Review: Celtic Fringe by Blackwater Folk

This edition is from our archives, so it is presented as scanned pages rather than text.

You may need to scroll to find the article you’re looking for.

Cherchez l’intrus…

[Image: Surprise pour les festivaliers assemblés samedi après-midi, sous le chapiteau des arts : un jour de gaîté figurait au nombre des musiciens de groupe gaëlls]

Pencerdé, « La goIte, m’a-t-il expliqué, ressemble à la cornemuse gaëllole au Moyen Age. » (?)

Having settled into the routine fairly quickly, certain things became obvious. Primarily among these was the enthusiasm of the Lorient and Vittelng public for informal playing. Setting up in a bar inevitably resulted in many free drinks and a lot of interest. As with a lot of festivals, this was the best part of the proceedings, especially for meeting and playing with other musicians. Most nights we would play, usually in the same bar, until four or five in the morning. Fortunately, concerts did not resume until the afternoon, the morning’s only activity being a parade by a different pipe band every day.

Although a group’s concert schedule is by no means arduous, we hardly got to see half of the other concerts that were on. However there were several outstanding groups: the Gallican Luar la Lubre, whose gaitero had a deeply wonderful three-drone gaita; also from Galicia, Armegüi, who feature more vocal music than is usually associated with bands having two gaiteros. Although Asturian music is not so immediately memorable or exciting as Galician, I enjoyed the young Asturian group Lian de Cubel, who featured an excellent gaitero. Not to everyone’s taste were the Gallican rock group Brath, who integrated the gaita very well into rock numbers with firm traditional feeling, but were less successful at rocking up actual traditional tunes, which were a bit too simple for such elaborate treatment and ended up a little over-dressed.

Although Irish music is not exactly my favourite to listen to (rather than play), I could not help but be impressed by the absurdly young and extremely talented Irish groups, especially Slabh and Tamalin. Unfortunately I missed seeing Davy Spillane, who I think was performing solo and also missed hearing Calticants, who are an Italian band using the ‘bags’ (the North Indian pipe resurrected by Massimo Fumagalli) and are a very theatrical and musically very exciting group.

For the bagpiper the wonder of the event was not in the variety of bagpipes on show, as would be the case in St. Chartier, but the sheer weight of numbers of sets of pipes around, usually Highland or Gaitas. A common sight at mealtimes would to a bagpipe mountain stacked up while their owners partook of the excellent food. On several occasions I was transfixed by a pile of Antonio Corral gaitas twenty or thirty deep (the Man himself ran an excellent pipe band Gaitas de Xarabal); surely they wouldn’t miss just one?

Since the Irish, Scottish and Breton pipe bands use the same pipes (more or less), it was interesting to compare the different styles and repertories. This was made very easy on the day of the Great Parade, when seventy different outfits went in procession along a mile-long course. It took two hours for the whole parade to go by, and most of the participants played pipes. The Breton bagadou seemed to be the most interesting, since the bombarders give them a flexibility of approach to the music which the bagpiper only bands don’t have. For the first time in its history, the parade was not led by the naval bagad of Lorient, Bagad Lann-Bihoué. Pride of place (I this time went to the Frenchmen marching band of two flatau, rauschpfeife and percussion. As the only Welsh representatives willing to process, we were put at the front to avoid upsetting the careful programming of the rest. Apart from the fact that we couldn’t be heard when the bagad turned passes behind us was playing (2 gaitas vs. 20 pipes, 20 bombarders and 8 drums) our only embarrassment was the lack of a national costume. Alex Evans’ suggestion that we went naked painted with blood was not put into practise since it was a chill morning and none of the shops sold woad.

I love the sound of a massed palta marching band, and the Gallican costumes were the most elegant on display, especially those of the men. The Asturian seem less lamboyant, both in costumes and music, although not without charm of their own. They do not go to for large groups of pipers (a dozen or so at the must) and marching is made most uncomfortable due to their amazing three-pronged clogs. The Asturian pipes are outwardly the same as Gallican gaitas except they only ever have one drone (as far as I could see) and have a flared end to the drone rather than the characteristic bottle-shaped ends of the Galician drones. However, they employ exclusively closed fingering as opposed to the Gallican open or semi-closed and the tunes use overblowing as a matter of course, to at least the three finger note of the second octave. The Gallicans very rarely stray above the break and even then only go one or two notes above.

