Learning from Allan

Although it is frowned upon in folk circles, I think on the grounds that it is not traditional, and can only give the general impression of a tune, I am pretty much wedded to learning tunes from dots. For those of us without regular first hand access to other musicians the only way to come across new repetoire is recordings, and for those of us who struggle to pick out tunes by ear, dots are a godsend. Dots enable me to play a whole range of tunes that actually I've never heard anyone else play. Dots also keep alive tunes that aren't much played. As long the dots exist an unplayed tune is never dead, only sleeping.

I do find that dots are, of course,  very useful for telling you which notes to play and in which order. What I don't find they help with so much is timing. I know they do tell you timing, but for some reason this is something I find difficult to read from dots. As to the feel of a tune, the way it is played, the way it sounds, well, I've found that there are as many ways to play a tune as there are people to play it, so I tend not to worry about that. Eventually a tune will decide whether it wants me to play it fast or slow, with a lilt or a swagger.

One thing I really haven't touched as yet is pibroch. The dots aren't that hard to come by, but in lipin g mythology pibroch is handed down between pipers through canntaireachd. It has itself has a glamour and a mystery to it, somehow, that prevents a casual approach, perhaps like opera. Most people would be happy to warble along to a pop classic come karaoke night at the local, but except for those few tunes that have crossed to the pop side of the floor (Nessun dorma) I expect few people would have a go at a piece of opera. Clearly there is a whole argument here about popular vs elite culture and so on, but in itself opera is considered to be difficult, a voice needs to be trained to attempt it.

So I've steered clear of pibroch. Then when we were looking, the fan and I, at some hypothetical sets for the hypothetical gig, he wanted to know if I hadn't got a slow air to kick a set off with. No, I said, I did not have a slow air. I don't play Irish pipes, these are Scottish pipes and there are reels, jigs, strathspeys, slow marches, quick steps and laments but no slow airs. But after a while it occurred to me that the Scottish piping equivalent of a slow air is pibroch. The one that came to mind was Lament for the Children. Julie has a song that uses it, and Allan MacDonald on the Seudan CD has it as the tune for the dark haired man.

I found the dots easily enough. I wanted to stick to the urlar, or ground - no doublings and variations for me! I tried it out on my chanter. I played it slow: too slow, as it turned out. I coudn't make head nor tale of it. Then I thought of Allan, and then I started to hear him in my head. Not the words, but the rhythm, the shape of the tune.

Fhir a' chinn duibh, thug mi gaol dhuit
Fhir a' chinn duibh, thug mi gradh dhuit
Thug mi gaol 's thug mi gradh dhuit
Thug mi gaol nach d' thug mi chach dhuit
Fir a' chin duibh thug mi gradh duit

It's not quite the same tune, according to the sleeve notes, but it's close enough for me to learn from, to learn as if I were learning pibroch through cannterairachd, learning from Allan.

A name is not a tune

I mentioned yesterday that I had intended to post about tunes and their names. The fan says it’s within the (Byzantine) etiquette of sessions to take a little list of tunes you know, just to remind you what you might want to play. But the problem is that remembering the title of a tune doesn't necessarily mean you remember the tune. I find this when I practice: a tune comes to mind, and I play it. Sometimes another comes to mind, sometimes I just start playing and a tune appears (which I love!), and sometimes I stop and have to try to remember what tunes I know. But what comes to mind – what I am trying to think about – is not the tunes themselves, but their names, and sometimes when I have recalled the name I still can’t remember what the tune is.

I'm not sure what to do about this. I can’t not remember the tune titles, because they are at least a guide. I also think that the bit of my brain that remembers words and text is separate from the bit that remembers tunes. The fan often says that when you can hum a tune you know it well enough to play it. My humming tends not to be accurate. I listened to Seudan in the car on the way home yesterday, and to Allan MacDonald singing along with his pipes. I know that Canntaireachd was used to teach tunes, and I know that I don’t know Canntaireachd, but I did wonder if I could warble wordlessly to myself (is this what is called “diddling”?) and that might help with the tune. I tried this yesterday with the King, but it certainly didn't have instant results.

