Pipers from every other tradition must wonder, what’s with the Highland pipers? Northumbrian pipers huddle under a pitched tarp at the Bellingham Show wearing anoraks and wellies, having a friendly tune. In Macedonia the gajda propels the dancers around in a circle. At St. Chartier a large stone barn is filled with pipers, accordion players, hurdy gurdy players and dancers in a tightening gyre. The world of Highland piping must look weird from that perspective.
I ran into an old friend I hadn’t seen in years. We used to play in a pipe band together when we were in our twenties, thirty years ago. It surprised him to find out I’ve been piping all along for the last thirty years. “What band do you play in?” It surprised him again to find out I don’t play in a band. Shocked and pained, he asked, hoping against hope, “You aren’t still competing, are you?” I said, “No, I might go to one or two Highland Games a year, but just to hear the music. I play mostly smallpipes these days.” That wasn’t much of an explanation for my profligate behavior, and he shook his head in a gesture of something between condolence and amusement.
So why keep piping? More than one friend of mine has wondered if “the other pipers” are “the bad pipers”, that is, pipers who don’t win competitions. Competition is restrictive and authoritarian by definition, especially when something as arbitrary as music is the sport. There is a lot more to piping and that’s what efforts like the APNA web site seek to address. As Hamlet says, “There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.” The answer to the question should be obvious: we keep piping because we love it.
Competition culture has a unique code of ethics. We pick them up while learning to make a proper doubling. About fifteen years ago students started coming to me for lessons who couldn’t relate to the code or the assumptions they are based on. Most of them were kids, and the kids I teach today find these assumptions as unappealing and incomprehensible as ever. The idea of playing music in a competition just doesn’t make sense to them. When I loan them CDs they find the band and competition piper recordings boring, but they like Gordon Duncan, Anna Murray, Gary West, and Martyn Bennett to name just a few.
The first assumption is a piper must play in a pipe band. The second is that a piper must compete. Then we move quickly on to the best pipers win contests. It then follows, as surely as teaching gigs at summer schools follow winning the Gold Medal, competitions enforce and engender the best pipe music. It is taken for granted that piping will die or be overrun by tinkers if not for the competition system. Eyes tear up when we discuss the dangerous threats to the always feeble condition of pibroch. We joke about it, but the idea “if isn’t Scottish its crap” is pervasive. Other kinds of bagpipes and piping traditions are acknowledged in passing, if at all. Even indigenous Scottish piping traditions are sometimes disparaged as “Lowland,” “tinker” or “Irish.” Discussions about style, technique and taste revolve around the prize lists. It’s not good for your career to form opinions. This is sport with all the trappings, uniforms, institutions, corporate sponsors, and all the expectations of sport. So when you stop winning you might as well quit, and turn your hard won prestige to some profit.
Even when a bright star like Gordon Duncan breaks ranks, inspiring a whole new generation of pipers, engendering a new level of respect for piping for its own sake, challenging the old ways of thinking about pipe music, the authorities attempt to associate themselves with him after his death by naming a competition after him. You might as well name a shopping mall “the wilderness.” Just like in the old Border ballad, the corbies dine on the newly slain knight who lies dead in the forest, known only to his hawk, his hound, and his lady fair who betrayed him.
This will, no doubt, sound like sour grapes to some readers. If I am disappointed at all in my career as a competition piper it is that I didn’t realize sooner that I do not possess the resources and disposition for the game. In fact, I admire and appreciate competition pipers, their faultless technique and determination. But the monoculture fosters the unimaginative, arbitrary and expensive. When the surprising happens, like SLOT winning the Worlds, I jump up and down with the rest of them. But in the end, as Plato wrote, “the unexamined life is not worth living.”
There are more pipers fitting into the “other” category every day. Learning about each other and what we’re up to, sharing tunes and ideas, giving and receiving encouragement and direction, these are their own rewards, just like playing jigs and reels, or munieras and polkas, an dros and clogs. Playing music is like taking a hike in the mountains, doing your best work on the job, or cooking a wonderful meal. You don’t expect a medal for it. It’s enough in itself.
