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DEFINITION OF PROJECTCharles Starrett
Proposal Draft: 11/15/99
My proposed dissertation will attempt to interpret the sound, repertory and performance practice of Great Highland Bagpipers in formal solo and band competitions in the United States [1].
DEFINITION OF PROJECTIn the United States, the heritage of piping is bound with the individual piper rather than the nation. Unlike in other former British colonies, the military did not introduce the Great Highland Bagpipes into the U.S. during its period of colonization; individuals of Scottish or Irish descent introduced the bagpipe into the U.S. themselves [2]. Thus the Great Highland Bagpipe subcultures emerged from individual and local communities of Scottish or Irish descent and not from nationally rooted British traditions [3]. In addition, this history suggests that the ideas of tradition in the piping subculture of the United States are drawn from its own community of pipers, rather than from national concepts of piping tradition [4].
I propose to carry out an ethnographic study of the culture of competitive piping in the United States. My primary ethnographic and archival research will be conducted with the Worcester Kiltie Pipe Band [WKPB] of Worcester, Massachusetts. I will also carry out additional ethnographic and archival research in the United States and Scotland.
HISTORICAL BACKGROUNDBagpipe competitions can be traced as far back as the eighteenth century in Scotland, where the histories of pipe band competitions and solo competitions are intertwined. Imposed in reaction to the 1745 Jacobite uprising, the Disarming Act of 1747 outlawed instruments of war and the wearing of Highland dress including any use of the tartan. The bagpipe, judged by the High Court to be an instrument of war, was outlawed as well [5]. Later, as an exception to the law against bagpipes, pipers were allowed in the Highland divisions of the British army; in 1757 William Pitt raised the first of these divisions: Montgomery’s Highlanders [6]. Although the Scottish companies from before the Jacobite uprising each had only one piper and one drummer, this 1757 regiment had a band of thirty pipers making it the first of the military-style bands [7]. This created a new, regimented, martial-piping culture which was heavily influenced by its British military setting [8]. This British military piping culture was then absorbed back into Scottish culture upon the repeal of the Disarming Act in 1782. This is an early example of how a ‘construction of Scotland’ external to Scotland itself became a part of piping culture [9]. These ‘constructions of Scotland’ continue in worldwide piping communities today in debates about ‘true’ Scottish piping [10].
While the Disarming Act was still in force, pipers outside of the Highland divisions continued to perform in secret but because they were isolated from each other they could not share techniques and compositions and thus they focused their efforts on maintaining their current state of knowledge rather than developing it. In 1778, competitions of Ceòl Mór (the art music of the Great Highland Bagpipe) were begun by the “Highland Society of London,” among whose objectives was the preservation of the music of the Highlands. These competitions radically changed attitudes towards solo piping because pipers gained status through the public Ceòl Mór contests [11].
A second repertory of bagpipe music in Scotland, called Ceòl Beag, literally translated as “small music,” was also widely performed in the seventeenth century. It consisted of a number of fixed-form dance movements as well as marches [12]. By 1826, two Ceòl Beag dance forms, the reel and the strathspey, were incorporated into the performance program by the Highland Society at the Ceòl Mór competitions, but they were not played as competition pieces [13]. The Highland Society’s solo competitions ended in 1844 but were revived in 1859 and incorporated into a larger piping event in Inverness, Scotland, called the “Northern Meeting.” The first competitions for reels and strathspeys were held at this competition [14]. William Ross’ 1869 publication of a collection of tunes which featured strathspeys and reels paired off in sets suggests that there was a market for such arrangements and thus that this pairing likely became common performance practice by that time [15]. The pairing of reels and strathspeys continues today, although currently the grouping of marches, strathspeys and reels into medleys is more common [16].
