Ancient music lost—Transmission by tradition—Druidical remains—Systems of teaching—No books—“Unintelligible jargon”—Canntaireachd—The Mac Crimmon System—The Gesto Book—A scientific system—A tune in Canntaireachd—Pipers unable to explain—Earliest printed pipe music—Mac Donald’s books—More recent books—Something to be done.

For long, the music of the pipes was so much a part of the life of the people that no records of tunes were necessary. But there came a time when interest in these things waned somewhat, and it was then that the want of printed or written records were felt. By reason of that want, we now know little or nothing of truly ancient Scottish music. Perhaps we have not lost much, but in any case it would have been interesting to know the musical tastes of our forefathers away back in the early centuries. We are quite willing to believe that some of the exquisite melodies still existing were handed down to us by Gaelic progenitors, and are as old as the race itself, but the fact remains that we cannot trace any of them for more than two or three centuries, nor tell whether or not they are older than the first mention of them we have in authentic history. That many of the tunes were composed on incidents or battles four and five hundred years back does not prove that the tunes themselves are as old as the events they commemorate. Composers then, as now, chose their subjects irrespective of dates. The pipes were in fairly common use about the middle of the seventeenth century, probably for centuries earlier, and when they were in use, there must have been music for them. But we have not that music now, thanks to the blank which occurred between the decay of the system whereby music was taught orally and the introduction of the educational system of later centuries. Clanship isolated the people into small communities and prevented a general knowledge of music from being spread abroad, and it could not very well be committed to paper when the people knew of no system of signs which would represent it. So the only method of preserving the tunes was their transmission from one generation of pipers to another, a method which rendered it very easy for the unscrupulous to re-baptise or paraphrase old tunes, and pass them off as their own, and also left the tunes to change gradually as they passed from performer to performer. Then, again, the decay of the Gaelic made it necessary to give English names to Gaelic tunes, and a number of the finest Highland airs have been wedded to the songs of such poetical giants as Burns, Hogg, Tannahill, and Cunningham, and their identity completely lost. Gaelic itself has been kept pure enough through traditional generations, but the conditions which applied to the music did not apply to the language. The language was the heritage of an entire people, their daily bread, as it were; the music was cultivated only by a class of the people, and was far more subject to change than the language.

It is alleged that the chanting of Druidical precepts in Pagan times was imitated by the early Christians, and some remains of Druidical songs, with music attached, were said to have been in existence so late as 1830, but there is now nothing to show what were the qualities of Highland music prior to the dates of tunes which are well authenticated. The music of the pipes is ancient, without a doubt; it passed through a long evolution process, and it has changed but little since we have known it committed to paper. That is about all that can safely be said on the point.

Before people learned to express their thoughts by marks on paper, they carried the music in their heads. The music teacher nowadays gathers his books and his scales and his instruments around him; then he gathers his pupils; then he expounds the theories on which the system of music is based; then he shows how these theories work out in actual practice, and then he proceeds to learn his pupils how to practice them. All of which makes the learning of music a “special subject,” and goes to instil into the heads of the non-musical the idea that they, too, by reason of having passed through all the courses, must needs understand music. Whereas all the time it is only the theory of music, as taught in the text-books, they understand. This in itself is not a bad thing, if people incapable of anything higher would be content with it, and not pose as authorities. But the tendency of our educational system is, or at least was very recently, towards the production of a race of pedants, and the creation of a dead level of mediocrity in which the common person thinks he is as clever as the genius, and the genius is too modest to hold his head higher than that of the common person. In the old days, when the difficulties were insurmountable to the common person, genius shone forth all the brighter. There was little of the literature of the pipes in these days, and a piper’s ear was his best teacher. Consequently the great pipers stood head and shoulders above the common crowd—giants because of their genius and lifelong study. It is quite likely that the raising of the level of the mass, even at the expense of genius, may be a good thing, but that is another matter.

Two hundred years ago there were few, if any, books bearing on the subject, and were it not for the powerful memories of the hereditary pipers of the different clans, and their devotion to their art, but little even of the music of that time could have been preserved. The hereditary pipers were walking storehouses of Highland musical knowledge. They taught their pupils by ear and off the fingers. Taking them out to the hillside, they first learned them to chant words with the tunes in a sort of “unintelligible jargon,” then to finger the chanter silently from memory, then to play the chanter, and afterwards to play the pipes themselves. This system, if such it could be called, required as its very groundwork the possession on the part of the pupil of an ear for music, a natural aptitude for pipe music, a devotion to the music peculiar to the Highlands, and an intimate knowledge of and reverence for all the circumstances which entwined themselves into the histories of the various tunes. Without these qualifications no man could be a great piper, and the hereditary pipers were very chary about beginning to train anyone who did not promise to come up to their expectations.

