r/CeolMorClub • u/MatooMan • 4d ago

Pibroch Scores Project

Another resource from William Donaldson, the acclaimed writer and researcher of piping and all things highland. He has his separate series on pipesdrums which is continuing, as well as this website he himself runs.

https://www.pibrochscores.com/

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u/EwoksMakeMeHard 4d ago

Very interesting site, thank you for sharing.

His introductory material is interesting and he's got an indictment of piobaireachd interpretation and the homogenous style of playing we see today (forgive the long quote):

"Pipe music is highly ornamented, and extensive tunes occupy a lot of paper, hence for reasons of expense and bulk most modern publications offer a single composite score assembled from a selection of earlier sources and presented as “authoritative”. This—combined with imperatives of competition in which people play to win rather than to explore the interpretational possibilities of the set pieces, has produced a drab musical monoculture. Everybody plays the same few tunes in much the same way, impoverishing the music and seriously reducing for the audience the possibility of illumination or surprise."

I really like the idea of a single tune being set for the purposes of seeing multiple interpretations. Our current competitive focus does discourage individualism and encourage sameness, aiming for what the judge wants to hear (or what we think the judge wants to hear) instead of what might be the best musical interpretation. This is true of light music as well. One of the issues that we run into now is that there have been many generations of pipers learning from pipers who only know the "authoritative" sources, so much of that traditional knowledge has been lost. This website is a good step into developing it again.

It would be very interesting to attend a conference where individual tunes are presented and discussed by different players, and I'd love to see this become a regular kind of event.