"Into the woods,
Each time you go,
There's more to learn
Of what you know".

I don't want to be cremated. It would be a waste of fuel as I won't burn easily. Place me six foot under in a wooden box (some unspectacular softwood will be fine) and plant a fruit tree over me. I want my return to the soil to enrich a tree as trees are currently enriching my life.

What type of tree? At the moment my favorite wood is plum. Currently we are making bagpipes from a large plum tree from Peebles that blew down over five years ago. Now seasoned, I cut it open to reveal wondrous pinks and magentas alongside areas of brown. Boring it can be a headache. It has a mind of its own. Full of swirls and small pockets of resin that can deflect the long thin drill, resulting in an infuriating graceful internal arc instead of a rifle- straight bore down the centre which is what we aim for. One more billet in the firewood sack. On some days plum decides not to be turned easily- on other days it willingly complies . The finished pieces retain magenta specks and flecks, but once soaked in oil these fade and within a few months are gone. The wood mellows to a rich dark nut brown. Bagpipes in plum look spectacular.

"The woods are just trees
The trees are just wood".

Different woods evoke different feelings in me. I love yew. We use a lot of yew. It has strange associations- curious wood and, like the tree, I sometimes sense, dark and foreboding. It contains poisons and mysteries. I feel uneasy about breathing its dust. Boxwood is wonderful- the clear yellow wood, so hard and pure and difficult to find. Prized for centuries by woodwind instrument makers for its tone. Not prized by me for its smell. I use it as an ivory substitute. All work with long pieces of boxwood is tinged with risk as it has a less- than- charming habit of bending dramatically once a piece is turned and finished. I don't want either of these over me, thank you.

If it is possible I supply with the pipes a photograph of the tree it was made from. There are certain circularities in my work that I treasure. To see a room full of happy people dancing to music being played on a set of bagpipes made by me from a tree that I once knew... A fitting next incarnation for a tree that possibly would otherwise have been cremated for firewood. I want to make wine from the fruit of the very tree from which the pipes are made, so that the dancers may drink the wine and become happier as they dance. Getting a crop of fruit from a tree before it blows over requires forward planning and foresight, but I will work on it. I hope people will be dancing to the music of my pipes long after I am buried.

Plum is not strictly native to Scotland, so maybe plant a cherry over me. Ultimately it is up to the living to decide. Cherry is an old friend of mine. The sweet warm smell of its shavings, its consistency and reliability. Not showy or spectacular. Some trees wide- grained and fairly soft; other trees as tight grained and hard as plum. And a couple of pieces have shyly displayed to me a modest pink blush. Cherry is benign with no evil associations.

"Into the woods, but mind the past.
Into the woods, but mind the future."
Yes, I will be happy to enrich a gean.

( Quotes are from "Into the Woods" by Stephen Sondheim and James Lapine 1987 ).

Steve Ellises account of his search for the illusive Mallorcan bagpipes in the last issue of Chanter prompted me to dredge my memory on this subject. I can provide only a few more relevant snippets of information and one rather disappointing sighting.

I was first made aware of them when my friend Jamie went to live on Mallorca in about 1979. Knowing of my passion for pipes he wrote to me with an account in a letter of a Fire Festival where bonfires are lit at night and people run through the streets with blazing torches to the accompaniment of music, sometimes on the bagpipes. Somewhere I still have his letter, somewhere....

He made friends with a local instrument maker who I think may have been a pipemaker. Certainly this maker was interested in bagpipes- I sent Jamie over some photocopies of Northumbrian pipe music which he bartered for a FUBIOL MALLORQUI- a Mallorcan whistle neatly made of almond wood and brass. I still have it- it is nearly ten inches long with a bore just over half an inch. It was supplied with a DIGITACIO- a handwritten fingering gamut. It is a fiendish whistle to play as it has five finger holes on the front and three (yes three) on the back. For the back holes you use both your thumbs and the upper part of your right hand (bottom) pinkie!