The history of conventions of movement in Ceòl Beag competitions is also intriguing. In the early eighteenth century, specific movement forms (dancing or marching) were associated with Ceòl Beag forms, whereas in current pipe band competitions movement forms are tied more to competition conventions than to the musical forms. For example, while the band moves to the center of the competitions ring a march may be performed, but the dances and remaining marches are performed stationary by the band after it has formed its fixed performance circle (with all members facing inward) [17]. Solo competitions have their own set of conventions. In solo competitions, the piper will slowly process back-and-forth in front of the judge when playing a slow march, air or Ceòl Mór Piobaireachd, but when performing the faster dance tunes the piper stands in place while tapping a foot. Although the compositional forms and the practices of specific events have become codified in recent years, there is still wide variation in certain details of the forms as well as the settings of the tunes which are performed [18]. The history of these conventions and of changes in the policies of the competitions has not been adequately investigated. This history will constitute a significant portion of my archival research in Scotland.
In the mid-1800s, approximately 100 years after the repeal of the Disarming Act, Scottish civilian bands were founded; these bands were based largely on British military piping culture. Two bands which were among the first of these civilian bands still exist: the Edinburgh City Police Band (1882) and the Govan (City of Glasgow) Police Band (1885) [19]. Pipe band competitions appeared soon after the establishment of civilian bands in the 1880s [20]; the Edinburgh City Police Band emerged victorious in the first annual piping World Championship reportedly at Cowal in 1897. The Royal Scottish Pipe Band Association was established in 1930 with one of its primary duties being the regulation of band competitions [21]. The early histories of pipe bands, competitions, and the grading systems have not been extensively examined, but one of the more prolific authors on piping, Roderick Cannon, has hypothesized that the grading system is related not only to the hierarchical nature of the military band but also to the class differences between players and judges in early competitions in Scotland [22]. That solo pipers are now graded as well raises the question of what military influences spread to solo piping and how those influences have affected signification in performance. In the history of piping competitions this is one of many examples of unaddressed issues the study of which would aid the understanding of the expression of tradition in modern competitions. To that end, I will provide a distilled historical account of Scottish, Irish and English competitive culture but I propose to emphasize the more recent history of piping in North America and particularly in the United States in constructing my ethnography.
Piping and inter-band politicsNetworks of bands and pipers are conduits of transmission outside of the competitions sites; these networks serve as an additional factor in the processes of change in tradition. Although there are official regional organizations which are important influences on the U.S. tradition, the networks of which I am speaking are driven by individuals rather than institutions [23]. I plan to study the musical networks of pipe bands in three ways: (1) by examining the testimony of the pipe majors [24]. (2) by mapping the movement of pipe majors and band members, and (3) by analyzing the structure of “esteem.” As musical directors, pipe majors have the most influence over the sound, repertory and performance practice of the band, and they will introduce their own traditions into the band of which they take command. I will identify each individual pipe major’s traditions through interviews. These traditions create a musical connection between the bands which the pipe major has directed. Similar networks are formed through mass-movements of band members such as the importation of pipers from Scotland or the movement of an entire drum corps from one band to another [25]. Thus by mapping the movements of pipe majors and large groups of members from band-to-band while tracking changes in band repertory and performance practice I hope to delineate channels of ideas of signification [26]. “Esteem” forms the basis of the final kind of network. Band websites as well as individual band members mention particular bands which they consider to be ‘friends’ and ‘competitors’ of their own bands. These ‘friends’ and ‘competitors’ are a subset of the bands which compete against each other in the games. One characteristic which determines the subset is the significant geographical distance between them. There is often animosity between neighboring bands of the same grade because bands in close proximity must draw their members from the same limited pool. Thus a band’s stated ‘competitors’ are generally not local bands but remote bands which they only encounter at major competitions. By interviewing pipe majors, drum majors, band members and panels of judges, I hope to find sets of shared knowledge in these networks and to determine whether competitions are also sites where network-specific readings of ‘tradition’ are contested on a macro-level between members of these networks.
State of the ResearchScant ethnographic or interpretive work on the Great Pipes exists. Older works examine either the high art music of Piobaireachd [27]. or the more visible military piping traditions [28]. Most of these works have been written by and for pipers and do not address issues concerning the signification of piping, possibly to avoid conflict and to appeal to a wider audience [29], Furthermore, there has been no study of piping in the United States.
