Promoting the Bagpipe Revival since 1986
The Bagpipe Society
Blowzabella weekend tune competition
This edition is from our archives, so it is presented as scanned pages rather than text.
The Blowzabella Workshop Weekend Dance Tune Competition
The competition at the Blowzabella workshop weekend, held in Newbury last September, produced several interesting ditties. The tunes were to be written during the weekend, which is not easy when there is so much going on. Jon Swayne won the competition with his ‘Hasty Jig’. The title refers to the speed with which the tune was written, not how it should be played — Jon was still putting the finishing touches whilst other competitors were performing their entries! It was written to be played on his new Northumbrian-style half-longs (six-finger note, g; drones in G; range, g to c" with the seven-finger note sounding f).
The other entries were two bourrees and a hornpipe. John Goodacre’s bourree, ‘The Fruits of Newbury’, was written to be played on a Leicestershire bagpipe made by his brother Julian (six-finger note, d’; drones in D; range d’ to d" with the seven-finger note sounding c#. Peter Stacey named his entry ‘Bourree Michelle Fromenteau’ after the organizer of the St. Chartier Festival in France. It was played on a gaita galega (six-finger note, c’; one drone sounding c; range c’ to e"; seven-finger note, b). ‘Bourree Michelle Fromenteau’ is given here in the key of G which is probably a more convenient key.
There will probably be another competition next year, and hopefully there will be many more entries.
Judy Tarry
Octave and Pitch: An Editorial Note
In an attempt to avoid too much confusion in the discussion of musical pitch, particularly the business of locating the octave in question, the following system has been adopted:
C is the C below the bass stave and so upwards, D, E, F, etc., to B, until c (2nd space, bass stave), and so on until: c’ (‘middle C’), and so on until c" (3rd space, treble stave); and then c"’ (C above treble stave, etc.)
This is the system used by Anthony Baines in Bagpipes (Oxford: Pitt Rivers Museum, 1960). It would be useful if readers would make a note of this system and use it when discussing pitch in articles submitted to Chanter.
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