Jamie eventually made a tape of some Mallorcan piping- just a few tunes, perhaps played by the instrument maker. One of the tunes was called 'Running with the Devil' and was associated with the Fire Festival. I borrowed the tape, copied it, and returned the original to Jamie. I later found my 'copy' was blank and sadly Jamie died before I was able to borrow and copy his original again. I cannot remember much about the music now.

The only actual sighting I have had was at St Chartier on Saturday 12 July 1986 GRUP D'EN BIEL MAJOAL opened the evening concert. Dressed in traditional costume Toni Artigues played the xeremies (bagpipes), Dolfi Mulet played fobiol et tambori (whistle and drum) and Biel Majoral sang and played the ximbomba. I cannot recall what a ximbomba was- perhaps it was rumblepot? Also I cannot recall if the fobiol was played with both hands like mine or was played one handed simultaneous with the drum . The photo in Baines look similar to what I saw of the Mallorcan pipes.

I taped their concert, but only have kept one track. At best it could be described as pretty dreary as there was considerable discrepancy between the tunings and intervals of the whistle and bagpipes.

Perhaps Steve should try and arrange for his next visit to coincide with the Fire Festival!

The only region in England that has retained an unbroken bagpipe tradition is in the north east, where the Northumbrian smallpipes still thrive. However throughout England from the 13th century it is clear a wide variety of other types of pipes had been played. In the mid 19th century the piper John Hunsley of Manton in Lincolnshire died and so the last of the older English bagpipes fell silent. There are many early written references and depictions, but no actual instruments have survived.

Bagpipes began to fall out of favour in the south of England from the 16th century onwards and were increasingly considered to be an instrument of the north. During the 19th century Highland pipes were adopted by the British Army and bagpipes came to be regarded as a Scottish instrument- few people in England were even aware that bagpipes had ever been part of their heritage.

The spark that rekindled interest in the English bagpipe came over a century after John Hunsley's death. While researching in the early 1960s Roderick Cannon found many historical references to the bagpipes being played in England and published two articles in The English Folk Music Journal in the early 1970's.

To revive an extinct instrument requires interest, enthusiasm, music, but above all it requires the instrument itself! The catalyst and focus for the revival was undoubtedly the band Blowzabella, formed by Bill O'Toole and Jon Swayne. They were both studying early instrument making at The London College of Furniture in the late 1970s and were experimenting with making bagpipes. Jon developed his low D Flemish pipe after the paintings of Breugel and his 'English' Bagpipe in G- a mouth- blown pipe with two drones and his own design of chanter. At last there were reliable bagpipes to play English music on! Since then Jon has gone on to developed a range of highly sophisticated bagpipes based on the Border bagpipe. Their chanters are chromatic, with an extended range.

Blowzabella's sound was new and exciting and based firmly around the pipes and hurdy gurdy, taking much of their inspiration from the dance music of central France and adapting it to English music. Traditional English tunes once again were played with a drone accompaniment. They organised pipe and hurdy gurdy weekends in the 1980s which were joyous gatherings and the first chances for isolated pipers and other pipe makers, to meet, compare pipes and play together.

It was a very exciting time for me as I had begun to experiment with pipemaking in 1981 and became a professional maker in 1985. Since then I have developed a variety of different pipes. My first, developed with my brother John, was The Leicestershire smallpipe- a single drone instrument that can be mouth or bellows blown. The English Great pipe is based on a 15th century manuscript illustration of the Miller from Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. I based my Cornish double- chanter bagpipes on a fine carving in the church at Alternun, Bodmin Moor dated c1510- 1532. This is typical of many early carvings of double- chantered pipes to be seen in churches throughout England. My English double pipes are based on actual measurements in the Talbot manuscripts from the 1690s.