The “unintelligible jargon” just referred to is perhaps the most curious thing in all the history of pipe music. The words are not a fair description, for it was intelligible enough to the initiated, but from the point of view of others, no other phrase is suitable. It was, in short, a system whereby known and fixed sounds in the shape of syllables represented sounds in the shape of notes of music known to the teacher, but unknown to the pupil, in such a way that when the pupil, after being taught, heard a number of the syllables repeated by word of mouth, he could at once reproduce their prototypes as a bit of pipe music. There were no signs about it whatever, no noting of the syllables—that is in the early stages of the system—and it is difficult for us who can hardly imagine music without conjuring up a book before the mind’s eye, to grasp the idea. The transmission of music by a system of language signs is peculiar to the pipes, and no full parallel to Canntaireachd, as it has been called, is to be found in any other country. By this “unintelligible jargon” of syllables the hereditary pipers trained their pupils, without the aid of any scales or other notations, and in this form the tunes were chanted all over the Highlands. To this day many pipers will give the syllabic wordings of tunes, and several of the more expert can play the pipes direct from such a notation. The different teachers of piping—they were always clan pipers—had different systems, but all were based on the principle of arbitrary and known sounds, representing certain notes, and a succession of these, of course, a tune. The system of the Mac Crimmons, hereditary pipers to Mac Leod of Dunvegan, and the most famous teachers and players, became most popular, as they had by far the largest number of pupils, and a reference to it will serve to illustrate the subject.

Some time or other—the date cannot be fixed—the system was committed to paper, and in 1828 Captain Neil Mac Leod of Gesto published a book, giving the notation in actual type. It is perhaps the most remarkable book that has ever been issued in connection with any musical instrument. Though to the ordinary reader it is absolute nonsense, so late as 1880, Duncan Ross, the Duke of Argyll’s piper, who learned his art orally in Ross-shire from the chanting of John Mac Kenzie, Lord Breadalbane’s piper, himself a pupil of the Mac Crimmons, could read and play from it at sight, and as he is still alive can, I suppose, do so to this day. In the same year, Ross, the Queen’s piper, chanted a tune in articulate words, and, when compared with the Mac Crimmon language, the notes were found to be identical in length and rhythm, although the words were different. It was the same tune expressed by a different set of words, and the experiment proved that the old pipers did not teach in a haphazard style, but according to fixed rules. The Mac Crimmons, in particular, wrote down their tunes, and Captain Mac Leod himself took down from the dictation of John Mac Crimmon, one of the latest of the race, a collection of airs, as verbally taught at the “college” at Dunvegan, which he incorporated in the “Gesto” book. After this it is not so difficult to believe that a piper, when he heard the instrument, could imagine it was a language, and know what the player meant him to understand. When education came, and the notation was printed, it was seen that it was a system scientifically constructed, and one from which an expert could read music at sight, just as a pianist can play from the staff, although he has never seen the piece before. At least three different systems existed in the Highlands seventy years ago, and Donald Cameron, Seaforth’s famous piper, and the acknowledged successor of the Mac Crimmons, though practically an illiterate man, could read ordinary music, and also had a system of his own.

The “Gesto” Book contains twenty pibrochs, and is now very rare. It was reprinted some years ago by Messrs. J. & R. Glen, Edinburgh. Captain Mac Leod had a large manuscript collection of Mac Crimmon pibrochs, as noted by the pipers themselves, part of which was very old, and part more modern. Of these he only published a few as an experiment. The verse given at the head of this chapter is part of the tune Gilliechroist, the first line being interpreted:—

The tune afterwards proceeds with “variations,” which complicate the wording considerably, and make it appear even more unintelligible. Here again is the urlar or groundwork of “The Prince’s Salute” in the notation of the Mac Crimmons:—

It is impossible to discover whether the pipers built up their tunes, as tunes are nowadays built up from a certain scale, or simply used the syllables as convenient signs to represent certain fixed notes. Perhaps no better illustration of the subject is to be found than a pamphlet published in 1880 by Mr. J. F. Campbell, of Islay, the compiler of Popular Tales of the West Highlands, and entitled Canntaireachd. An interpreter of the notation who could play it at sight, could not explain it to Mr. Campbell. “It was like asking a thrush to explain the songs which Mother Nature had taught him”:—

“A party, of whom three were good musicians and the fourth was used to play upon human nature, met, the interpreter came, we chose a word in a tune and, asked—

“‘What is hirrin?’

“‘That is hirrin,’ said the piper, and played three notes deftly with his little finger by striking a note on the chanter once. Two were open notes; one closed.

“‘Do you know the name of the fingers?’ said the teacher.

“‘Yes,’ said I, ‘that’s ludag, the little finger.’

“‘Well,’ said the artist, ‘that’s hirrin,’ and he played the passage several times to show how it was done with the little finger.