John Dally of Burton, Washington has been playing bagpipes since the age of 11. Equally comfortable with Highland. Lowland and Northumbrian pipes and repertoire, in 2010 John published his book “The Northwest Collection of Music for the Scottish Highland Bagpipe. A Collection of Music, Photographs and Essays.”
After reading John Dally’s article I understood that I made the right decision when I decided to purchase small-pipes verses highlands. After attending meetings at two of our local pipe bands I learned two things I did not care for. One, it was mandatory to attend parades and two, it would cost a small fortune to equip myself (pipes,outfit,etc.). I want to practice because I want to, not because I have to.
John’s article, like the mission and goal of this site,
explains so well how I see piping. It is “my” journey. At my pace and pleasure. Thanks for blazing a new “old” trail!
And thanks for the community!
Slainte mhath,
Years ago when I was graduating and leaving my college pipe band our pm, a truly decent fellow, asked me if I was going to go onto another band. I said no, that I just wanted to pipe and not play in a band. He replied with a disdainful tone “What are you going to do just go play to the cows and the daisy’s?” The idea that was so appalling to him seemed wonderful to me.
Unfortunately, as it was the late 80’s and I was moving around quite a bit I could not make good connections with other independent pipers and I stopped piping because my only company in this endeavor was my music books.
What a wonderful thing the internet is. I started piping again about three years ago and I can find about all sorts of piping and pipers. I am not stuck with the information my pm gives me, and I can make intelligent decisions on my own.
Many thanks to the creators of this site and all the sites like it.
I play Highland pipes in solo and band competition. I also play smallpipes and whistles in ensemble with harp and/or fiddle. Of all the Highland pipers I’ve talked to about it, I never got the kind of reaction Mr. Dally describes. Mostly Highland pipers think it’s “cool” that I play smallpipes, and more than a few have told me they would like to get a set.
I understand that there can be a downside to competition, but there is an upside too — it can be very motivational. Knowing that there is a contest coming up gets most of us (competitive pipers) to practice more than we otherwise would.
Also, take a look at modern Scottish “folk” music and see where the tunes that people play come from. A lot of the tunes are 18th c. fiddle tunes, but more than a few were composed for pipe band competition.
Bob’s reaction illustrates the ethic I described in the piece. Predictably, competitors read my piece as an attack, focusing on the negative, seeing the negative where it doesn’t exist, ingoring the positive. He mentions part of the ethic I didn’t include, which is that pipers need competition of motivation. Nietzsche would love that. There must be a thousand ways to motivate oneself to improve other than to enter a competition.
Some highland pipers are talking about this blog post in the Bob Dunsire forums.
http://forums.bobdunsire.com/forums/showthread.php?t=137785
Thanks for the link. I wonder from their reactions if any of them actually read the peice.
Thanks for this John. I’ve been a GHB player since 1953, only competed once as a kid and then got into it for a few years after I’d retired.
A year or so back, I got my hands on a set of SSPs, decided I would try Borders, and the GHB hasn’t been out of the box since.
I’m still struggling a bit but have learned more new tunes in the last few months than in years prevous.
It’s a whole new world for me and I only wish I’d arrived sooner. Sat in at Fred Morrison and Gary West’s classes at MSA in Jan/Feb and improved immensely. My only downside is I live in a desert whenit comes to alternative pipes.
I think I’m actually going to move house to get closer to active players of hese things.
Heads up
Oh, and regarding the thread on BDF, Not reading beyond the subject line or first sentence seems to be a challenge for a lot of users, not only on BDF. This comes from an admin of that site. ME.
Ken
i,ve always played ghp but i love the range of styles and sounds available to other pipes. would i rather listen to great pibroch playing or Fred Morrison and the like with a band behind them, Fred everytime. You have to respect good music either way. And i do mean music as opposed to perfect form. As for pipe bands and games, i enjoy that to. So in a less than philisophical note “whatever floats your boat” . to most of us it supposed to be fun not work.