English pipers have been looking to European piping traditions for inspiration. A focus for the revival has been the English based Bagpipe Society formed in 1985 for those with an interest in all types of bagpipes. Many of its members play English bagpipes. Some are playing the alluring dance music of central France, which has an unbroken tradition and lends itself perfectly to the pipes. Others are facing the challenge of trying to explore ways of playing English music. So much has been lost and needs to be rediscovered or reinvented. Although our piping tradition is broken there has long been a strong tradition of sophisticated instrumental variations in England. With the discovery and publication of the William Dixon manuscript of 1733 we now have proof that bagpipes were part of this tradition.

Today there are a variety of different English pipes available in a range of keys. There are pipers who play these solo or in groups with or without other pipers for early music, dance bands, morris dancing . even the outer reaches of techno music. But what is English pipe music? After a gap of 200 years without any musical development some pipers are looking to the past whilst others are trying to create new English music for the pipes.

Two English bagpipe trios use strickingly different musical approaches. The Goodacre Brothers were formed in 1986 to play traditional and our own dance music, using use various combinations of both small and great pipes. The history of the trios instrumentation reflects the increasing variety of pipes that I have developed and our musical arrangements are essentially polyphonic. Jon Swayne's trio Moebius play his compositions. His arrangements use sumptuous and sometimes extraordinary harmonies making the whole group sound like one instrument. He has gone on to expand this approach even further into Zephrus a six piece bagpipe group- who perform a stunning suite of Jons arrangements of the 17th century tune Halfe Hannikin. And after all these years Jon is still playing with Blowzabella and in 2003 they reformed to celebrate their 25th year and have decided to play and record again.

The bagpipes are essentially a pastoral instrument which fell out of favour during the centuries of industrialisation and urbanisation. But from the late 20th century we have post industrial aspirations. The pastoral is once again desirable.

The English bagpipe revival is now well under way. For it to flourish we must encourage the younger generation to play. I confidently expect this revival will not go the way I predict and I look foreword with anticipation to the next 30 years!

JULIAN GOODACRE. 10. 2. 2004

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What an amazing welcome and overflowing hospitality, generosity and friendliness we received from everyone in our six days in Nova Scotia. Not only from our hosts, but in shops, cafes and petrol stations (Barb, who served us gas in Alma, hailed us like long lost friends....)

FRIDAY

Glasgow (old Glasow!) midday, we fly to Newark, New York (flying OVER Halifax). 4 hours of intense bagpipe discussions and speculations in the Newark Fast Food area. First Root Beer of the trip!

Fly to Halifax and arrive after midnight. Take a limousine into Halifax and, we mention bagpipes (the way one does!) and Ralph, our driver, asks us if we have ever heard of Scott Williams. Barnaby tells him we are spending Wednesday evening with him! Ralph is married to a close relation of Scott's wife, Maureen. They live is Antigonish (3 hours drive from Halifax). News of this meeting gets to Maureen, via jungle drum within hours of our arrival. Arrive at tres grand Lord Nelson Hotel at 1am and sleep.

SATURDAY

Wake up and turn on radio (CBC) and within 30 seconds they are talking about bagpipes........ what a wonderful pipe-conscious country! We venture out into the cold dry outside for our first breakfast. Back to hotel for phoning home and then out again for our second breakfast.

Back to pack up and leave luggage at hotel and then wander down toward the waterfront. The occasional flurry of snow -- with mild daze and jetlag we scour the model shop for pipe related goodies, see 'The Wave' and dive into the Historic Properties, Privateers Wharf for lunch. Barnaby does Christmas shopping, while I resist doing it! At the book shop I learn about the Halifax Explosion and buy a book about it -- I have not yet met a person outside Nova Scotia who had even heard of the disaster.

Walk back, through slight snow to the Hotel where Donald arrives to drive us out to Ravi & Sally's house at Purcell's Cove. Ravi takes us on a dusk walk to Battery Park -- strange how much longer dusk lasts here than it would at this time of year in Scotland.

Back at the house Ravi continues to mark exam papers, Barnaby and I practice measuring a chanter. Priscilla, bless her, arrives and cooks us a meal..... People are so good to us.

SUNDAY

Barnaby goes to the Sunday meeting in the community house, while I tune my pipes.