“‘Is hirrin the name of the little finger of the right hand, or the name of the hole in the chanter, or the name of the note; or what else is it?’

“‘No,’ said the master, ‘that’s hirrin,’ and he played that word over again cleverly with the same little finger. Then he continued—

“‘Old John Mackenzie taught me that in Ross long ago; and he learned it over the fire in the Isle of Skye. We used to sit and listen to him, and learn what he said and sang, and learn to finger in this way.’ Then the piper played silently with his fingers, and every now and then he blew the chanter and sounded a passage a breath long from the book, which he read easily, but could not explain—and that’s hirrin—and if any of the party ever hear that particular combination of three notes again the name of it will be remembered. It means three notes combined.

“Compared to a book of poetry, it thus appears that each tune is like a song, and hirrin is like a word in a line which keeps its place and its time in the tune. That much we learned from our interpreter. He had learned by rote certain articulate syllables combined as words which for him meant passages in a particular pipe tune. For the ignorant residue of mankind they meant nothing.”

There Mr. Campbell had to stop, for further light on the subject he could not obtain. “The pipers’ language,” he says, “is not founded upon a systematic combination of vowels and consonants to make words, like C E D, D E C, D E D. It is not a set of names for notes, like Do, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La, Si, Do. Each tune has a different set of words made of different syllables. Only nine notes can be sounded on the instrument, and more than sixty syllables occur in a book of twenty tunes.” Mr. Campbell must have been unaware of the assertion of some enthusiasts that 3,000,000 combinations can be practised on the pipes, or he would not have written that last sentence. Proceeding, he says, “it seems that something natural to human songsters has been spelt with the Roman alphabet, so that words of one, two, three, four, six, and eight syllables, do in fact suggest accent rhythm and tune, high and low notes and whole tunes, which can be learned by rote, written and read, as if the tunes were songs in an unknown tongue. This is in fact a language and its music.”

Persevering in his researches Mr. Campbell got Ross, the Argyll piper, his brother, and a skilled pianist to help him. He opened the Gesto book at the tune called “The End of the Little Bridge;” Ross read the tune and sounded the signs on a chanter, while his brother chanted at intervals sounds which both brothers had learned from oral chanting and could play on a pipe. The musician with his eyes on the book played his notes with his left hand on the piano, as he heard them from the pipers, and wrote them with his right on music paper, according to his own system. By this means one combination of sounds was translated from the pipers’ written language into another system of musical notation, and the result was music, showing that the hereditary pipers, whatever is the secret of their system, had a system. Were there only as many different syllables as there are possible notes on the chanter, the matter would have been easily understood. As it is, the Gesto book is the only book of its kind in existence. In all countries of the world, the natives chant tunes to certain strings of syllables, and to this day we have the “Fal de ral” choruses to a certain class of songs. In the Highlands alone these apparently nonsensical sentences stood for actual living music, were written as such, and, in the Gesto book, printed. But the system which in a continuance of the congenial atmosphere of clanship and hereditary pipers and schools of piping, and ignorance of what is now called popular education, might have developed into an exact science, has been smothered by nineteenth century progress, and is now known only to piping enthusiasts and students of the antique in our national life. Various attempts have been made to construct a theory which would explain the system, but none is thoroughly satisfactory.

Leaving the mystery of Canntaireachd, we come to the time when pipe music was first written in ordinary notation. The piece known as “The Battle of Harlaw” was played at that encounter in 1411; but it is significant that the oldest copy of the music extant, supposed to date from 1620, is not adapted for the bagpipe. The earliest known attempt to write pipe music in ordinary notation was made in 1784 when Rev. Patrick Mac Donald, Kilmore, Argyllshire, included in a collection of Highland Vocal Airs four pipe tunes. In 1803 the same author published a “Treatise” on the bagpipe, written by his brother, Mr. Joseph Mac Donald. This contained one tune, suited for beginners. Some time after the ’45—it must have been a considerable time—Mr. Donald Mac Donald, bagpipe maker, Edinburgh, was employed by the Highland Societies then existing to collect and note down as many pibrochs as he could find. In these days the mysteries of correct time were known to few and those of metre to fewer; but Mac Donald started with a brave heart, and to him as much as to the hereditary pipers the Highlands is indebted for the preservation of much of its pipe music. He collected mostly in the west country, and it is noticeable that the great majority of tunes now existing are west country tunes. The east Highlands, doubtless, had its own pipe music, but for want of a collector most of the airs have been lost. “Craigellachie,” the gathering of Clan Grant, is the only notable exception. Mac Donald’s first volume contained twenty-three pibrochs, but the exact date of its publication is unknown. In 1806, we are told in Angus Mac Kay’s book, Donald Mac Donald was voted the thanks of the judges at the annual competition in Edinburgh for having “produced” the greatest number of pipe tunes set to music by himself. His book, however, does not seem to have been published then, for from internal evidence (there is no date) it is obvious that it did not see the light before 1816. In the volume he promised to give histories of the tunes when he published a second instalment. A long time after he sent the manuscript of his second volume to Mr. J. W. Grant of Elchies, then in India, with a plaintive letter asking him to accept it as no one had shown so much interest in it as he had, and the publication of the first volume had nearly ruined him. The manuscript is now in the possession of Major-General C. S. Thomason, R.E., a grandson of Mr. Grant, and, it is hoped, will yet be published.