I propose to examine signification in the sound of competitive piping. The ‘sound’ encompasses the repertoire of tunes, their performance arrangements and the tonal qualities of the instrument(s) [30]. I do not consider signification to be static; meaning changes over time and locale and according to pedagogical lineage. Also, although I will not concentrate on Scottish and Irish ethnic identity, I will necessarily address the issue of identity in the course of interpreting meaning. The upper-grade bands with whom I will be working rarely declare ethnic affiliations, but their choices of Tartan, iconography, institutional affiliation and repertoire all imply subtle allegiances. In addition, pipers often refer to the sound of piping in a musical ‘homeland:’ Scotland or Ireland. The supposed ‘homeland sound’ is used as a standard against which piping in the United States is placed. This is most emphasized in the way in which Scotland is always considered to be the country with the best pedagogy and the most challenging competitions [31].
PLAN FOR RESEARCH
Ethnographic SourcesI will begin with a year of fieldwork with Boston’s Worcester Kiltie Pipe Band [WKPB]—the oldest band in the country with a grade II rating [32]. Founded in 1916, the WKPB instituted a program in 1956 when “Forty-four bandsmen [from Scotland] were sponsored to come live, play, and work in the Worcester area.” According to the band’s historian, this program facilitated the WKPB’s victories at the U.S., Canadian and North American championships in 1964 [33]. In more recent decades, the band has experienced conspicuous political reversals with the forced removal of a pipe major who has now been reinstated after fifteen years [34]. Because the current and interim pipe majors have agreed to talk with me, and many of the members from all three periods of this recent history are still available to be interviewed, I expect to be able to learn a significant amount about bagpipe music and recent events from investigating this period of the WKPB’s history.
My fieldwork with the WKPB will more broadly involve regular attendance of the rehearsals of the main band, active participation in their “B” band [35]. and observation of events sponsored by or involving the band. In addition, I will interview band members beginning with the leadership: the Pipe Major, Pipe Sergeant, Drum Major and band manager [36], I will tape these interviews for subsequent analysis of both verbal descriptions of bagpipe sound and performed demonstrations. This research will further my understanding of the meaning of piping for the members of the WKPB. Also, based on these interviews, I will begin mapping the movements of band leaders between bands. This map will serve as a foundation for a history of U.S. pipe bands.
In my institutional interviews, I will focus the bulk of my attention on the Eastern U.S. Pipe Band Association [EUSPBA] and its membership of 235 bands and 1250 individuals [37]. I have chosen this focus because the EUSPBA regulates the band which I am studying. Still, I will also conduct interviews, by telephone when necessary, with the leadership of the other American pipe band associations: the Mid-West U.S. PBA, the Southern U.S. PBA and the Western PBA as well as with Canadian pipe band associations. This will help me to gain a broader understanding of the organizations and of competitive piping in North America.
In order to begin interpreting the musical data, I am following standard ethnomusicological practice in learning to play the Great Highland Bagpipes. I began my studies in June of 1999 with Michael Linkletter, a member of the WKPB who is graded as an “open” or professional piper [38]. Being a player, albeit a novice, will help me to understand the technical and interpretive issues of piping. In addition, by the spring of the year 2000 I plan to join the WKPB “B” band as mentioned above; my participation in the “B” band will allow me to gain insider knowledge of the musical organization.
By early 2000, I will begin interviewing pipe makers, reed makers and retailers in order to chart their lineages and map their predilections. Some artisans apprenticed with older makers and others have used particular pipes as exemplar for their designs. Charting these influences and relating them to the attitudes of the bands and pipers that use their particular instruments will be useful in determining sets of shared attitudes towards bagpipe sound. Because many of the pipers play older pipes, the study of instrument makers from earlier in this century will also be included in my archival research. I will also begin interviewing band leaders of other Grade II bands and EUSPBA judges through taped surveys at this time.
