Piobaireachd Classical Music Of The Highland Bagpipe

Music of the Great Highland Bagpipe By: Michael E. Akard The music of the Scottish Highland bagpipe has gone through many changes over the years. Classical bagpipe music, which is known as “piobaireachd,” has been played for centuries, but the sound of this music as performed today is very different from how it sounded in the past. In Music of the Great Highland Bagpipe, Michael E. Akard traces the history of piobaireachd from its earliest performances up to the present day. Composed of carefully researched material and presented in an easy to read style, any reader can learn about the major historical, political, social, and technological changes that have influenced, and continue to influence, pipers and pipe music.

The Highland bagpipe, widely considered 'Scotland's national instrument', is one of the most recognized icons of traditional music in the world. It is also among the least understood. But Scottish bagpipe music and tradition - particularly, but not exclusively, the Highland bagpipe - has enjoyed an unprecedented surge in public visibility and scholarly attention since the 1990s. A greater interest in the emic led to a diverse picture of the meaning and musical iconicism of the bagpipe in communities in Scotland and throughout the Scottish diaspora. This interest has led to the consideration of both the globalization of Highland piping and piping as rooted in local culture. It has given rise to a reappraisal of sources which have hitherto formed the backbone of long-standing historical and performative assumptions. And revivalist research which reassesses Highland piping's cultural position relative to other Scottish piping traditions, such as that of the Lowlands and Borders, today effectively challenges the notion of the Highland bagpipe as Scotland's 'national' instrument. The Highland Bagpipe provides an unprecedented insight into the current state of Scottish piping studies. The contributors – from Scotland, England, Canada and the United States – discuss the bagpipe in oral and written history, anthropology, ethnography, musicology, material culture and modal aesthetics. The book will appeal to ethnomusicologists, anthropologists, as well as those interested in international bagpipe studies and traditions.

The Big Music tells the story of John Sutherland of 'The Grey House', who is dying and creating in the last days of his life a musical composition that will define it. Yet he has little idea of how his tune will echo or play out into the world - and as the book moves inevitably through its themes of death and birth, change and stasis, the sound of his solitary story comes to merge and connect with those around him. In this remarkable work of fiction, Kirsty Gunn has created something as real as music or as magical as a dream. One emerges at the end of it altered and changed. Not so much a novel as a place the reader comes to inhabit and know, The Big Music is a literary work of undeniable originality and power.

The Scottish Highland Bagpipe, now heard around the globe, has long enchanted musicians and listeners for it's brilliant tone, humming drones, and its profoundly stirring music. Mirroring Joseph MacDonald's unprecedented and encyclopedic treatise of staff notations of the Highland bagpipe (1760-1803), Dr. Matthew Welch's A New Compleat Theory for The Highland Bagpipe charts the complete (or the archaic "compleat') trajectory of the use of the Highland Bagpipe up to 2020. Terse and insightful, this treatise will educate both the piper and composer. Included in Part II is a selection of Dr. Welch's original and inventive compositions for the bagpipe in an array of traditional and modern forms."It seems in the world of music connected to the Great Highland Bagpipe a book comes along every 250 years or so that offers up a fresh view of the music - and its place in the world. In his "A New Compleat Theory" noted performer, composer and scholar, Matthew Welch succeeds in doing just that: a remarkable and rare amalgam of ideas that respect tradition while showcasing the broad - and exciting - potential of the instrument. A must-have for anyone who has ever held - or heard - a bagpipe." - Michael Grey, acclaimed composer and piper, Dunaber Music"As a composer of new music for the highland bagpipe, Matthew Welch is a bold pioneer, an explorer of uncharted territories. Many of Matthew's compositions explore ideas new to the world of piping; often unique and exciting, always mindfully crafted and thought-provoking. Although Matthew often builds on the established idioms of the traditional piping repertoire, ranging from jigs and reels to piobaireachd, he produces original new music that progresses piping to new realms. An examination of the music presented in this book will reveal a sense of humour, a sense of madness - a mad genius!" - Mark Saul, composer-piper and electronic musician