THE GREAT HIGHLAND BAGPIPE

Otago Witness, Issue 2467, 26 June 1901, Page 60

THE GREAT HIGHLAND BAGPIPE

[Contributed.] " Nae brazen band can sac inspire The sodger's hert wi' martial fire, As when, wi' feet ill shod and sore, He marches on a foreign shore. Nae instrument that man can name Can. like the pipes, refresh the frame " ; New blood seems through his veins to bound When shrill the joyful chanters sound.

Anyone who. has followed a band of trained pipers will admit the truth of the foregoing. The swine of the pipe music seems to get into one's heels, and fatigue is forgotten in the exhilaration caused by the music. Observe the long swinging step of a Highland regiment op the inarch, when the pipers are playing, and note the change when the brasses start. Then you will understand why our soldiers welcome the pipers. iTou will also find a reason for the seeming absurdity of the pipe bands attached to the native regiments in India, Egypt, and elsewhere. In its rude form the bagpipe cannot be said to belong to any country in particular. The early instrument was simply a pipe fitted with a reed, and having an airtight bag for use as a reservoir to enable the player to get a breath without having to stop the sound. Then to subdue the shrill lono of the reed drones were fitted. The Italian pipes have never advanced beyond this stage.

How the bagpipe was introduced into Scotland will never be known. There are many theories. Some say they were introduced by the Romans. Others urge that the Romans were indebted to the Cells for music and musical instruments. Melrose Abbey, in Scotland, which was founded in the year 113b, bears an ancient carving in bas-relief -of a bagpipe of a very primitive kind. Geraldus Cambrinsis, "who wrote on the twelfth century (when William the Lion was King), bears remarkable testimony to the excellence of Scottish music. He adds : "In Scotland they use three musical instruments — viz., the harp, the tabour, and the bagpipe."

We first read of the bagpipe being used in war in the fifteenth century, and before the dawn of the sixteenth century we find it firmly established, and nearly every burgh in Scotland with its paid piper. Its popularity spread to England, and old records show that it was no unusual thing for Scottish towns to engage English pipers. One thing Scotsmen can claim is that, though bagpipes in the rude form can still bo found among the mountaineers of Italy and other places, to Scotland undoubtedly belongs the honour of inventing the bagpipe as we know it. They were not content with the rude instrument inherited from the barbarians. An old set of Highland bagpipes now in Edinburgh b©ar3 date 1409, and at that early period they show an immense improvement on the rude instruments shown in ancient carvings, and are much superior to the Italian pipes of the present day. They are beautifully carved and ornamented, but have only two drones in place of the three now carried.

At the present hour we have in Britain thref distinct makes of bagpipee — the great Highland bagpipe, with which we are most familiar, the English or Lowland bagpipe, smaller in size and worked by bellows under the arm, and the Irish bagpipe, also played by bellows. The English and Scottish bagpipes are very similar, but the Irish bagpipe is quite a different instrument.

Shakespcore has several allusions to the bagpipe, and talks of " the silly people who laugh like parrots at a piper." Unfortunately, New Zealanders have little opportunity of hearing good bagpipe music, and the efforts of a scratch band hastily raisad for procession purposes are not calculated to enamour one of the music of the Gael. Many of our greatest musicians are, however, passionately fond of the pipes. Madame Annette Stirling says "it was one of her greatest pleasures in Edinburgh to listen lo the pipe bands of the Highland regiments as they encircled the Castle Rock." Our late Queen, we all know, loved pipe music, and her pipers roused the royal household by playing round the palace in the eariy morning.

It may surprise many to learn that as far back as the seventeenth century there were academies of music in the Highlands of Scotland. Pennant, who lived in the Hebrides in 1774-, describes one of these collegiate edifices. Th* Mac Arthurs and MacCrimmons were celebrated instructors of bagpipe music, and their reputations were so great that no one was considered a perfect player who had not been instructed 01 finished by them. Gentlemen who sent their pipei-3 to these instructors had to pay their board and tuition for from six to twelve years, and that time was entirely devoted to the acquirement of X'ibrochs alone, for reels or quicksteps were never taught in these establishments. The great charm and difficulty of pipe music lies in the interposition of appograturas or warblers between the notes.

Now that Dunedin has a military pipe band there will be better opportunities of getting acquainted with pipe music. Some of our youths I find already beginning to appreciate the swinging pipe tunes, for our boys have been quick to catch the airs of the pipe marches, and creditable attempts whistled bj the youngsters afford strong

proof that, though lacking the musical up* bringing, they have more music in them than many of the delicately-organised tiaiueel musicians, who never can distingui-h any tune when the pipers are playing.