I now wonder if what I actually need is words for the tunes, because I remember words quite easily, and maybe they will remind me of the tune. Some tunes do have words, or course, and I find if  I Google a tune once I put the name in it will always add “lyrics” as part of a suggested search. I've often wondered why people want words to tunes, but perhaps it’s to help them remember. If words and music are remembered differently, or in different parts of the brain then possibly I can use the strength of my word-memory to improve my music-memory. On the other hand, maybe my word memory will just be used to patch gaps in my music memory, which won’t then flourish. Perhaps I should be trying to build up my ability to remember music, but I'm not sure how I train myself to do that other than as I am now – playing or listening to tunes over and over (but making sure that when I am “listening” I am concentrating and really noticing and not just tuning out with the music as a pleasant background).

No actual playing this evening. The temperature has dropped and I have mittens to knit.

Missed Opportunity

Some years ago I spent some time in Aberdeen. I hadn’t particularly chosen to go there, I didn’t enjoy it at all, and I left as soon as I could. Considering my recent enthusiasm for all things Scottish (knitting as well as the music, and I’ve always been fond of the national drink) that year now feels like a wasted opportunity. 

I don’t recall coming across any piping, but I do know that asked for, and was refused, the opportunity to learn Gaelic. I was told that it would be no use to me. I’m not keen on the idea that learning of any kind should have a direct practical application in order for it to have value, and it’s particularly galling considering that the linguistics I studied instead turned out to have no bearing on my life or any of my interests either then or now. It’s not even the kind of thing that occasionally helps with the answers to clues in general knowledge crosswords.

But I do wish I had learned Gaelic. It would have tied in with my (now mostly lapsed) interest in folklore and folk tales, and it would certainly tie in with the traditional music, especially in its links to pibroch, which is something I’d definitely like to learn more about. Mind you, if I start reading up on piping and Gaelic song (and all the other aspects of Scottish culture that interest me) I'd have even less time for piping...

Hello World

First posted Mar 25th, 2012 by newpiper


Heavens - I got a comment! Hello world! More specifically, hello Simon, and thanks for your encouragement, and thanks for spreading the word abut this tune - I'm so glad I've come across it. I've been listening to lots of versions of the Halsway Carol. I think my favourites are the one with bells, because it's nice and clear, and Nigel's own version. I'd not really come across hurdy gurdys before, and I'm quite smitten. I love the way it starts very gently and then that that percussive effect kicks in - marvellous!


So I've been trying to pick the tune out. I started on a whistle, and then in a moment of madness crossed to the mandolin. Despite violin lessons more years ago than I care to recall I don't find strings intuitive, however, sometimes they help with patterns. The tune seems to start, for instance, with two open string notes. Does that help? I’m not sure. I picked it out on the mandolin and wrote out the dots because I didn't think I could transfer what was then a mandolin tune for me direct onto pipes. I was wrong! I picked up pipes and I played it. Well, I played the first part, and I don't think it's quite right. Interestingly I got some of my best ever finger speeds, probably because somehow I'm not thinking about playing, I'm just thinking about the tune.


The fan is away this weekend but I am hoping when he gets back to get him to listen to the proper version and my version and he'll help me out. He can listen to a tune and go "well, that's a C and you're playing C sharp" whereas I just go "this note doesn't feel right". Oddly it's sometimes the correct note next to the wrong note that that feels wrong...


Anyway - no fan, no recording kit, but plenty of time to practise and I'm doing it in small bursts. Dusty Pipes and Hector both came back. In the end reading the dots to remind me didn't help. I know that I know the tunes, because I know when I've got them wrong. I've found that actually listening to the tune and working it out as I go along is more helpful than dots.


Kicking myself for not accepting the Halsway Schottische dots when they were offered, but I think I'm learning a lot by having to work the tune out for myself. It's a great tune and it's going to sound really good on Scottish Smallpipes!