Piobaireachd

[Planopiper]

My experience with pibroch (English spelling, as long as we're speaking English, another shorthand is 'piob') is a little deeper, but I'm no expert. It's not all laments. But it wasn't created to fit the format of popular radio, so the pieces aren't written to fit in 2 or 3 minute slots. A short pibroch wil be 5 or 6 minutes, a long one 20 miutes or so. It was created for the Great Highland Bagpipe (some say the GHB was created for it) and it doesn't really sound as good on any other instrument. It can be very slow, but that's when you're supposed to appreciate the interaction between the chanter and the drones. Just like you don't gulp down good whisky, you don't rush through pibroch. Piobaireachd is Scots Gaelic for "bagpipe music". Since it was the original pipe music, it didn't need any more specific name. It consists of a theme and variations. The variations are very stereotypical, that is each type of variation will be very perdictable for each tune. Once the ground has ben established, you can pretty much figure out what the rest of the tune will be, depending on the variations. Not all pibroch use all the variations.

It begins with the ground, or urlar. This is the melody of the tune. It will often be difficult to follow because it won’t go where you expect it to. There are very few ‘hooks’ in the ground. Nothing you’ll find yourself whistling. It obstensibly has a time, but you can’t keep a beat to it. There are notes that you play that won’t count against the time. There are a few general patterns for how the ground is composed, which can make them easier to learn, but not all piob follow them. Typically the next part will be similar to the ground, but with a few differences. After that the variations get more predictable, usually.

What the composer will do is deconstruct the ground and pick out what he considers to be the themal notes. You may not agree with his choices, but it’s his tune. This variation will usually be very simple. Something like playing just the themal notes, holding each for a while, but returning to the low A between them briefly. Or maybe holding the low A’s and playing the themal notes briefly. Or play each themal note twice, once long and once short. The trick is in getting the expressiveness of the tune. The variations from here will get more complex. The next variation may have a quick G-D-E on low A between each themal note. The next variation will usually be the tarluath (tar-loo-ah), which a quick 5-note sequence between the themal notes. The next variation is usually a crunluath (crun-loo-ah), 7 notes played in about 1 second between each themal note. Each of these variations could have 2 versions – singling and doubling. The doubling usually played a little quicker than the singling. And there are variations of the crunluath. So there may be anywhere between 3 and 15 variations on the ground, depending on the tune. There’s a lot of memorization involved.

There’s a lot more to the subject, but that’s enough to bore everyone for now. Basically, it’s like any kind of art you’ve never experienced before. It looks strange and impossible to understand until you learn what’s happening in it. I like to listen to piob as background music sometimes. It’s excellent for meditation, and very good at getting tears out of the stalwarts at a funeral.