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=               Scales and Modes in Scottish Traditional Music              =
=                                  Jack Campin                              =
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Modes on the Highland Bagpipe
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1. The Notes of the Bagpipe Chanter
===================================

The Highland pipe uses a scale which is nearer to the Mixolydian mode than
to anything else in the Western system (it is almost the same as the Zalzal
scale of mediaeval Arabic music, which is presumably coincidence).  It is
written as if based on A, though the actual pitch is B flat.  The two tenor
drones of a Highland pipe are tuned an octave below the low A on the chanter,
with the bass drone (added in the 18th century) an octave lower.  When
Highland pipe tunes are played on other instruments, they are nearly always
played at the written pitch of A, with the other notes of the scale brought
into line with the Mixolydian scale.  (Bad fiddle transcriptions often get
this wrong, and sharpen the G's to produce a major key).  There are only
nine notes in the standard chanter scale; some chanters and some fingerings
can produce more, but these are never called for in traditional pipe music.
A large proportion of the tunes in the Scottish repertoire fit this scale,
even if they are not part of the pipe repertoire today.  Whether this is
because they were originally pipe tunes, or because the pipes were designed
to play Scottish vocal tunes that already fell into that scale, is anybody's
guess.

Pipe tunes often have a basic melody in a gapped scale, but have the gaps
filled in by upbeats or grace notes.  It is quite rare for a full setting
of a pipe tune to have the grace notes exactly matching the gapped-scale
mode of the tune.  In particular it's difficult not to use g as a frequent
grace note.  Grace notes are too short to have clearly identifiable pitch,
so this doesn't matter.

X:0
T:Highland pipes (as they sound)
M:21/4
L:1/4
K:BbMix
B,,4 B,4 B,4 ABcd efga b|]

X:0
T:Highland pipes (as written)
M:21/4
L:1/4
K:AMix
A,,4 A,4 A,4 GABc defg a|]

Written Highland pipe music usually omits any key signature - the two
sharps are taken as read.  Older sources may put the two sharps in
explicitly.  Some sources may even use three sharps; in that case, just
ignore the sharp on the G.  David Glen's books from the nineteenth century
used the ingenious trick of giving the key signature as a pianist or
fiddler would play the tune - tunes in his collections have signatures
ranging from zero to three sharps, all of which a piper would ignore.

Border pipes have a similar conical-bore chanter to Highland pipes and
use a similar scale.  Some older smallpipes, with a parallel-bore chanter,
used a shifted scale with the tonal centre at the bottom of the range and
providing one or two higher notes; in A major, ABcdefgab, or G major,
GABcdefga.  They are less standardized than Highland or Border pipes and
some old examples have even had their chanter fingerholes recut to alter
their basic mode.  This is a typical Border pipe tune for a mixolydian
chanter with the extended range, GABcdefga:

X:0
T:Soor Plooms in Galashiels
G:song
M:4/4
L:1/8
Q:1/4=104
K:GMix
GA|B3c  B2ge|dBAG     A2B>A|G3A  BABd|e3d  B2dg|
   edBe dBAd|BAGB     A3B  |GABc degc|B2G2 G2 :|
d2|efga g2G2|g2 de/f/ e2dc |B2de f2gf|e4   d3d |
   efga g3G |gbag     e2dc |Bcde fagf|e4   d2d2|
   efga g3G |g2 de/f/ e2dc |BAB2 dBd2|ede2 f3a |
   geg2 ede2|dBd2     BAB2 |g2fe dBgc|B2G2 G2 |]

The tune uses the same gap-filling development as the Highland tunes quoted
before; the first part is major/mixolydian hexatonic, the second mixolydian.
But here the effect is much more dramatic and unmistakable, the natural f's
becoming more and more strongly accented up to the climax in bar 20.


2. Modal Systems for the Bagpipe
================================

Pipe tunes frequently use pentatonic or hexatonic scales of the types
described above.  Among the seven note modes, the commonest are the
mixolydian mode (for tunes written as ending on A) and the major mode
(tunes ending on D).

