Comments on Piobaireachd/ ピーブロック名言集

Some valuable comments on Piobaireachd／ピーブロック名言集

This is the tune of the Pipes. This is what the instrument was made for.
(from "Tutor for Piobaireach" by Seumas MacNeill)

Piobaireachd is the term applied to a species of music composed solely for and played solely on the Highland pipe. It cannot be satisfactorily reproduced on any other instrument.
(from liner notes of "Piobaireachd -The Classical Music of the Great Highland Bagpipe" Lismor Recordings)

The great Highland bagpipe and piobaireachd are almost inseparable. The instrument was developed to its present form for the sole purpose of playing this music; and ceol mor was invented for the Highland bagpipe, and cannot be adequately performed on any other instrument, or group of instruments.
(from "Tutor for Piobaireach" by Seumas MacNeill)

Up until a hundred and fifty years ago, almost all bagpipe music was ceol mor (piobaireachd), and so the two terms meant the same thing. Piobairaechd is music which has been composed deliberately and solely for the Highlnad Bagpipe.
(from "Piobaireachd - Classical Music of the Highland Bagpipe" by Seumas MacNeilll)

The word "piobaireachd" meaans, quite literally, pipe music, or to play the bagpipe. For the last 150 or so years, it has been a word that designates a particular - rather peculiar and exceptionally unique - form of music that has developed only in the Scottish Highlands. It does not appear on any other instrument in any other country.
(words by Chairman Mao from Bob Dunsire's Piobaireachd forum)

I have never seen, heard of, or read of a piper at the top of the tree of his profession who has not treated Ceol Mor (piobaireachd) as the highest expression of Highland bagpipe music.
(from "The Kilberry Book of Ceol Mor" by Archibald Campbell)

I loved Piobaireachd the very moment I heard it, and personally found it to be the most captivating and beautiful of pipe music for which the pipes were made !
(words by Earl from Bob Dunsire's Piobaireachd forum)

If you understand the bagpipe in the right way, you will understand piobaireachd.
(Words by Archibald Campbell, Kilberry from a lecture on the 5th December 1952 to menbers of the Scottish Piping Society of London. / Text from the Piping Times in August 1995)

Without piobaireachd, there's NO way a piper can possibly understand the music of the Gael.
(words by Iain Sherwood from Bob Dunsire's Piobaireachd forum)

The great pipers of old considered the ceol mor to be the only music worthy of thire attention.
(words by A.L.Lloyd from liner notes of John Burgess "King of Highland Pipers" / Topic Records 1969)

When I first learned to play pipes there was a clear line between those of us who were "just Pipers" and those who were the "Piobaireachd Player".
(from "How to Piobaireahd Manual and CD" by Archie Cairns )

Piobaireachd is indigenous to the Highlands and Gaelic culture. It is one of the few remaining folk music forms that has never been 'popularised' by contemporary musicians. It will take someone of no small musical talent to adapt centuries-old melody lines to modern modes.
(words by Iain Sherwood from Bob Dunsire's Piobaireachd forum)

The piobaireachd is a product, not of barbarism, but of civilisation.
(Words by Archibald Campbell, Kilberry from a lecture on the 5th December 1952 to menbers of the Scottish Piping Society of London / Text from the "PIPING TIMES" in August 1995)

This is our "soul music".
(from "How to Piobaireahd Manual and CD" by Archie Cairns )

I've discovered that the many of those who meditate, Buddhists, and other contemplative types really like it. Piobaireachd is very Zen...and Taoist
(words by Iain Sherwood from Bob Dunsire's Piobaireachd forum)

It's great yoga music.
(words by Moon Mouse from Bob Dunsire's Piobaireachd forum)

I wonder whether one's mind, when playing a piobaireachd, is rather near a yogi's mind, for when one has got a sufficient ease and when one plays quietly without any spirit of competition one enters a different world of music.
(words by Jean Marie Ponsoda from an article on the "PIPING TIMES" in August1995)

This music, and I suspect all great 'classical' music, from western symphonic to the music of the sarod or the music of the Noh Drama express these deep emotional states.
(words by Ron Teague from Bob Dunsire's Piobaireachd forum)

Pibroch is classical music rather than folk music, but it belongs to a current quite separate from the mainstream of European fine art music. In many respects it rather resembles the raga and magam compositions of the Indian and Arabic world - not that there's any direct connection.
(words by A.L.Lloyd from liner notes of John Burgess "King of Highland Pipers" / Topic Records 1969)