Michael and Donald arrive and take us over to meet Barbara and we get our first glimpse of Iain Dall's chanter. (Mecca!) Barbara kindly takes us out for Sunday lunch. We return for about 4 hours of intense measuring and videoing and discussion. What an amazing privilege.

Michael drives us back to Ravi's for a ceilidh & potluck evening. Very friendly group of people, wide age range. Good food, companionship, pipes, fiddles, harp, discussions... a very nice welcoming evening.

MONDAY

Goodbye to Ravi as Priscilla drives us to meet Barry. We then drive to Barbara's and set about another 3 or 4 hours of further measuring, photoing, videoing and discussions. We video Barbara talking about the chanter. We say Goodbye to Barbara, who gives us both a pair of woolly gloves.

The entire family has been so kind and generous to us.

Barnaby insists on using maps as he mistrusts my instinctive navigation approach as we walk back to Barry's house. Which was fortunate as I think we would still be wandering around looking for Jubilee Road if I remained at the helm! Supper with Barry, Margaret, Alison and Siobhan.

Off to the Gaelic Society where Barnaby gives a stimulating lecture recital and terrifies a mouse!

TUESDAY

Barnaby had scheduled this as a 'Free Day'. We used it wisely by talking and talking and talking about pipes and piping with Barry. A brief outing in the afternoon, then back home for more talk (and talk) and hearing Barry play my pipes and videoing Barnaby playing. What better way to spend a 'Free Day'?!

WEDNESDAY

We hire a car and for the first time have to drive and navigate ourselves. I navigate. Barnaby drives. Find our way eventually onto the Mackay Bridge in an impressive snow flurry and head for Antigonish. Stop to check out a very cold and dry New Glasgow (Barnaby from the Old one!) and eat one of the Worlds finest muffins. Lovely lunch and pipe talk with Dan, Judy and Ian MacInnes. More time required!

Rush to Antigonish 'Casket' (local paper) where we are interviewed by Scott and Mary MacDonald.

Check into Shebbie's wonderful B&B and then a delightful (and delicious) evening with Scott, Maureen & Marilyn.

THURSDAY

It is hard to leave the B&B! Wonderful Christmas wreaths and cooked breakfast and hospitality, but we speed up to Cape Breton for a few (too

few) hours of stimulating discussion with John Gibson about his work and Cape Breton music. At 1.00 Barnaby hauls the car around and we head back towards Halifax. Barry had phoned us at John's to say he had got an interesting set of Highland pipes we might like to look at if we can get to his house by 5.30 pm. It's a long haul through sleet and snow but we get there by 5.15 pm! Very interesting.

To Purcell's Cove. Good to meet Sally, who has been away for days and only arrived home a few minutes before us. Barnaby cooks a meal and 'tis an early night.

FRIDAY

Some snow in the night. Pack bags, scrape ice from car. Sally chums us by car some of the way to the airport. Return the car. Goodbye Nova Scotia. I feel drained... so much discussion, thought and speculation about bagpipes in a week!

At Newark Barnaby's cousin Murray & Lucy pick us up and take us for a mega Spanish meal in downtown Newark. Never before have I been confronted with such a vast plate of food!!

Fly home. Barnaby and I say goodbye.

Now the work really starts!!! Sorting out in our heads what has happened, interpreting those measurements and turning them into a working instrument.

Thanks to everyone who made us feel so welcome and were so kind and generous and hospitable to us during our all-too-brief trip to Nova Scotia. We shall return -- with a playing copy of Iain Dall's chanter.

MORE POWER TO YOUR ELBOW - A practical Manual to the buying, playing and maintenance of the Scottish bellows blown bagpipes. Edited and compiled by Jock Agnew

BAGPIPES IN THE SCOTTISH BORDERS- AN EMERGING JIGSAW.