Roderick Cannon, in his book "The Highland Bagpipe and its Music", uses a
different system for naming pentatonic modes than anything I've used so far.
He describes three pitch sets, which he calls the A, D and G scales:

X:0
T:Cannon's A-scale (D,G-gap)
N:A lydian/major/mixolydian pentatonic
N:E major/mixolydian/dorian pentatonic
N:B mixolydian/dorian/minor pentatonic
N:F# dorian/minor/phrygian pentatonic
M:none
L:1/4
K:AMix
A2 B c e f a2 f e c B A2|]

X:0
T:Cannon's D-scale (G,C-gap)
N:D lydian/major/mixolydian pentatonic
N:A major/mixolydian/dorian pentatonic
N:E mixolydian/dorian/minor pentatonic
N:B dorian/minor/phrygian pentatonic
M:none
L:1/4
K:AMix
A B d2 e f a f e d2 B A|]

X:0
T:Cannon's G-scale (F,C-gap)
N:G lydian/major/mixolydian pentatonic
N:D major/mixolydian/dorian pentatonic
N:A mixolydian/dorian/minor pentatonic
N:E dorian/minor/phrygian pentatonic
M:none
L:1/4
K:AMix
G2 A B d e g2 a g2 e d B A G2|]

A (the pitch of the drones) is the only tonal centre that can fit
into all three scales.

Cannon sees these scales as allowing tunes to have "double tonic"
structures, or phrases which suggest alternating tonal centres.
Each has four possible centres, but in practice most tunes only
use two.  Here is an example he mentions, on the G scale: the gaps
have mostly been filled in with passing notes, but the only tonal
centres are G and A, and unusually with G coming first in each
four-bar phrase.  (The third part is different, moving between A
and D, but the third parts of four-part pipe tunes are often later
additions).  If you were putting guitar chords to this, each part
would only need two chords.

X:0
T:Cabar Feidh
B:The Cabar Feidh Collection: Pipe Music of the Queen's Own Highlanders
G:reel
M:C|
L:1/8
Q:1/2=90
K:AMix
e|:g2 a>e g2 d>e|g2 d>c B>GG>B|[1 A>Bc<A a2 e>f|a2 e>d c>AA>B:|
                               [2 A>Bc>d e>fg>e|a2 e>d c>AA>g||
   G2 e>G B<Gd>B|G2 d>G B>GG>B|   A2 e>A c<Ae>c|A>cf>e c>AA>g |
   G2 e>G B<Gd>B|G>gd>c B>GG>B|   A>Bc>d e>fg>e|a2 e>d c>AA>g||
 |:c2 g>c e>cg>e|c2 e>f g>ec<e|[1 d2 a>d f>da>f|d>ef>g a>gf<a:|
                               [2 a>fg>e f>de>d|c<ae>d c>AA>g||
 |:G>GG>B G>GG>B|G>gd>c B>GG>B|[1 A>AA>c A>AA>c|e>ca>e c>AA>g:|
                               [2 A>Bc>d e>fg>e|a2 e>d c>AA  |]

Hexatonic and heptatonic scales could be built up as combinations of
Cannon's three pentatonic scales (though Cannon himself doesn't do
this):

X:0
T:A+D-scale (G-gap)
N:D lydian/major hexatonic
N:A major/mixolydian hexatonic
N:E mixolydian/dorian hexatonic
N:B dorian/minor hexatonic
N:F# minor/phrygian hexatonic
M:none
L:1/4
K:AMix
A2 B c d e f a2 f e d c B A2|]

X:0
T:D+G-scale (C-gap)
N:G lydian/major hexatonic
N:D major/mixolydian hexatonic
N:A mixolydian/dorian hexatonic
N:E dorian/minor hexatonic
N:B minor/phrygian hexatonic
M:none
L:1/4
K:AMix
G A2 B d e f g a2 g f e d B A2 G|]

X:0
T:G+A-scale (no gaps)
N:A mixolydian
M:none
L:1/4
K:AMix
G A2 B c d e f g a2 g f e d c B A2 G|]


3. Low and High G's
===================

Low and high G's on the pipes are often treated differently.  The high
g is a relatively quiet note, while the low G is the loudest note on the
chanter and hence the harshest dissonance against the drones (Alastair
Campsie, describing his pibroch for Hugh MacDiarmid, writes that it
"resembles nothing more than the spirit screaming against the insensate
violence of the world").  And the two notes are not precisely an octave
apart.  So the high g is used more, and  many pipe tunes omit the low G
while using the high one - these are a boon to whistle players trying to
play them on an A whistle, or transposed down a fourth on a D whistle.

This is an unusual tune which does the opposite - the top two notes are
omitted, but the low G is used:

X:0
T:The High Road to Gairloch
M:2/4
L:1/8
Q:1/4=88
K:AMix
e>f eA |cA e2|df/e/ dG |BG d2 |
e>f eA |cA e2|A>B   cA |B2 A2:|
cA  A>B|cA c2|d>c   B>c|dB d2 |
cA  A>B|cB ce|A>B   cA |B2 A2:|


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==  (c) Jack Campin         http://www.campin.me.uk/         October 2012  ==
==        11 Third Street, Newtongrange, Midlothian EH22 4PU, Scotland     ==
==                                                                         ==
==              these pages: http://tinyurl.com/scottishmodes              ==
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