Traditional and 19th century Scottish music played on Fiddle, Highland pipes and A/C Smallpipes.

Internationally, Scottish Bagpipes are perhaps most famous as a martial instrument; emblematic of the British Empire or even patriarchy in general. It can be difficult to separate these bagpipes from the pageantry of dressing up in Victoriana and marching about in a paramilitary fashion. Indeed, most of us learn the instrument in this milieu of the pipe band and its expression in the competition format. The music of the instrument is however, inextricably linked to fiddle music, singing, and dancing and arguably constitutes the largest proportion of that repertoire which links the various elements that go to make up the national music culture of what is now Scotland. Today, we are in the fortunate position of having legions of young people writing new/original music for the pipes but there exists yet, an ocean of music for the highland bagpipe which warrants further exploration. The old collections offer a portal into the style, thinking, and execution of previous generations of players: This informs the Scottish musicians today as strongly as the works of William Shakespeare or Geoffrey Chaucer do so for the student of English language and composition: To ignore it is the definition of “foolhardiness.”

Bagpipes are a wild and volatile instrument and it is the fiddle which is most able to both cope with and indeed complement its vagaries of pitch and tonality. This “wildness” is perhaps what makes the pipes most attractive, or most interesting to the listener or even the player: On a good day anyway. The flexibility of the fiddle, in the right hands, enhances the bagpipe’s singular mode of communication. On this recording, we seek to convey as vividly as possible, the excitement of tone and ornamentation existent in this classic duo format. These sets are played on Scottish small pipes in the keys of both “A” and on “C”, as well as the big pipes which are nominally in “B-flat” and in each case, the fiddle has been re-tuned to fit. The repertoire here is largely, though not exclusively, from nineteenth century collections of bagpipe music and where possible, we use the ornamentation provided; at least for the first time around the tunes. As much of these grace note combinations are today unfashionable, if not unheard of, there is an element of guess work as to how these tunes were played at the time of publication. It is not our claim that they “were played”, or that they “must be played” in this manner: Only that “They can be played thus”. In any event, we have used these old ornaments to enrich the style and ask questions of what the rhythm and tempo of some these tunes might have been, or indeed, can be now. More importantly, this recording only scratches the surface of a great wealth of traditional Scottish bagpipe repertoire, which although readily available, is seldom played.

Most of the lesser known tunes played here are contained in the following collections:

​The Piper’s Assistant by Angus MacKay (1844)
The Caledonian Repository of Music Adapted for the Bagpipes by William Gunn (1848)
David Glen’s Collection of Bagpipe Music (Numerous volumes from 1876)
The Cowal Collection of Modern Highland Bagpipe Music (1905)
The New and Complete Tutor for the Great Highland Bagpipe by Thomas Glen (circa 1844)

Thanks to the work of Steve Scaife, all of these collections are available free online at his website www.ceolsean.net Even if you have the cassette tapes, it is handy to see the gracings and titles as they were written at the time.

​“…my Profession brought me in contact with many of the most eminent performers of the present day: and hence, I had abundance of opportunities afforded me of hearing varied performances; from which sources I derived much information and matter for reflection, as to the best sets.” - William Gunn, 12th September, 1848