Parallel to the resurgence in the playing of Scottish bellows pipes during the last 20 years there has been considerable research into the history of piping in the Borders. Information has been gleaned from early written accounts, music manuscripts and comparisons with the neighboring bagpipe traditions. The earliest surviving representations are carvings, paintings and prints. Some actual bellows instruments survive, but very few from earlier than the middle of the 18th century. The music and style of playing them was well in decline by the start of the 19th century and such instruments had lain silent for over 150 years.

The challenge is to draw together these emerging fragments of information and superimpose them on what we already know of the history of the area and its music and draw up a coherent picture. As a task it is like trying to build up a picture from a jigsaw puzzle, where only a few scattered pieces remain. Research is continuing and exciting new pieces are still being discovered.

EARLY EVIDENCE

Early Kirk and Court records may give accounts of payments to pipers or their misdemeanors, but not the type of pipes they played. One has to beware of jumping to false conclusions- for example south of the border there has been a tendency over the centuries to use the word 'pipes' also for flutes, fifes, whistles and even shawms. Can we be more confident that the words 'pipes' and 'pipers' north of the border refer to bagpipes and bagpipers?

It seems likely that bagpipes were being played throughout much of Europe by the late 12th century, possibly encouraged by the flourishing of culture in general and music in particular during that period. All the earliest surviving written references to piping in Scotland are in the Lowlands and Exchequer Records show payment to pipers during the reign of David II (1329- 1371). There are references to piping in England from the late 13th century and as pipers were known to travel we might assume that pipes were not unknown in Lowland Scotland during that period.

The earliest pictorial evidence of bagpipes in Scotland probably dates from the late 14th Century. This is a delightful gargoyle in Melrose Abbey of a pig playing the pipes. There are two carvings of pipers in Roslin Chapel which date from around 1450. The pipes depicted are similar to many pictures of pipes seen throughout England and Europe during this period and feature a conical chanter with a single drone. Pipes such as these are still played in Northern Spain and other regions of Europe.

James 1st of Scotland (1424- 1437) was credited with playing the bagpipe. The earliest surviving written Scottish music that we know to be bagpipe music is not until the second half of the 17th century.

By the very end of the 15th Century certain Burghs in Lowland Scotland were appointing an official piper and a drummer. Their duties were to perform as 'Waits', which involved playing through the streets each morning and evening and also at official functions. For these duties they were granted an annual payment, official livery and housing. We cannot be sure what type of pipe they played but there is no evidence of bellows being used at this time. During the 16th Century a Town piper and a drummer became an established feature in Lowland towns.

Bagpipes were often depicted in European Nativity paintings as the typical shepherds instrument. Up to the end of the 15th century these pipes had only one drone. But from the beginning of the 16th century paintings of pipers show a second drone. There are no Scottish paintings of pipers before that of the piper to the Laird of Grant dated 1714. (This is of a highland piper whose pipes have three drones, a separate bass and two tenors in a common

stock.) However, a crude illustration of a pig playing a pipe from the psalter of Thomas Wood, Dunbar, from 1562- 66, clearly shows a second drone.

The later 16th century was a time of musical experimentation, inquiry and exploration in Europe. Michael Praetorius, in his encyclopedic work on music, published in Germany in 1618, has detailed pictures and written descriptions of a variety of bagpipes. He clearly illustrates a Hummelchen- a bagpipe he states 'has been imported from France, in which the wind is produced solely by a small arm- operated bellows'. This is the first dateable illustration and written mention of bellows being used for bagpipes. He also illustrates a mouthblown smallpipe with three drones which he calls a Dudey. It is strikingly similar to some of the surviving 18th century mouthblown smallpipes in Scotland. Similar three- drone smallpipes appear in European paintings during the 17th and 18th centuries.

To cater for the 'pastoral' fashion at the French court in the later 17th Century, the Musette, a highly sophisticated French bellows- blown smallpipe was developed by the Hotteterre family and a large body of music was composed and published for it.

An early mention of a 'small pipe' in Scotland dates from 1600. James Talbot in London in his manuscripts of the 1690s gives measurements for a bellows- blown smallpipe with a closed end to the chanter. This closed chanter has become a feature of the Northumbrian smallpipes and one of the defining differences between these and the variety of smallpipes played in Scotland, which retain their open ended chanters.

