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Ceol Mor (the Great Music) is the ancient music of the Great Highland Bagpipe. In English it is sometimes called Pibroch or Piobaireachd, but this is a misnomer, being simply the Gaelic word for "piping". The music played by pipe bands (marches, reels, jigs, retreats and strathspeys) is Ceol Beag (meaning the lesser music). The bagpipe was designed to play Ceol Mor, Ceol Beag was not originally played; in fact the great composers would probably turn in their graves at the thought of such trivial muck being played on the great instrument!
Ceol Mor is sometimes called the "classical music" of the bagpipe because of its complexity and length. It was composed by professional pipers, the greatest of whom lived between the 16th and 18th centuries. These men took their calling extremely seriously and trained full time for up to seven years. The art was taught at schools of piping and by far the most important of them was run by the greatest pipers who have ever lived - the MacCrimmon family of Skye. This family, through about eight generations, basically invented the musical form and developed it to its most profound. They were the hereditary pipers of the MacLeod chiefs at Dunvagan (the MacLeod of MacLeod or MacLeod of Harris).
The reason that this music is so important is that we are basically certain that what is played now is more or less the same music which was composed up to half a millennium ago. But how can we be sure? - the answer lies in the mode of transmission.
The great composers insisted on transmitting their music as accurately as possible to the next generation of pipers. Without the aid of a written system this was difficult, however they developed an interesting system called Canntaireachd. In Canntaireachd each note is represented by a vocable; for example in one system, the pipe note A is en, B is o and D is da etc. Likewise, all the pipe music ornaments (gracenotes) also have vocables. The master forced the pupil to learn the music off by heart by singing the vocables before playing the tune, this process was rigorous - a single wrong note was unacceptable. To demonstrate, here are the first few lines of the tune Cogadh no Sith in the Canntaireachd of an early collection.
I hodroho hodroho haninin hiechin
hodroha hodroho hodroho hachin
hiodroho hodroho haninin hiechin
etc .....
The religious obsession with exact transmission is the reason we can sure that the tunes we hear now are basically the same as those composed many centuries ago. Along with the great store of Gaelic songs, Ceol Mor is the most important Gaelic Music in existence.
Bagpipes, in their various forms, are common European instruments, most countries having their own variety. These instruments have been displaced around the world by the huge success of the Highland pipe, but in fact the pipes do not appear in Scottish history until comparatively late and may not originate in the Highlands.
Before the ascendancy of the great pipe, the courtly instrument in Gaelic society was the Clarsach or Gaelic harp. We are very lucky to have two wonderful examples of the ancient instrument: The Lamont harp, probably from the 15th century and the Queen Mary harp from the 16th. There are also much older stone carvings of instruments. Although the instruments survive, unfortunately little of the early music does. There are pieces in 18th century collections, mainly in a particular style with the word "port" (a tune) in the title. These, however, date from a late stage of the music's development and were influenced by other traditions. Of the pre-piping bardic style we know nothing. The collections, already mentioned, claim to contain some genuine harp music and some early Ceol Mor is thought to have originated as harp music, however these are meagre pickings.
Apart from the instrumental music, we know that bards used the harp to accompany their singing, this is particularly interesting, since harmony is very uncommon in Gaelic music and there is some (slim) evidence, from a welsh manuscript, that chordal harmony was used. The reason for all this lack of knowledge is that the final clan harpers were in service just as the first visitors (for example Martin) were writing their descriptions of the islands. At around this time and earlier, the harp was falling out of favour and the pipers took their place. The final great harper - an Clarsair Dall (Roderick Morrison) was born in Bragar on Lewis in the 17th Century and was the harper to MacLeod at Dunvagen. He composed songs which have been passed to us through the oral tradition, the relationship of these to his harp music is not known. MacLeod was also the last chief to employ a harper (recorded in 1755). It is generally considered that more research has to be done on the Gaelic harp.