Page 22

Page 23

For us, the highlight of the festival was the night at the fishing port nearby, for which a large boulevard was blocked at each end and six stages erected at intervals on which groups performed from evening until daybreak. Fish was on the menu of nearly every bar and stall from freshly grilled sardines to fish couscous. If they could have made beer from fish, I’m sure they would have done so. By 4am or so the whole 15,000-strong audience was very drunk and very cheerful. A similar event would be impossible to stage in Britain as it would result in the stupid, ignorant and aggressive behaviour that usually seems to accompany a certain stratum of British society. At Lorient however, everyone was fully occupied in enjoying themselves and being friendly to one and all.

Hopefully, we generated a lot more members for the bagpipe society with the large number of leaflets we gave away. There is an exhibition of Lutherie in the main marquee (including, this year, a superb bagpipe maker Dominique Bougé making French and Balkan pipes) at which we might be able to set up a permanent stall next time. It seems that we were well enough received this time to be asked back next year, so I hope to be writing a similar report then. Watch this space.
S.O.

For details of Lorient ’88 contact Simon Owen. We will be advising you through these pages in plenty of time for you to plan your bolts… Ed.

LETTERS

Dear Bagpipe Society,

Re Hale the Piper

The pipes are not shown in any detail but did appear as in the illustration you have but larger in the other, now lost, part of the broadsheet.

The drones clearly have holes. This now makes sense through comparison with other types of weak tuned drones or does it remain as an error on the part of the artist? No means of inflation is visible. ‘Old Hale’s Hornpipe’ used a range of notes from A below the stave to F sharp in the top line - this is worth looking at again (but not available, lost or stolen or mislaid, when asked for last at the local library) (reproduced in John Offord’s book-typist)

The bell on the hale’s pipes appears to be attached by binding or staples; or are they keys?

Was Hale also a pipe maker? There appears to be a lathe in the background with odd, partly finished pieces under it. The lathe itself looks a glance to be very modern and anachronisms appear to abound, what with the tune, the pipes and details from the illustration. Accuracy or concentration?

And as for your blood running cold, is someone trying to tell me something? Hale isn’t such a common name and my musical unconscious has certainly not been developed for me by the last generation of my family. Oddly enough I do a lot of what my paternal grandfather did; he was an ‘Anglo’ concertina player, born in the Black Country, who moved (back?) to Derby. I am an English concertina player with a definite leaning towards practical, repairing, making aspects. Who knows where we both came from?? (Grandfather died before I was born.)

Derrick Hale,

A number of other members have written to draw attention to the item by Jon Swayne on the Hale pipes in John Offord’s book of English Dance Tunes, “John of the Greeny Cheshire Way”. In it Jon casts doubt on the authenticity of the bagpipe itself and suggests that it might be an invention of the artist in an attempt to depict “an instrument current 100 years before his time”….
ed

Dear Bagpipe Society,

I would like to tell you about our Pipeband in Switzerland, the Basle Drum and the Swiss bagpipe.

In Switzerland there are two Pipebands: one in Basle and one in Zürich. There are a few little groups of about three or slightly more members. The pipeband I’m a member of is ten years old now. The very beginning of the band consisted of three members who brought along bagpipes from Scotland without any knowledge of maintenance, tuning, fingering or anything else. Slowly they began to improve their piping after having got aquainted with a Scottish instructor, who normally still comes once a year to Basle, together with a drum instructor. During recent years the band has grown bigger and more experienced. It might be mentioned that the Drum Corps is relatively good, for all the drummers are already very experienced Basle Drummers.

The Basle drum is a low-pitched metal drum with snares and two cowhides which are not as strongly strained as for example the Scottish drum in nowadays. The drum is played sometimes in groups of 50 drummers who play together. Mostly you can see the Basle drum at the “Fasnacht”, which may be known abroad, for the Basle Carnival is very famous.

Page 24 Page 25

The Bagpipe Society

Review: Celtic Fringe by Blackwater Folk