I was a little puzzled by the use of ethics “competition has a unique code of ethics”. if john or some one could could expand on that i would be intrested.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Descriptive_ethics
I’m using the term in the context of decriptive or normative ethics, attempting to describe the unspoken and spoken rules. Ethics are a code of behavior, and competitive piping culture has its own unique set of them. A point that most readers seem to have missed is that all of the students I have had over the last decade or so, with the exception of one expat Scot, simply could not relate to this code. It’s like trying to convince a kid who was raised to be a vegan to eat meat. They just like the music.
Hi, I can really relate to this article. I played the GHB competitively for several years in my teens. Now, in my thirties, I’m looking to play pipes other than the GHB. The only problem is that I can’t decide on what instrument. There are so many options and I’d like to “test drive” before I make any purchases.
I like the sound of border pipes more than small pipes but this is just what I can hear over the internet. Any advice?
That’s a really tough question. I’d recommend going to the Pipers’ Gathering where you meet other “other” pipers and see a whole spectrum of different kinds of pipes. I love Border pipes, but they can be difficult to set up and keep going. They require more tinkering than Highland pipes. Bellows blown Scottish smallpipes are the natural way to go, but some people are afraid of bellows. A good compromise is a mouth blown instrument, but frankly, imho, most of them sound like kazoos and are more difficult than they need to be to play. Here’s one I heartily recommend:
http://highland-pipemaker.com/MacLellan%20three%20quarter%20&%20Studio%20pipes.htm
I own a basic delrin set which you can see and hear on my YouTube channel: bellowsboy23 I used to be a bellows snob, but these pipes convinced me otherwise. I’m eating crow as I type. 😉
But, having said that, imho, just like no Highland pipe sounds as good as one set up with a sheepskin bag and cane reeds, it’s is difficult to beat a bellows blown Scottish smallpipe made by one of the top makers. They are expensive, and there is usually a wait time, but they are worth it.
Interesting article and responses. I think John’s article does, however, describe a piping culture that doesn’t really exist, at least not in my experience. I have been involved in bands & competition piping for 40 years, and also “other” bagpipes [starting with uilleann pipes] since 1983. I have never experienced the kind of attitudes described here. The Gordan Duncan example doesn’t ring true. Gordan, while being very radical in his own way, was also very keen on competition, and very proud, for example, of his wins in the MacAllan contest. The contest in his name involved his brother Ian, not random “authorities” trying to score points, but friends and family of Gordon creating a living memorial using the Scots/Irish/Breton format that Gordan loved when he was alive. In my piping life, I have been lucky to spend time with the very best of the world’s “competition pipers” and many, many non-competitive players of many kinds of pipes. What I have found is that Highland pipers, even those who spend thousands in pursuit of trophies, love their piping as much as any other. They also do it for the fun, for the friendships, connections with the past, and because at the end of the day they love to hear and play good music.
Thanks for the comments Iain. That our experiences differ does not invalidate any one’s experience. As a fan of Gordon Duncan you must know the story behind the title of his first CD, “Just for Seamus.” Gordon’s success in competition, as great as it was, has no where near the significance of his activities off the boards. In my opinion peice I never wrote that I am against competition in and of itself. I recently participated in the Northumbrian Pipers Society Overseas Championships in Northumbrian smallpipes and Border pipes. It is not either/or. There is no other type of bagpiping so obsessed with competition as Highland piping, and more and more pipers question the value of competition in their lives. Why are so many people threatened by the question?
It’s a fascinating but completely foreign perspective for me. Of course, I knew of Highland piping early on in my life, and knew members of Highland bands. I even joined an Irish (read Highland) Pipe band for a few years, largely to support my Uilleann pipes teacher who had joined it.
I first became involved in piping, taking up the Uilleann pipes back when there were maybe 10 older pipers in the country, and no young ones. That was in 1968. I never became involved with competition piping and was more at home with the non-highland piping world than with the Highland piping world. For me, piping was always about the love of the instrument, the music, and the people. It was a great pleasure to find copies of the Journal online after so many years, as it was to have been a part of producing them. Keep up the good work!
Adh mór,
Eoghan Ballard