THE Lowland and Border Pipers' Society held their annual competition recently. The main event was won by Jock Agnew of Essex, playing music from a book of tunes compiled by one William Dixon in the eighteenth century.
Nothing too strange in all of this except that 20 years ago this society did not exist, and no-one had heard of Dixon's book.
The society is concerned with bellows bagpipes and promotes a piping tradition almost lost to us. When I tell you that Sir Walter Scott's uncle played pipes you must not think of the tartanised, mouth-blown great highland bagpipe of the Edinburgh Tattoo, and countless tourist posters. You must think of its smaller, bellows-blown cousin, the border bagpipe.
There were many traditions of piping in this country in Scott's day. In the Borders there were concentrations of these bellows pipers. Theirs was a tradition quite distinct from what is recognised today as our piping mainstream; probably more rustic, definitely less militaristic, and certainly less successful at self-promulgation. The reasons for its subsequent demise and subjugation to the great highland pipe are many.
According to Joseph MacDonald, in his Complete Theory of the Scots Highland Bagpipe compiled in 1760, there was no special music written for the lowland pipe nor any stylised grace noting for the instrument. The opposite was the case for the highland pipe and its nine notes. In the eighteenth century and before, the lowland or border piper would have been a common sight in the towns and villages of southern Scotland. Most had their own burgh piper who would rouse the lieges for funeral or feast. The job was usually hereditary, being passed from father to son. Father would guard his music, instrument, and reeds jealously. Nothing would be written down and everything learned by ear. Come the industrial revolution, large chunks of the rural population moved to the big cities for work. The frailties of oral tradition in a fast-changing world are well-documented.
At village dances in newly built halls (in earlier times dancing was mainly an outdoor activity) fiddle and accordion took over the function of the piper.
Whatever, bellows piping almost faded away entirely and would still be languishing in the doldrums had it not been for the formation of the Lowland and Borders Pipers Society in 1983. The society has been instrumental in the resurrection of this refreshing tradition. It now has 250 members worldwide.
Bellows piping is booming and makers of these instruments are springing up all over the place. Highland pipers schooled in the piping mainstream are being sucked in. Some have virtually put away their kilts and brogues, grown beards, and taken up this folkier, more ethnic, more ''mother earth'' form of bagpiping. And why not?
The lowland pipe and its bellows brother, the Scottish smallpipe, cannot achieve the grandeur and magnificence of the great highland pipe, but the decibel levels are much less and they can be played satisfactorily with other instruments. Furthermore, there is not the same rigidity in approach to technique and tunes that some view as having forced much highland piping into a stifling straitjacket.
Research on border pipe music continues apace and the uncovering of the William Dixon tune book three years ago has given fresh impetus to the researchers. Through time they may find enough evidence to contradict MacDonald's assertion vis a vis border pipe repertoire.
Dr Andy Hunter, a lecturer in French at Heriot Watt University, is chairman of the society and a piper and folk-singer. He is at the forefront of the revival.
''We have to take piping out of the corridors it has been placed in,'' he says. ''We are not challenging highland piping but there has to be room in the modern Scotland for our tradition, too. Border piping is part of our Scottish identity.''
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