18th CENTURY

From the 18th Century more pieces of our jigsaw can be pieced together. We have biographical details of individual pipers and contemporary accounts of their music and styles of playing.

It is easy now to view the 18th century as a 'golden era' for piping throughout all Scotland. We can trace the names of numerous pipers of all sorts ranging from established town pipers and pipers appointed to noble households down to tinkers and other travellers. They seem to have been perfectly at ease playing a variety of different types of pipes. It was a time of new piping developments and in the Borders three types of bellows- blown pipes are known to have been played- the border pipe, the smallpipes and the union pipes.

We cannot be sure when they were first developed, but during this century the Border or Lowland pipes became well established. Surviving instruments from later in the century are bellows blown, with three drones in a common stock. They were a loud outdoor instrument with a conical chanter. There are accounts of the pipes being reeded to play 'pinched notes' a technique to play notes above the top octave. Dating surviving instruments is problematical as makers never used name stamps on their instruments until the very end of the 18th Century.

The current revival started out with the assumption that Border pipers had a style of playing quite different from Highland pipers, and their own repertoire. Clues to this style of piping were provided by the surviving tradition of Northumbrian smallpiping. However when Matt Seattle unearthed the Dixon manuscript in 1995 we were at last granted a clear picture of an 18th century Border piper's repertoire. Written by William Dixon in 1733 in Northumberland it is the earliest known British manuscript of pipe music. The repertoire consists of 40 dance tunes (reels, jigs and hornpipes) with elaborate variations. The earthy tune titles suggest that this was not the music of the refined parlour.

Smallpipes were played on both sides of the Border, but by the end of the 18th century they are generally referred to as Northumbland pipes. It seems almost certain that the musical repertoires of the Border pipes and the early smallpipes were largely overlapping. The Scottish smallpipes of the eighteenth century were similar to the Northumbrian smallpipes of the same era; three drones in a common stock and a very small chanter (about 8 inches long). The outstanding surviving example belonged to Col. Montgomery of the First Highland Battalion and is inscribed with his commissioning date of 1757. This and many other surviving sets from Scotland are mouthblown. Whilst Northumbrian smallpipes are always bellows- blown, their fundamental difference, the closed chanter played with closed fingering, allows one to play 'silence' - staccato notes being one of the particular characteristics of Northumbrian piping.

The third type of bellows-pipe played in the Borders was a sophisticated instrument developed in the 18th Century, known variously as the Union, Irish or Pastoral pipes. This was the precursor of the modern Irish pipes. The present name Uilleann Pipes was first suggested in 1908 (uilleann is Gaelic for elbow). They were similar to the Border pipe in having drones in a common stock and a conical chanter, but the narrower bore was developed to play a second higher octave and semitones by cross- fingering. Originally a stage instrument for 'pastoral' performances in London, Edinburgh, Dublin and other cities, manuals and music were published for amateur players. It is known to have been played along with other instruments and in Scotland it was taken up by pipers of all classes and Scottish dance music was part of its repertoire.

By the end of the 18th Century we have large pieces of our jigsaw provided by antiquarians consciously recording what they saw as dying traditions, such as Robert Chambers' memoir of James Ritchie:-

'A person who lived four or five doors from us, and who smacked of an ancient and by- past world, was James Ritchie, the Piper of Peebles, the last person who held the office.

Ritchie had been the Piper of Peebles from the year 1741, so that in my childish days he had become a very old man. It was part of his duty to march through the town every evening between nine and ten o'clock, playing on his pipes, as a warning to the inhabitants to go to their beds. He dwelt in a small cottage, where he brought up a family of ten children upon an official salary of a pound a year, the gains he derived from playing at weddings and other festivals, and the little gifts it was customary to give him at the New Year.