Of a later date, we have the book published in 1838 by Angus Mac Kay, piper to the Queen. It was a pretentious volume, containing sixty pibrochs, with histories of the tunes, the lives of the hereditary pipers, and other interesting matter. It will always be a puzzle to students of pipe music why Mac Donald and Mac Kay included in their books so many poor pieces and left out some of the best. Ross’s collection, which appeared long after, contained some which one would have thought Mac Kay or Mac Donald might have had. Messrs. Glen, Edinburgh, published a collection dated 1854, and there are besides the publications of Mac Phee, Mac Lachlan, Gunn, Henderson, Mac Kinnon, Bett, and others, all issued later. Most of these, however, appear to have been based largely on Mac Donald’s and Mac Kay’s books. Mr. David Glen of Edinburgh has, it may be added, published recently the old pipe music of the Clan Mac Lean, compiled under the supervision of the Clan Mac Lean Society of Glasgow.

The Gesto collection of Highland music, edited by Dr. Keith Norman Mac Donald, and dedicated to the Mac Leods of Gesto, is perhaps the most outstanding publication in which the music of the pipes has been adapted for the piano. It was published in 1895. Dr. Mac Donald’s avowed object was to supply a collection free from all adulteration, and to preserve the music as it was sung and played by the Highlanders themselves. The book, while not containing everything that is good in pipe music, undoubtedly contains a larger selection of the best than any other. There are songs, pibrochs, and laments; marches, quicksteps, and general martial music; and also reels and strathspeys, numbering in the aggregate about three hundred and forty tunes; and all over, the book is perhaps more interesting and comprehensive than any that has been issued. A second edition was published in 1898.

In 1896 Major-General Thomason, already mentioned, issued for private circulation a small volume. In this he foreshadowed a larger, which has since been published.^[8] Major-General Thomason is the possessor not only of the manuscript of Donald Mac Donald’s proposed second volume, but also of all the manuscript music left by Angus Mac Kay. Besides, he spent many years in collecting pibrochs from all possible sources, and at the present time he believes that he has almost every pibroch known to be in existence. He has spent much time and labour editing his collection, and the result is the volume referred to, which is published under the title of Ceol Mor (the proper title of real pibroch music). Besides being an extraordinarily diligent collector of tunes, Major-General Thomason was imbued with the idea of rendering the reading of pibrochs more easy. He took notes of the difference in times and the different styles of playing, and became so proficient that he could note any strange tune from the playing of another piper. It was only a step further to decide that the signs which he could note down as the tune was being played would serve as a notation from which the tune could be replayed. He invented, in fact, a system of shorthand for pipe music, and then he set about endeavouring to publish a book printed after his own system, in the hope that pipers would learn it in preference to the old and cumbersome system. By this means he believes he will further popularise bagpipe music, but the ordinary notation has now got so firm a hold that it will be difficult to convince pipers that it will pay them to learn another. Like ordinary shorthand systems, Ceol Mor is doubtless capable of improvement; but the idea opens up an altogether new field in the literature of pipe music, and as the book contains some two hundred and eighty tunes—the result of thirty years’ collecting—it is to be hoped that it will prove a success.

After all it is not so much more books that are needed as a thoroughly standard work including all that is best in pipe music set in some uniform style. There is, however, no getting away from the fact that this cannot be done with any hope of financial success. The jealousies of musicians come in the way, and pipers will have some new tunes, even although it is well known that these, as a rule, are worthless. Nothing short of an encyclopædia containing everything that has ever been composed would please everybody, and this would require to be sold for a few shillings. Then there are the difficulties of copyright—different persons or publishers claiming different tunes or settings of tunes. Still, with anything like a common desire to promote the best interests of national music, these difficulties could to a large extent be overcome. There never was a more opportune time than the present, there being so many pipers and the ability to read music being almost universal. Meantime pipers are struggling along with many tunes and a good many books with a lot of irregularities and inconsistencies scattered through them. There is certainly room for improvement, and if pipers and publishers, or some of the Highland societies—say in Glasgow—took the matter up in earnest, something could be done to set up a standard of some kind that would give the music of the pipes its proper place.