One of my British friends and tutor, a top player himself, established a relationship and comparison between Ceol Mor and the traditional Indian music, named Ragas. In the Indian Sanskrit language the breath is named "Prana" and among people who act yoga Prana is the most important way to bring energy and spirit into the body. So we can say that we put life and sprit into an instrument first by the breath until it takes beautiful forms through the fingers.
(words by Jean Marie Ponsoda from an article on the "PIPING TIMES" in August1995)

It's the connection with the days of yore. Ceol Mor was written to commemorate battles lost and won. Great losses of love and life and many other events that shaped our homeland. It always makes me feel at home wherever I am.
(words by Ross McMahon from Bob Dunsire's Piobaireachd forum)

I think the deepness of meaning and culture are a huge part of Piobaireachd.
(words by Kitfox from Bob Dunsire's Piobaireachd forum)

It is interesting because piobaireachd expresses something of the life of the people in earlier times in Scotland ; the strong Scottish temper, and the history of Scotland through the laments, salutes and gatherings and the stories that accompany them. People can learn a lot about early Scottish life through this expressive music.
(words by Anne Lore from an article on the "PIPING TODAY" No.20 2006)

It is music of great depth, and one can study or ponder over a piobaireachd for a lifetime, and still progress in one's understanding of the music and find new depths in it.
(from "The Art of PIOBAIREACH" by Ian L McKay)

The first piobaireachd I heard made me feel weitghtless, so utterly beautiful and fascinating it was. I knew it was the only pipe music I wanted to play. I find piobaireachd to be of great depth and beauty; I love every note and every second of it; only in piobaireachd do the very notes sing.
(a young American's words from "Tutor for Piobaireachd" by Seumas MacNeilll)

When I play piobaireachd, I imagine I am not here... I need to have a very large and nice view to make me feel like I am in a dream. And my fingers can fly over my chanter... it is heaven on earth. It is like being bewitched. Now, I think, I am dependent on piobaireachd.
(words by Anne Lore from an article on the "PIPING TODAY" No.20 2006)

It has been described as Scotlnad's major contribution to world culture, and one piece, "Lament for the Children", has been hailed as the finest single-line melody in Europian music.
(from "Piobaireachd - Classical Music of the Highland Bagpipe" by Seumas MacNeilll)

I rejected a career as an orchestral flute player because the pibroch repertoire is musically richer than that for flute, and the prospects for improvisation and new music just as exciting.
(words by Barnaby Brown from Bob Dunsire's Piobaireachd forum)

Piobaireachd sings to me somehow. It's the primary reason I wanted to play the instrument. The more I learn of it, the more I hear it, the more I love it.
(words by Ayrhead from Bob Dunsire's Piobaireachd forum)

Playing good light music is the art of making the chanter sing.
Playing good piobaireachd is the art of making the chanter talk.
(words by Chris Eyre from Bob Dunsire's Piobaireachd forum)

This music is about the player telling a story. I think one must be a player to understand the story being told. Its always better to play than it is to listen. To analyze the music by hearing, is to have a bad vantage point. It can only be really understood by playing it yourself. The voice can only really be heard by having the drones humming on your shoulder and the chanter alive in your hands. The player is the one who understands the story being told.
(words by David D. Gallagher from Bob Dunsire's Piobaireachd forum)

Piobaireachd is more like a conversation than music. Thats how I see it. You are storytelling, you are relating something to the audience that is deeper than sound. Each variation is like a wave washing over the listener. So in something like Mary McLeod you hear love, respect and longing. You hear the sad undertones and the overtures of friendship.
(words by Desert Piper from Bob Dunsire's Piobaireachd forum)

One aspect of the piobaireachd that appeals to me is the way it allows you to REALLY hear the tuning of the pipe, what's going on with the harmonics between the drones and chanter, etc. You can hear the subtleties of the individual notes against the drones in a way that is hard to appreciate in the light music.
(words by Ed Via from Bob Dunsire's Piobaireachd forum)

It is certainly difficult music to understand but in a well played piobaireachd on a well tuned pipe, sounds can be produced which are never heard in marches, strathspeys or reels and which satisfy the ear of a skilled piping musician in a way that no other sounds can do.
(Words by Archibald Campbell, Kilberry from a lecture on the 5th December 1952 to menbers of the Scottish Piping Society of London. / Text from the "PIPING TIMES" in August 1995)

I love pibroch because there's more responsibility on the performer interpreting the score and it's the distilled genius of the Highlands' greatest musicians over 200 years, packed with moments as profoundly moving as anything in the transnational traditions for choir, symphony orchestra or keyboard.
(words by Barnaby Brown from Bob Dunsire's Piobaireachd forum)