I remember the old man calling at our house on New Year's Day in the course of the round of visits he then paid the principal citizens, dressed in his official coat of dark red and his cocked hat -rather merry by the time he came to us, in consequence of the drams given him along with the shillings and sixpences. My father had a liking for him, through the sympathy in his nature for everything musical, and one evening he took me with him into Ritchie's cottage, that I might hear some of the old man's tunes. The instrument was not what is called the Great Bagpipe, the bagpipe of the Highlands, blown by the mouth, but the smaller bagpipe inflated by a pair of bellows under the left arm. I suspect that Ritchie had tunes of his own composition, since lost, for there were three called 'Salmon Tails', 'Lyne's Mill Trows' and 'The Black and the Grey' -a racing tune I suspect -which are not to be seen or heard of now- a- days.'

19th CENTURY

Scattered references from the 19th Century may show that bellows pipes continued to be played in Scotland, especially in the North East, but it seems that, as Chambers implies, the old music and style of playing them did not survive. Throughout the 19th century Highland bagpipe makers continued to make bellows pipes. There is no evidence, however, that they were making for a Border tradition of playing and the way they were advertised suggests that they were supplying them to Highland pipers who would be playing Highland repertoire on them.

Of course bagpiping did not die out in the Borders in the 19th century, but the adoption of the Highland pipes, with their different traditions, as the Scottish national instrument meant that the Border piping tradition was forgotten. The Northumbrian smallpipes continued to be played and have flourished in the last 40 years, with a growing worldwide interest. In the mid 1920s there was an attempt at reviving the Northumbrian 'half- long'

pipes- essentially the same instrument as the Border pipes.

CURRENT REVIVAL

The final 25 years of the 20th century saw a big European resurgence of interest in local piping traditions. The Lowland and Border Pipers' Society was formed by pipers, many of whom were Highland pipers, who were looking for a more sociable way of playing Scottish pipes in combination with other instruments. The Society was formed in 1983 and became the focus of this revival. The initial intention was to encourage a revival of the Border pipes, but it was the smallpipes that took off first. Northumbrian pipemakers developed the Scottish smallpipes in a variety of keys for the Highland piper who wanted a pipe which used the same fingering. These modern smallpipes are very sociable instruments, allowing solo pipers to practice quietly at home as well as being well suited in volume and pitch to playing in a group setting or session.

The Border pipes have taken a little longer to become re- established. Technically they are much harder to make and adjust and are more demanding to play. Historically the Border pipes were solo outdoor instruments, only known to have been accompanied by a drummer. Whilst such instruments are being made and played today, the predominant demand is for pipes with a mellower sound suitable for playing indoors, often in groups.

Today, as in the 18th century, there is a healthy diversity of interests in bellows piping. Some pipers are interested in further research into early Border pipes, music and styles of playing. Some have adapted their Highland technique and repertoire for these pipes. Others look to European piping traditions for inspiration and much new music is being composed.

Glance through the Piping section of a good CD shop today and you will find recordings of these pipes playing along with fiddles, guitars, whistles and accordions. But you will also find them playing alongside saxophones, electric guitars and synthesizers. A healthy state of affairs for instruments that only 20 years previously had been declared extinct!

CONCLUSION

Many of the pieces of this emerging jigsaw come from the historical research that has been done by Gordon Mooney, Hugh Cheape, Keith Sanger, Sean Donnelly, Iain MacInnes, Paul Roberts, Matt Seattle, Jon Swayne, Brian McCandless and others and has been published in Common Stock, the journal of The Lowland and Border Pipers' Society. Back issues provide a wealth of historical information and more new research is regularly being published. See also The Book of The Bagpipe by Hugh Cheape (Appletree Press 1999) and Highland Bagpipe Makers by Jeannie Cambell (Magnus Orr Publishing 2001).

The last 20 years of the picture have been very well preserved and documented. In re- creating our tradition, however, we should repeatedly re- assess the way the neighbouring traditions overlapped and interacted at different periods. We should never be tempted to glue our jigsaw puzzle into a fixed frame!

Julian Goodacre. March 2002.

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