Visit Alasdair Codona's site for more information on the Gaelic HarpBy far the most important influence in the development of Ceol Mor was the MacCrimmon family of Skye. Its origins are obscure and the subject of much debate (the origin of the family in many Highland folktales is supernatural). The later MacCrimmons believed themselves to be of Italian origin, taking their name from the famous musical town of Cremona. This seemingly unlikely story is actually quite possible, because as mentioned in other pages, Highland chiefs were well travelled and may have employed a continental piper. However, whether this was the case or not, analysis of their music shows that it bears no resemblance to contemporary Italian music. The melodic structure is basically Gaelic, although there is more extensive use of the Pentatonic scale than in early vocal music. The Pentatonic nature may have been imported with the instrument or may have alternately been present in earlier bardic or harp music.
We know the names of the early members of the family, but their relationships to each other and dates of birth and death are uncertain. However, from the first really great composer, Donald Mor, onwards, the family tree is fairly well established and is shown below.
Early members - Angus, Iain Odhar, Padruig Donn
Donald Mor (c1570 - c1640)
Padruig Mor (c1595 - c1670)
Padruig Og (c1645 - c1730)
Malcolm (1704 - 1760)
Iain Dubh (1731 - 1822)
Donald Ruadh (1743 - 1825)
And so it ended, with a combination of the 1745 rebellion (which dried up piping students and spelt the end of the MacCrimmon College) and arguments between the last of the family and their clan chief. Their achievement over more then two and a half centuries was profound and it has been said that they represent the greatest family of musicians in European history.
With the last of the piping MacCrimmons, Ceol Mor nearly died out. They had taught only a few select pupils, and for nearly 100 years the art teetered on the edge of extinction, kept alive by those few. These were Ceol Mor's dark ages, but finally it arrived in the modern age and was recorded for posterity. One route in which it was transmitted was via John MacKay of Raasay, who received lessons from both Donald Ruadh and Iain Dubh as well as the MacKays of Gairloch (pupils of Padruig Og and Malcolm). John MacKay taught his son Angus who finally wrote down the great music in standard notation and so ensured that it reached later generations. Other pupils of John MacKay ensured that the music reached the present day as an unbroken tradition as shown below.
John MacKay (1768 - 1848) Angus MacPherson (1800 - 1887) Malcolm MacPherson (1833-1898) John MacDonald (1866 - 1953)
And so performance of Ceol Mor is still a living art even although serious composition died out several centuries ago. Let us turn now to a more detailed consideration of structure of the music.
At first sight, the arrangement of notes on the pipe scale seems odd, but actually it is quite clever as it allows the eight available notes to form a wide range of different scales. The arrangement of notes is shown below. Note that the tuning is different from other temperaments, so the figures are approximate.
G A B C(#) D E F(#) G' A'
T T T S T T S T
The gaps notated as semitones above are actually a different tuning called a limma. C on the scale above corresponds to C# on a piano scale, similarly F corresponds to F#. When pipe music is written, the sharps are assumed (they are not usually written down).
Although several interesting scales can be constructed form the notes above, three pentatonic scales are commonly used. It is also possible to construct Gaelic scales (see other pages) on the notes. One can also play a couple modal scales and approximate several others, but most of these sit rather uncomfortably on the pipe which is not designed to play this type of music (which is why pipe arrangements of non-pipe music often sound so awful). The Ceol Mor published in the Kilberry Book is written on the following scales:
Therefore the Pentatonics make up about half of the tunes. Note that only 5% out of the 21% irregular tunes appear modal. Most of the indeterminate tunes have gaps in their s cale (usually high F, G and / or A) which means they are intermediate between Pentatonic scales or Pentatonic / Gaelic hybrid.
There is good evidence for the equivalence of Ceol Mor to Gaelic song (mainly from the researches of Allan MacDonald, Glenuig) and the melodic devices of Ceol Mor are basically similar to those of Gaelic song (although it does have some unique structures and sometimes lacks the often smooth line of Gaelic song). Some Gaelic song is based on Ceol Mor (often called "Piobaireachd Songs") and it now seems that much Ceol Mor is based on Gaelic Song. Certainly when listening to the music, it is apparent that the two are closely related.
