Northumbrian smallpipe: England musical instrument

The Northumbrian smallpipes are bellows-blown bagpipes from North East England. In a review of the bagpipes in the Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford University, the organologist Anthony Baines opined: "It is possibly the most civilized of the bagpipes, making no attempt to go farther than the traditional bagpipe music of tune over drone, but perfecting this music to the last degree.”

The musical instrument comprises of one chanter and commonly four drones.

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 The cylindrically-bored chanter has a number of steel keys, most often seven, but chanters with a range of over two octaves can be produced which need 17 or more keys, all performed with either the right hand thumb or left little finger. There is no overblowing engaged to get this two octave range, so the keys are thus essential, simultaneously with the length of the chanter, for obtaining the two octaves.

The Northumbrian smallpipe's chanter having a completely shut end, blended with the unusually tight fingering method means that traditional Northumbrian piping is staccato in method. Because the bores are so slender; typically about 4.3 mm for the chanter, the sound is far quieter than most other bagpipe instruments.

A detailed account of the building of Northumbrian small pipes written by William Alfred Cocks and Jim F. Bryan was published in 1967 by the Northumbrian Pipers' humanity; it was very influential in encouraging a revival of pipe making from that time.

The earliest known description of such a musical instrument in Britain is in the Talbot manuscript from about 1695. The descriptions of bagpipes cited in this early source are reproduced in One of these devices was a bellows-blown 'Bagpipe, Scotch', with three drones, whose keyless chanter had a one-octave range from G to g, with each note being rang out by uncovering a single aperture, as in modern day musical instrument. This appears to have been a closed-ended chanter, for the smallest note is sounded by uncovering the lowest finger-hole - there was no bell-note, ringing out with all holes enclosed; further, Talbot did not give the bore of the chanter, proposing that it could not effortlessly be measured. The three drones of the musical instrument were in unison with the lowest note, G, of the chanter, the D a fourth below it, and G, an octave underneath. It has been contended that such musical instruments were drawn from mouth-blown German three-drone bagpipes. These musical instruments appear to have been well-established in Northumberland by the early 18th years; many of the tunes in the William Dixon manuscript are apt for such simple chanters, and a decoration of Joseph Turnbull, Piper to the Duchess of Northumberland, in Alnwick Castle, shows him with such a set.

Whereas keyless chanters appear to have been common for much of the 18th century, the soonest clues of the introduction of a keyed chanter is the illustration and fingering journal in John Peacock's tune book, A very popular assemblage of Tunes with Variations acclimatized for the Northumberland little Pipes, Violin, or Flute, first released by William Wright of Newcastle, in about 1800.

The first of these were perhaps made by John Dunn, and the design was subsequently evolved further by Robert Reid and his child James.
Chanters with more keys allow the playing of melodies with a broader range or with more chromatic notes, and permit access to much of the fiddle repertoire.

The chanter has a double reed, analogous in construction to an oboe reed. This directs to a characteristic sound, wealthy in higher harmonics. As the unexciting is cylindrical, the strange harmonics are greatly predominant.

Conventionally, the chanter has been pitched somewhere between F and F sharp, older versions of the musical instrument often being close to up to date F sharp. Some modern manufacturers prefer to produce pipes pitched at what Northumbrian pipers refer to as F+, a pitch where the nominal G sounds roughly twenty cents sharp of F natural. This nominal G, however, is habitually notated as G. Nowadays, chanters are accessible any place from D to G, F+ being the commonest for solo or ensemble piping, but G being the most well liked for playing ensemble with other musical instruments. Pipes with a tonic of F# are used for solo presentation by some pipers now, being brighter in tone than those in F+, without being 'squeaky'.

There are often four drones on a set of Northumbrian pipes, mounted on in aligned in a common supply. These are tunable, and three will commonly be tuned to the tonic, superior and octave tonic, the other one being fasten off. Like the chanter, these have a narrow cylindrical unexciting. Different from the chanter, though, the reeds have a lone blade; they are either cut from a single tube of cane, or a strip of cane in a steel body.

