ W. Garvin. ‘The Complete Tutor for the Pastoral or New Bagpipe’, An piobaire v2 no 14pp 5-6; no 15pp 5-6;no 16pp 2-3 (1982-3)
  3. 1 2 P Roberts 'Unravelling the History of the Uilleann Pipes', Common Stock. vol no2 pp11-16 (1984)
  4. ↑ J Geoghegan 'The Complete for the Pastoral or New Bagpipe', John Simpson, London (1746); at www.piob.infoc
  5. 1 2 R. Anderson. "The Pastoral Repertoire Rediscovered" (PDF). Cl.cam.ac.uk. Retrieved 12 January 2021.
  6. ↑ "Ross's Music Page". Cl.cam.ac.uk. Retrieved 12 January 2021.
  7. ↑ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2007-02-06. Retrieved 2007-02-07.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  8. ↑ Archived 2007-05-27 at the Wayback Machine
  9. 1 2 H. Cheape. The Union Pipe of Scotland and Ireland: A Shared Tradition. Lecture at the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland (2007). "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2009-07-01. Retrieved 2011-01-20.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
  10. ↑ Main, Ian Brooks; Sven Edge; Xabier Garcia; Jamie Wheeler; Andy. "National Museums of Scotland - Bagpipe chanter with detachable foot joint for the Pastoral pipe". nms.scran.ac.uk.
  11. ↑ "National Museums of Scotland - Engraving of The Beggar's Opera". Nms.scran.ac.uk. Retrieved 2017-06-17.
  12. ↑ Main, Ian Brooks; Sven Edge; Xabier Garcia; Jamie Wheeler; Andy. "National Museums of Scotland - Bagpipe chanter with detachable foot joint for the Union bagpipe". nms.scran.ac.uk.
  13. ↑ A Complete History of The Scots Bagpipe by Joseph MacDonald illustrated and written in 1760, first published in 1804, re-print 1971, Indiana University
  14. ↑ O'Farrell Archived September 28, 2007, at the Wayback Machine
  15. 1 2 B Haynes, ‘The Eloquent Oboe – A History of the Hautboy 1640-1760’, OUP (2001)
  16. 1 2 3 Ross Anderson. "The Sutherland Manuscript" (PDF). Cl.cam.ac.uk. Retrieved 12 January 2021.
  17. ↑ "National Museums of Scotland - Bagpipe chanter with detachable foot joint for the Union bagpipe". Nms.scran.ac.uk. Retrieved 2017-06-17.
  18. ↑ AD Fraser, ‘The Bagpipe’, Wm J Hay (1907) p 144
  19. ↑ National Museum of Scotland H Archive (1995.792)
  20. ↑ G. Woolf ‘Chanter Design and Construction Methods of the early Makers’, Sean Reid Society Journal v2 no 4 (2002)
  21. ↑ "NSP Encyclopedia". Nspipes.co.uk. Retrieved 2017-06-17.
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