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LOWLAND AMUSEMENTOne piper's exploration of the music of the Scottish Lowlands, its history and its performance. It's a diary of discovery, not a series of essays. You're invited to make your own contributions using the comments option on most pages. |
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Digging the Dird I
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- Created on Monday, 16 January 2012 16:43
- Written by Peter Stewart
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Here's the presentation I gave to the 2011 LBPS Collogue; it contains my current thoughts on the nature of 'the Lowland Reel' in the early 18th century, as well as some thoughts on the history of dance in the Lowlands. [Click the image] |
Easy as 1 2 3
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- Created on Sunday, 05 February 2012 17:44
- Written by Peter Stewart
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The terms 'Jig' and 'Reel' have been part of Scottish pipe music since at least 1760. Pipers are familiar with the time signatures of 6/8 and 9/8, and can be fairly confident about how to interpret them. However, anyone who have looked at 17th century manuscripts, or perhaps at Playford's 'Dancing Master' publications, will be aware that these time signatures do not appear until late in the 17th century, and their use was not common until the 18th.
footwork
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- Created on Wednesday, 11 April 2012 12:02
- Written by lbps admin
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Since most highland pipers play standing up, the role in their performance played by their feet has been largely restricted to ambulation. The only exception to this has been in Cape Breton where pipers playing for dancing frequently do so sitting down. One advantage of this practice is that it liberates the feet for other roles,and this has become a feature of Cape Breton piping, a feature that has, of late years, been adopted by a number of bellows pipers.
The question arises then, does this technique have anything to do with 18th century Lowland piping? My answer has to be, If you mean did 18th century pipers employ similar footwork then no, it seems to me highly unlikely, and there is no evidence that I know of to the contrary. If your question however is along the lines of ‘does this technique have any relevance to the way we play Lowland music today, then my answer is very firmly, yes.
Piping LIve!
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- Created on Thursday, 09 August 2012 10:25
- Written by lbps admin
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There's been a bit of an interruption in this blog, due entirely to the invitation I received from Hamish Moore to play at the LBPS evening at the Festival Club during Glasgow's Piping Live! week [that leads up to the World Pipe Band Championships]. I've spent the past several weeks working pretty determinedly on several sets of tunes, chosen in an attempt to cover as many of the various tune-forme and rhythms that form the foundation of the Lowland piping repertoire. The plan now is to cover these forms and review how that intensive practice period developed my understnding. Meanwhile, here's the only record I have of that event:
Lowland Amusement - the Tune
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- Created on Saturday, 14 January 2012 13:05
- Written by lbps admin
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http://www.ceolsean.net/
this version has the alternative title 'Captain Keeler'.
David Glen, however, has a tune in book 4 of his Collection titled 'Captain Keiller', which has 'Lowland Amusement' as the alternative title, and it is slightly different: http://www.ceolsean.net/
Glen's version, which I have only just discovered, looks more like a lowland version to me. I base this on the 2nd strain which instead of the repeated notes it has runs of four quavers; I'll try and get a performance of this version uploaded; in the meantime, my current performance is HERE
Blanche of Middlebie III
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- Created on Saturday, 21 January 2012 18:29
- Written by Peter Stewart
- Hits: 525
Robert Riddells' setting of this tune looks so much like a pipe setting, and sits so well on the pipes, it is easy to forget that his collection is described as for violin, hautboy or german flute. This is important because it contains indications of ornaments which we have to assume are references to fiddle technique, not to piping. These ornaments come in the form of 'tr' [trill] added to the crotchets [and to the first quaver of bar 3] in the first strain. George Greig pointed out to me that the use of the 'tr' sign is not unusual in early highland pipe collections [Mackay and Maclachaln both use it and MacLachlan writes out its interpretation]
an' A' That
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- Created on Friday, 27 January 2012 16:29
- Written by lbps admin
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An introduction
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- Created on Saturday, 14 January 2012 12:08
- Written by lbps admin
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Blanche of Middlebie II
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- Created on Saturday, 21 January 2012 17:41
- Written by Peter Stewart
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My two recent posts on gracings are particularly relevant to the interpretation of this tune, but before going on to look more closely at that question I wanted to ask a question which follows directly from Robert Riddell's story
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