# Piobaireachd



## Taggart (Feb 14, 2013)

Bit of a weird one this. Piobaireachd is generally understood as the art music of the Highland bagpipes. It is composed. But many of the tunes are traditional. There are a set of arcane rules for its formation and the pipes themselves are tuned in odd ways.

The scale of the Highland chanter consists of the notes g′, a′, b′, c♯″, d″, e″, f♯″, g″, a″. A considerable number of tunes have been adapted to the bagpipe from other sources and this has led to a number of 'wrong' notes which are now accepted as traditional. Thus, g″ is accepted as a passing note in place of g♯″, in tunes which would otherwise be in the key of A major, and to a lesser extent c♯″ is accepted where parallel traditions have c″. Some tunes exist in minor modes in the song and fiddle traditions but in major modes in the bagpipe tradition, perhaps for a similar reason.

After Culloden in 1746, the pipes were banned. Some of the tunes survived through singing or canntaireachd and transcriptions appeared from 1780 although most appeared after the tartan revival following George IV's visit to Edinburgh in 1822. As Scottish culture developed in the 20th century, we have seen the growth of both fiddle and harp (clarsach) piobaireachd which in some ways reflects the original development of the art. Some have suggested that the the use of rapid descending arpeggios as grace notes is more suited to a harp and that the pipes came later and were also partly replaced by the fiddle as a more civilised instrument. Certainly, the bagpipe is not an indoor instrument!


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## Taggart (Feb 14, 2013)

Some examples:

Raw pipes






Fiddle






Modern classical composer


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

Pibrochs may sound boring to some, maybe, but if you are of Celtic ancestry or a meditative turn of mind, there can be nothing better for lifting you out of time.

Here is one of my favourite pibrochs played on the harp.


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## MaestroViolinist (May 22, 2012)

Ahh! The bagpipes!


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