After a brief visit to Scotland (described below) I will spend the summer of 2000 attending Highland games in the Eastern United States as well as the Canadian and Scottish games which the WKPB attends. Unlike my band fieldwork which will be a slow and deep study of the same band rehearsing for many weeks, my Highland Games fieldwork will be more quick and concentrated: each event takes place in a single weekend. Thus this fieldwork will necessarily result in ‘snapshots’ of a cross-section of Highland Games in the Eastern U.S.. However, these snapshots will supply data about the bands involved in the EUSPBA and their public interactions.
While continuing my participant-observation with the WKPB through the fall of 2000, I will follow up on the first set of interviews as well as on conversations from the previous summer’s Highland Games fieldwork. I will also conduct the bulk of my Scottish archival research during the fall as described below.
Archival SourcesMuch of the history of piping is oral and I will collect it ethnographically as outlined above. However, I will also undertake archival research with written historical records, scores and recordings kept by individual bands and other institutions. I will study the roots of competitive piping in Scotland at the archives of the University of Edinburgh’s School of Scottish Studies in two phases: one at the beginning of the summer of 2000 and the other in the Fall semester of the year 2000. The School of Scottish Studies houses the most extensive archives of Scottish music, including significant as yet uninvestigated material on piping competitions. Most of these materials are in English, but in preparation for this trip, I am studying Scots Gaelic; by the time I travel to the archives, I will have developed sufficient competency to interpret the Gaelic texts. In the Fall of 2000 I will also conduct trips to gather comparative ethnographic and archival data from surviving U.S. bands founded contemporaneously with the WKPB, namely: the Holyoke Caledonian Kiltie Band in Massachusetts (1910), the Cincinnati Caledonian Pipe Band in Ohio (1912), the Manchester Pipe Band in Connecticut (1914), and the Schenectady Pipe Band in New York (1917) [39]. If the project warrants it, I will continue by studying bands founded in the late 40s and early 50s. Through this archival research I hope to be able to broaden my history of band networks and piping styles as well as to discern a larger history of pipe bands and pipers in the United States.
As for my theoretical frame, I wish to learn my tools for analysis from my informants. Rather than borrowing tools created for other purposes, I will develop my analytical approach from the ways in which pipers themselves understand signification in their music and performance. Still, I do plan to use some foundation works from the study of formal competitions [40]. tradition and memory [41], as well as signification [42], Ultimately, I want my analysis to enable me to discover how music expresses meaning and what those diverse meanings are to pipers, judges and audiences in various contexts so that I may then use this knowledge to interpret the tradition.
ANTICIPATED CHAPTER OUTLINEI anticipate that the dissertation will comprise six chapters, an introduction and a conclusion. The majority of the chapters will give an ethnographic view of competitive piping in the United States, while introducing material for the more conceptual discussion towards the end of the dissertation. Each chapter will focus on the kinds and means of signification expressed through bagpipe sound.
In the end I hope to document and interpret the various continua of signification in the sound, repertory and performance practices of competitive piping in the Great Highland Bagpipe tradition of the United States.
Endnotes1. The Great Highland Bagpipe [GHB] or Scottish Great Pipe (Gaelic, Pìob Mhòr) is a large three-droned outdoor bagpipe. The player generally stands with his back straight and head upright as the exceptional length of the blowpipe (used for inflation of the bag) allows for more distance between the bag and the player’s mouth than other mouth-blown bagpipes. William A. Cocks, Anthony C. Baines and Roderick D. Cannon, “Bagpipe,” in The New Grove Dictionary of Music, ed. Stanley Sadie (London: Macmillan Press; New York: Grove's Dictionaries of Music, 1984).
2. Although the first United States pipe bands were not established until the early 20th century, it is likely that solo piping entered this country earlier than that time. In the second and third chapters of my proposed dissertation, which will address the history of piping in the United States, I will elucidate these early events.
3. In Jeannie Coleman’s 1991 article, “The Highland Bagpipe in New Zealand: An Exercise in Translocation” in Tradition and its Future in Music (Osaka: Mita Press, 385-387) she describes the adoption of the GHB by a population of largely lowland Scots in Otago, New Zealand. The 1861 discovery of gold in Central Otago brought a large number of non-Scottish prospectors and miners to the region, challenging the region’s ethnic identity. The community’s response was to begin a tradition of annual GHB piping competitions to assert their “Scottish” (albeit lowland) identity (385).