In many ways the pipe is a simple and primitive instrument: It has no dynamics - each note is the same loudness. It cannot pause, there are only eight notes and no accidental semitones. Such simplicity does not imply that the music is primitive- on the contrary, to overcome the limitations of the instrument, much more musical imagination is required. The lack of dynamic, however, is a real problem, it means that one cannot accent notes to indicate strong and weak beats, as one would with other instruments. To overcome this problem, pipers devised an elaborate system of formalistic ornaments called gracenotes (a slightly different meaning from the normal musical term). Pipe gracenotes are a sequence of notes played very quickly to emphise (ie accent) the following melody note. Strong beats have a sequence of three or more gracenotes (known as a doubling) placed before them. Weaker beats may have just one gracenote. The gracenotes are usually written as demi-semi quavers, but are simply played very quickly (but precisely !), they are not taken into account in the written timing of the piece. The example below shows how a typical piece of pipe music is notated.
Having discussed some of the technical details of the pipe and its scale, let us now turn to the structure of Ceol Mor itself (this is thought to be based on earlier harp music - and there is some anecdotal evidence to support this view). The basis of the music is the Urlar (lit Floor) which is the musical theme of the piece. This is typically a long melody, more intricate and with a longer and more subtle musical argument than in most Gaelic song - although the basic melodic devices are very similar. Because of the length and complexity of the theme, some Ceol Mor takes the listener several attempts to assimilate. The music starts with the Urlar being played through once.
There are several different Ceol Mor forms and what happens after the Urlar is played depends on the individual piece. It is sometimes followed by one or occasionally two variations on the theme, these can be simple additions to the tune or in one or two pieces a truly different melody. There then follows a series of stereotyped variations which take the Urlar theme and add progressively to its ornamentation (by adding grace notes and changing the timing of the music). This is shown in the excerpts below.
Some Ceol Mor tunes take upto 15 minutes or more to perform, the music slowly building up until it reaches its final, highly decorated finale; after which the simple Urlar is repeated to end.
Some tunes have a beautiful Urlar but a disappointing set of variations, an example of this is The Lament for Donald Doughal MacKay. Others have a poorer Urlar, but stunning variations - for example the Lament for Mary MacLeod. Apart from those already mentioned other favourites include: Lament for the Children, the Lament for Donald Ban MacCrimmon and The Finger Lock. Although most of the tunes already mentioned are laments, this creates a false impression, many other classes of Ceol Mor exist (enough to make a lifetimes study). The Kilberry book of Ceol Mor contains the following types of tunes:
Tune type Percentage Battle tunes 8% Gathering tunes 12.5% Laments 35% Salutes 14% Praise of land or women 7% Others 23.5%
Each type of music has its own character. Salutes were designed as praise tunes for the chief or a similar important figure. Gathering tunes have a strong, simple and often repetitive melody and were designed to call the clansmen from their glens, often in time of strife; their character makes it easy to imagine them piped from the high hilltops around. Some of the tunes do not fall into any simple catagory and have strange, enigmatic and atmospheric names, for example: The old men of the shells, The great spree, The end of the great bridge and A flame of wrath for Patrick Caogach (a unique piece, which might be termed a "revenge tune").
Probably the most argued about aspect of Ceol Mor performance and interpretation is rhythm, tempo and timing. Professional pipers, even when articulate in all other respects, seem to have great difficulty explaining this area of performance. However, this argument is caused simply through a lack of familiarity with Gaelic song. All the evidence which we have, including that passed on orally by generations of pipers from the MacCrimmons themselves, indicates that the rhythmic element of most Ceol Mor is basically the same as most slower Gaelic song. Their problem in describing this is easy to understand, for of all the elements of Gaelic music, this (and the melodic decoration used in Gaelic singing) is the most difficult to put into words - it really needs to be heard. Basically, each piece has some sort of rhymic backbone, in the case of Ceol Mor, many of the pieces are felt to have four beats in a bar and if the tune is played in strict time, it will make perfect musical sense. However, in traditional performance, the rhythm is subject to much flexibility. The player can stretch notes and alter tempos to suit the mood of the music - it is this aspect which adds much of the drama and emotion to the music and is a vital part of its Gaelic identity, but also turns off many people more used to the strict rhythms of most other forms of music. This aspect also makes the music particularly difficult to write down - the method most often employed, in this and Gaelic song, is to write the music as though it were in strict time and leave the performer interpret it. But this accepted, one can perhaps see that Canntaireachd is not quite as primitive a device as it appears, as it can transmit the timing exactly !
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