As well as a tuning slide for precise change of tuning, each drone will often own one or two 'bead apertures' permitting its pitch to be increased by a pitch or two, therefore permitting the piper to play in various melodious keys, but still generally utilising the tonic, dominant and octave tonic combination of drone harmony.

Sets with five or even six drones have been made since the 19th century; however these are not common and usually expressly commissioned. Only three drones are generally rang out at one time, tuned for instance to G, D and g if the tonic of the melody is G. Sets occasionally have thumb-operated drone switches, permitting players to change key without halting playing. Occasionally, though seldom, other tunings have been used, for demonstration Tom Clough suggested G, c, g, apt for tunes in C foremost, or D, A, d, a, for some melodies in D major.

The earliest bagpipe tunes from Northumberland are from William Dixon's manuscript from the 1730s. Some of these can be performed on border pipes or an open-ended small pipe like the modern Scottish small pipes, but about half the melodies have a single octave variety and sound well on the single-octave, easy, keyless Northumbrian pipe chanter. These melodies are nearly all expanded variety groups on dance melodies in various rhythms - reels, jigs, aggregate triple-time melodies, and triple-time hornpipes.

At the early part of the 19th century, the first collection especially for Northumbrian small pipes was released, John Peacock's Favorite Collection. Peacock was the last of the Newcastle Waits, and likely the first small piper to play a keyed chanter. The collection contains a mixture of easy promenade melodies, and extended variety sets. The variation sets, such as Cut and Dry Dolly are all for the lone octave keyless chanter, but the dance melodies are often adaptations of fiddle melodies - many of these are Scottish, such as cash Musk. A student of Peacock, Robert Bewick, the son of Thomas Bewick the engraver, left five manuscript notebooks of pipe tunes; these, antiquated between 1832 and 1843, are from the earliest decades in which keyed chanters were widespread, and they give a good early picture of the repertoire of a piper at this stage in the up to date instrument's development. Approximately contemporary with this is Lionel Winship's manuscript, dated 1833, which has been made accessible in facsimile on FARNE; it comprises exact replicates of the Peacock tunes, simultaneously with Scottish, Irish, and ballroom promenade melodies. Both these causes encompass melodies in E secondary, showing the d sharp key was accessible by this designated day.

As keyed chanters became commoner, adaptations of fiddle melodies to be playable on smallpipes became more feasible, and common-time hornpipes such as those of the fiddler James high ground became a more important part of the repertoire. The High grade is one. Many dance melodies in idioms analogous to fiddle melodies have been composed by pipers expressly for their own musical instruments - The Barrington Hornpipe, by Thomas Todd, in writing in the late 19th years, is typical. Scrounging from other customs and musical instrument has continued - in the early-to-mid 20th century, Billy Pigg, and Jack Armstrong for example, adapted numerous tunes from the Scottish and Irish pipe and fiddle repertoires to smallpipes, as well as creating melodies in diverse patterns for the musical instrument.
Although numerous pipers now play predominantly promenade melodies and some slow airs nowadays, extended variation sets have continued to form a significant part of the repertoire. Tom Clough's manuscripts contain many of these, some being variants of those in Peacock's assemblage. Other variation sets were created by Clough, such as those for Nae Guid Luck Aboot the Hoose which uses the expanded variety of a keyed chanter.

The traditional method of playing on the musical instrument is to play each note slightly staccato. Each note is only ringed out by raising one finger or operating one key. The aim is to play each note as full length as likely, but still distinct from the next - 'The notes should arrive out like peas'. The chanter is shut, and therefore succinctly silent, between any two notes, and there is an audible transient 'pop' at the starting and end of a note.

For adornment, it is common to perform short grace remarks preceding a melody note. Some pipers allow themselves to perform these open-fingered, and hence not staccato, and Billy Pigg was able to get great expressive effects in this manner - 'You should be able to hear the bairns crying'. But 'choyting' is generally frowned on, and Tom Clough made a point of bypassing open-fingered ornament altogether, considering open-fingering to be 'a grievous error'. some pipers play in highly close-fingered methods, Chris Ormston and Adrian Schofield among them; even among those such as Kathryn Tickell who use open fingering for sign, the close-fingered method is the basis of their performance.