4. “Piping” and “piper” are insider terms referring to the act of playing the GHB and the person who plays it respectively.
5. Francis M. Collinson, The Bagpipe: The History of a Musical Instrument (London and Boston: Routledge & K. Paul, 1975),171.
6. Collinson,173-4.
7. Cannon, Roderick D. The Highland Bagpipe and its Music (Edinburgh: John Donald, 1988), 16. Collinson, 164, 166, 174.
8. Accordingly, I will refer to this culture as “British military piping culture.”
9. I use the phrase, ‘construction of Scotland,’ to refer to the set of ideas about Scotland which are held by people outside of Scotland. In my histories of piping I will examine how ‘constructions of Scotland’ by pipers in England, Canada and the United States are expressed in both piping and discourse.
10. One of these debates concerns the issue of schooled technique. It is a characteristic of competitive pipers that they strive for a high degree of precision and “open” playing (where all ornamental notes are clear and distinct) and students in this tradition learn from one of three well-established “tutors.” (See under “Primary Sources” in the bibliography.) The “folk” style of piping in Nova Scotia, however, emphasizes a style of playing in which rough, untrained technique is valued. Proponents of both styles claim that in Scotland, piping was “traditionally” performed in their manner. This reference to Scottish “tradition” is the most common method for claiming authority. Michael Linkletter, interview by author, Cambridge MA, 29 August, 1999.
11. Collinson, 179.
12. See Primary Sources section of bibliography for a listing of editions.
13. Strathspeys and Reels are both triple-meter dances. The Strathspey is slower with a more deliberate quarter and eighth-note rhythm while the reel is considerably faster with a mix of the strathspey dotted rhythms and regular eighth-notes.
14. Collinson, 181-83.
15. Cannon, 135.
16. In fact, this genre of medleys also has an insider abbreviation of “MSRs.”
17. Lower-level bands march silently into the competition ring, but upper-level bands (generally grade III and above) present themselves by playing a march as they enter the competition arena and elegantly form their performance circle. (See Appendix A: Diagram of Band Competition).
18. Two of the more contested details are the performance of “gracings” (the addition of ornaments between melody notes, either to “cut” a sustained note into a number of shorter repeated notes, or to decorate the melody) and “pointing.” “Pointing” refers to the degree to which a two-note figure is dotted, particularly in the strathspey and reel forms. The amount of dotting can vary from a relaxed quarter and eighth triplet rhythm to a more sharp dotted-eighth and sixteenth rhythm. Cannon, 143.
19. Ibid., 153.
20. Ibid., 153.
21. Ibid., 153-4.
22. Ibid., 156. Bands, and now solo pipers as well, are grouped by “grade” so that only performers of similar abilities will compete against each other. Bands and soloists enter competitive piping in Grade V and try to work their way up to Grade I. This process requires no less than one year to advance one grade level according to the rules of most pipe band association and only the very best soloists and bands become Grade I competitors.
23. Officially, all competing pipers and bands in the United States belong to a regional association; each association is responsible for overseeing the competitions in its region and the grading of its members. The association also ensures that its judging and grading is consistent with that of the other U.S. associations and with the other GHB associations around the world.
24. There can be as many as five leadership positions in a band. The Pipe Major [PM], who may be assisted by a Pipe Sergeant, is generally considered to be the musical director of the entire band. The Pipe Sergeant’s duties are to assist the PM and to be a conduit of communication between the pipers and the PM. The Drum Sergeant is the musical director of the drum corps and the Drum Major [DM ] is the decorative leader of the band in marches. (The DM performs no function in band competitions, but there are solo DM competitions at the games.) Finally, the band manager conducts the administrative, financial and personnel duties necessary for running a band.