For me it ain't about the audience or about the judges, I rarely play for others and never compete, it is always about that place in the human soul where the composers of this music discovered this great music.
(words by Ron Teague from Bob Dunsire's Piobaireachd forum)

I've always thought music was an art and not a sports, so I have never involved myself in competition and hard training. More important for me is the time spent in thinking, singing, wondering... to know and reach the deep heart of piobaireachd.
(words by Eric Freyssinet from an article on the "PIPING TODAY" No.29 2007)

I read or heard a report given by a World Champion Pipe Major that he felt Piobaireachd was a 'selfish' form of music, in that only the player is actually enjoying the tune.
(words by Roger Huth from Bob Dunsire's Piobaireachd forum)

Piobaireachd needs an ability to fly off the earth - spirituality and depth - and if you cannot set aside other things, like busy lives and work, you cannot withdraw into your mind and think only and wholly of your music. But some people can do that.
(words by Anne Lore from an article on the "PIPING TODAY" No.20 2006)

It touched something in me. Sometimes it would make me weep. Not in sadness, but in awe. I felt as if I was listening to God's music, perhaps the sound of history itself.
(words by Gr8_Piper from Bob Dunsire's Piobaireachd forum)

Piobaireachd is easier to play than marches, strathspeys and reels.
(from "Tutor for Piobaireach" by Seumas MacNeill)

Piobaireachd technique is much easier than M/S/Rs, though that is not to say it's easy. However, the music of piobaireachd is very, very difficult. That is to say, it's a lot easier to maintain the listener's interest with light music than with piobaireachd.
(words by Jim McGillivray from Bob Dunsire's Piobaireachd forum)

Surely after playing a load of light music a piper has to feel at some stage that there is something more to be had from the instrument .
(words by Roger Huth from Bob Dunsire's Piobaireachd forum)

My extremely simplified layman's view of piobaireachd is that it's an elaborately developed excuse to play sustained notes on the most beautiful sounding instrument. Sustained notes on the pipes have a lovely churning or shifting harmonic layer that is not apparent in light music. Like moths to a flame, we just want to get closer to The Big Drone. If you love the sound the instrument makes then you have enough to be able to listen to piobaireachd.
(words by Doug Campbell from Bob Dunsire's Piobaireachd forum)

I would say that when the MacCrimmons added the third drone, it was to enhance the sound for their piobaireachd compositions. Therefore the bagpipes we play today were indeed made for piob, and not vice versa.
(words by Roger Huth from Bob Dunsire's Piobaireachd forum)

The master pipers of the old days used to have a boy attendant or gillie whose duty it was to carry the pipes for him. When the player came to the end of a piobaireachd, he used to throw the pieps disdainfully away from him - generally over his sholder - as showing that the music lay in the soul and fingers of the piper rather than in the instrument. It was the boy's duty to catch the pipes and to lay them by with more care than his master showed, at least in public !
(from "The Bagpipe Fiddle and Harp" by Francis Collinson)

Ceol mor has as much artistry as any classical art form. Artistry breathes life into this lovely ancient art form. More than any other music for the piob mor, artistry is key for the performance of ceol mor. It is called ceol mor because it is indeed the BIG MUSIC for the pipe.
(words by Ron Teague from Bob Dunsire's Piobaireachd forum)

A piobaireachd may require you to have a perfect bagpipe for twenty minutes or so, so instrument maintenance and control are for more exacting.
(words by John Bottomley from Bob Dunsire's Piobaireachd forum)

Learning ceol mor takes a lot of time to get the basic flavor of the music. Once the basic idiom is mastered, more or less, then artistic expression takes over and one is playing music not just tunes. It is sort of like method acting where ones past emotional experiences are brought to the performance to give it authenticity. the more serious emotional experiences the piper has the better his music will be.
(words by Ron Teague from Bob Dunsire's Piobaireachd forum)

My four-year old grandson will sit and listen to a six hour videotape of a piobreachd competition. I noticed that during one tune he was fooling around more with a toy car than paying attention, so I asked him if he was finished watching the video. He told me no, he just didn't like this tune as much as some of the others.
(words by Lyle Walker from Bob Dunsire's Piobaireachd forum)

Above comments are quoted from books and tutors etc.…, though mainly from Bob Dunsire's Piobaireachd forum with Bob's permission. Every quotation from the forum have link to the specific thread.

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