Let’s shift gears for a minute and talk about something else. From the very earliest words written we know that there is something about the Great Highland Bagpipe that has stirred body and soul. Average audiences are drawn to the sound of the instrument, with only a basic understanding of a few simple melodies.
Sometime during the late 1600’s or early 1700’s Patrick Og MacCrimmon (the greatest of the MacCrimmon teachers) was said to have stripped away many of the embellishments decorating piobaireachd to reveal a more pleasing underlying melody. For The Average Piper, the struggle to include difficult embellishments is often at the expense of sound, melody, phrasing, and tempo. If playing in a band, which most are, we can add ‘unison’ to that list.
As Patrick Og did, is it acceptable to simplify tunes in order to protect and strengthen more important elements of the music?
Like most things in life, this is a “shades of grey” issue. Certainly simplifying music by removing embellishments has been going on for many centuries – we’re not all MacCrimmons. However in many tunes the embellishments are part of the melody, so leaving them out completely changes the melody and the intent of the composer. Call me old school but I think the key to success is practicing scales – good old fingering exercises. If you can play all the embellishments correctly up and down the scale, you can tackle just about anything.
I agree…to a point. When those embellishments are physically impossible, I think it’s acceptable to modify or eliminate them. In all instances I think it’s a judgement call. Thanks for responding. Good thoughts.
Piping nowadays has become a struggling game of perfection on embellishments, ornamentations and tempo. So that any good computer if running a race would easily win every single competition.
No longer space to music and poetry.
Average listeners like the sound and “skirl” of the pipes, ignoring almost every technical issue. I’ve heard pipers having been cheered and applauded and they were very basic or wrong in doublings, taorluath and so on and so forth, but they were playing perfectly tuned pipes and put their heart in what they were doing..
Nowadays piping is for pipers and judges, not for people.
Ed Neigh used to simplify tunes all the time. It didn’t do anything to detract from the overall sound of the tune. Those players who wanted to improve had goals to strive for and those who didn’t want to or weren’t confident enough in their abilities, could still play with the rest of the band and hold their own. Music without melody is just sound.
Agree with Steve and Ron, to a point. But definitely agree Nate hits the spot… simple & clean works fine in average band play and wins easily over muddy BUT shouldn’t be a permanent cop-out.
One Pipey of my acquaintance routinely junks many embellishments and this can leave the tune devoid of life… so should only be used sparingly and until the proper stuff is mastered….imho.
I wish we knew what it was before being stripped.
What? No avatar? Keith, forget those lightning fast fingers of yours. Write me out Scotland the Brave for a 65 year old beginner…or for a youngster just starting out. But PM me as I don’t want to drop into this particular rabbit hole at this time. Let’s save it for later!
Absolutely. From a band perspective, if a doubling sounds muddy and a single gracenote sounds clean, go with the latter. If the pipers can be made to play the doubling so it sounds clean, in unison and well-timed, so much the better. The melody notes are most important and the music can’t be heard with poor, muddy doublings as a distraction.
From Dan Bell “Is it acceptable? Of course it is. The melody and rhythm are the tune, not the embellishments. Good embellishment enhances important notes, but it should never detract from the flow of the tune.
This isn’t just for beginning players. As experienced players age, we shouldn’t sacrifice the melody for pyrotechnics that our hands no longer wanna do. Your audience can tell if you can’t play to the beat. They don’t care if you play a gracenote instead of a doubling.”
From Nate Silva “I daresay that if Patrick Og MacCrimmon thought so, then the idea of simplifying the presentation of the melody (i.e., removing or skipping troublesome embellishments and gracings) certainly has merit. Simple and clean, or complicated and muddy … I’d say the former would be the wisest and preferred choice.
However, (and I’m guessing this might be where this is headed) I think the possible danger in this approach would be complacency on the part of the learner. If the learner simplified the tunes, and became happy leaving them that way indefinitely … then both the learning process and the presentation of the music are stifled.
(addition) … So I think it may be a good method in the interim, so long as learning pipers don’t stick to it permanently (or needlessly).
Anyway, just my 2¢. Liking this little series … looking forward to more as it goes. Cheers.”