25. An example of the former case will be explained further in my description of the Worcester Kiltie Pipe Band below. I have heard a particular example of the latter case from multiple sources, but first from Edith Murray (interview with author, 12 April 1999). Apparently, the drum corps of the Manchester (CT) Pipe Band wanted to rise out of grade II into grade I but the pipers were not willing to work as hard as the drum corps toward that goal. The drum sergeant, Dave Armit, then left the Manchester Pipe Band in disgust and took over the drum corps at the Worcester Kiltie Pipe Band. Most of the former drum corps then moved with him to the WKPB and the Manchester Pipe Band has subsequently dropped to grade IV.
26. See n15 on page 4 for two of the contested performance details.
27. Piobaireachd is a genre of theme and formalized variations where the theme (“Ground” in English or “Urlar” in Gaelic) is decorated with increasingly complicated gracings.
28. Some of the more venerable texts are: Alexander Duncan Fraser’s 1907 text, Some Reminiscences and the Bagpipe, William Laird Manson’s 1901 text, The Highland Bagpipe: Its History, Literature, and Music, with Some Account of the Traditions, Superstitions, and Anecdotes Relating to the Instrument and its Tunes and Sir Bruce Seton’s 1920 text, The Pipes of War: A Record of the Achievements of Pipers of Scottish and Overseas Regiments During the War, 1914-18 (See under “Secondary Sources on the Great Highland Bagpipe” in the bibliography for full citations.)
29. The two primary texts are Collinson, The Bagpipe and Cannon, The Highland Bagpipe.
30. In the higher grades, band tune arrangements are extremely complicated, particularly in the piper’s choices of ornamental and functional “gracings.” Due to the fact that a piper cannot articulate notes by interrupting the bagpipe's sound, a large repertory of “gracings” (ornaments) separate notes and create emphasis and interest in the otherwise somewhat plain tunes. The term, “arrangement,” generally refers to: (1) the particular set of tunes being played in sequence without pause, (2) the placement of “gracings” in each tune, and (3) the insertion or omission of “seconds” (harmony lines).
31. Edith Murray, interview by author, Cambridge MA, 31 March 1999.
32. In addition, the only grade I band in the U.S., the Los Angeles Scottish Pipe Band [L.A. Scots], was founded only in 1961 thus making it a less viable candidate through which to study the history of piping in the United States.
33. “Worcester Kiltie Pipe Band,” accessed 9 September 1999; available from http://www.wkpb.com/.
34. Michael Linkletter, interview with author, Cambridge MA, 5 October 1999.
35. Grade I and grade II bands often have at least one subsidiary band, called a “B” band. This band is a lower-grade competition band comprised of beginning and intermediate pipers who are led and coached by members of the main band. It will often be referred to as the “feeder” band as the main band hopes that the “B” band’s members will progress to eventually become strong and loyal members of the main band.
36. See n21 on page six.
37. “The VOICE Online—Address Book,” accessed 25 October 1999; available from http://www.euspba.org/address.html.
38. While the top grade for a pipe band is grade I, a solo piper (or drummer) can be promoted beyond grade I to “open.” In the open competitions, cash prizes are awarded, thus these competitors are also called “professional.” Cannon, 166.
39. I have not included the WKPB itself in this list as I plan to have already finished my work in its archives by this point.
40. A few examples of useful scholarship in competitive culture are Arjun Appadurai’s account of the decolonization and Indianization of competitive cricket culture, Jerry Cadden’s ethnography of one of Scotland’s grade I pipe bands: the Shotts and Dykehead Caledonian Band, Chris Goertzen’s cross-regional analysis of preservation and change in U.S. fiddle contests as well as his discussions of fiddle pedagogy and competitions in Norway, Stephen Steumple’s study of the role of competitions in the Steelband movement in Trinidad and Tobago, and Amy Stillman’s examination of how Hula competitions, designed for preservation, became venues for innovation. (See under “Other Secondary Sources” in the bibliography for full citations.)
41. I plan to begin my analysis of tradition and memory using the works by Connerton, Hobsbawm and Ranger, Schacter, Shelemay, and Shils listed under “Other Secondary Sources” in the bibliography.
42. I plan to use the works by Nattiez, Reyes and Turino listed under “Other Secondary Sources” in the bibliography as a starting point for my work on signification.