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1. CANNTAIREACHD
“If you cannot sing it, you cannot play it”
First of all, it will be remembered that Pibroch is a music without improvisation where everything is "written", melodic notes and grace notes.
That being said, this doesn’t mean that there were scores, at least originally...
Let's not forget that we are dealing here with Celtic culture that was transmitted only orally, including bagpipe airs. Singing, of course, held an essential place in this process.
The pipers have therefore developed a syllabic technique for memorising airs and embellishments, called Canntaireachd, a Gaelic word basically designating the act of singing and then by extension a method of memorising pieces of pibroch.
The Canntaireachd, by its seniority, is probably the closest to what was played during the Golden Age (see page 1), whether it is the air itself or its expression.
Here it is a question of knowing how to sing the tune by memorising these different syllables before moving on to the bagpipe…
In this context, vowels are used for melodic notes while consonants are used for grace notes.
Listen to this example on the video below presenting the air “The Prince's Salute":
The Canntaireachd makes it possible to reproduce and therefore preserve the musicality of these tunes, a musicality that has been more or less damaged by the standardisation effort related to the scores: the rhythmic indications carried on a score (armours, note values, phrasing, etc...) can be quite far from the original expression or in any case do not allow to know it.
Each sung syllable can also be interpreted in several ways, which is obviously impossible with the note values present on a score.
How do we know Canntaireachd?
In the 18th century, a sign of the evolution of times, it appeared necessary to write the Canntaireachd probably to better preserve and transmit it. This was really the first decisive and important step towards breaking with the oral tradition, towards the scores and the standardisation that accompanies them.
The reference work is the Campbell Canntaireachd (CC) or Nether Lorn Canntaireachd first published in 1797: originally composed of three volumes, the third of which remains undiscovered today, it contains 169 tunes.
Rediscovered in 1909, it made it possible to reconnect with the oral tradition by illuminating the interpretation of Pibroch's scores but also by finding several airs (70) that had been "forgotten" at the time of the transcription into scores...
This manuscript was produced by Colin Mór Campbell, piper in Argyll.
In parallel with the collection work done, it is probably also inspired by a previous Canntaireachd treatise, that of MacCrimmon, which was probably also included in the system published by Neil Macleod of Gesto.
The PIBROCH today: Donald MacLeod Memorial (Isle of Lewis)