Old style Highland piping

[CMcG]

I finally caught up on all the videos posted here and I think I get what Nathan is talking about in traditional piping, as exemplified by Barry Shears playing. The other videos, including the one in Nathan's first post, seem to show more of the standardized, pipe band style.

The hallmark of the modern approach appears to be a uniformity and evenness in the rhythmic subdivisions and strong emphasis on the downbeats e.g. 1 (strongest) and 3 (slightly weaker) in 4/4 time. This makes the music rather square, which is ideal for marching, but not as good for dancing.

Yes people can and do dance to it, but there is a bit of incongruity between the embodied rhythm of the dancers and that of the piper. This is visually evident in the video neloon posted where people are dancing to a solo piper, but is made more audible in the first video Nathan posted. Here the fiddle and piano begin, only to be joined later -- and juxtaposed in rhythmic feel -- by the pipes.

Shears on the other hand, shows a style that is more reminiscent of fiddling and more conducive to dancing. Here the subdivisions are "swung," which gives them a lilt, and there is more emphasis on weak beats, off-beats, and/or syncopation. Given the design of the instrument, I'm guessing the traditional style would require a difference in playing technique and ornamentation to achieve that kind of "groove."

In the video Nathan posted where Shears is talking, he told a story about taking a pipe major course in Ottawa and being told not to play reels "that way" because they aren't for dancing! It would be interesting to read his MA thesis, which has now been published as a book called Dance to the Piper.