Customer Reviews

Traditional Gaelic Bagpiping, 1745-1945

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This book is a great gift to those of us who enjoy Celtic music, and especially the Great Highland Bagpipe, and wish to enrich our understanding of the origins and traditions of this increasingly regarded art form. Gibson focuses on the bagpipe as an instrument "of the people," who used the pipe and its music more or less for everyday and special occasions, from entertainment at the hearth to music for weddings and funerals, the latter of which, perhaps ironically, is what most people today associate with the bagpipe. But Gibson also intelligently, and sometimes rather provocatively, discusses the other piping tradition, the grand and myth-laden one of ceol mor ("big music") or piobaireachd, the classical music of the Highland pipe, a strict and often dour-sounding theme-and-variations form that may have developed from harp music, and which has tradionally been viewed as the "original" and somehow more artistically worthwhile music of the pipe. In developing his major themes, Gibson masterfully describes the history and culture of Scotland and, eventually, Cape Breton, where so much of the piping tradition was carried forward in perhaps a purer (and, amazingly, not at all sentimentalizing) form, after the Clearances and emigraton had taken their toll on Scottish culture. Of special interest is Gibson's denunciation of the eternally heard claim that the Highland pipe was proscribed as an instrument of war, along with all weapons and Highland dress, after Culloden in 1746. He effectively shows that from a legal standpoint this was never actually the case, though in a way, he simply spoils a lovely if somewhat silly myth that has only added to the romance of this impressive instrument. A must-have book for every Celtophile and lover of pipe music!

This is an absolutely fabulous book for anyone interested in the tradtional style of piping that has gradually disappeared over the years. It is well documented, follows a logical course of instruction from Scotland to Nova Scotia and gives quite a bit of what I think is extremely interesting information about the old "community pipers" of Cape Breton and their parallel style of piping. I've read and re-read the volume, highlighting areas of import and interest as I went along until my volume looks like a well-thumbed and multi-indexed textbook - which in my case, it is. The only area of disappointment is that I wished it contained more photographs of some of the old-time pipers like Joe Hughie MacIntyre, etc. But, the text makes up for any shortcomings in that area and is definately a MUST read for pipers with an interest in the beginnings of their craft or anyone who just enjoys the skirll of the pipes. I highly recommend this book.