There are at least three over-arching types of cadences (sruth):

• appogiatura or “held” - which David Glen has described as a cadence whose held internal note takes away from the melody note it is embellishing. French baroque term, cadence appuyée, may best capture this style - a “leant on” cadence. It is important to note: a held cadence need not be three-note; a two-note cadence may be held as well (Andrew Wright calls them a “single-note” cadence; he does not count the initial high-G).

• “tripping” - where one of the internal notes is held slightly longer than the initial and/or following. French baroque term, cadence brisée, applies to these types. These cadences do not take away from the melody note, but embellish it much in the way a doubling in ceòl beag does. Nevertheless, they are rhythmically dissimilar to the “streaming” cadence, below.

• “streaming” - one which no one today plays, but was known among performers at the time. French baroque term cadence subite or jettée is relevant here. Here, two-, three- and even four-note (there is even a five-note documented) are played through briskly with a straight rhythm.

All these you’ve read about here and here before. (Yes, we repeat ourselves here at Alt Pibroch Club). But what we haven’t really explored deeply, nor pushed the envelope very far, is how one would a) document these differences in notation or b) choose which one to play.

In order to force this issue, I have typeset a score, based on the Campbell Canntaireachd, for the Unjust Incarceration (PS 3). Since the Campbell notation for the candence (sruth) is “hi”, for the purposes of experimentation I chose to replace any noted cadence with a “hi” in the score. I suppose any symbol would have done, and I admit that the score suddenly seems very friendly (that’s a joke). And I don’t expect anyone else to do this. But as an exercise, the replacement of notation with a symbol is extremely interesting.

1. It forces the performer to stop and think, to experiment with options, and not just “play what’s written”
2. It adds an element of chaos and variability to the performance, as each performer may choose one style of cadence over another at any given point where the cadence is indicated
3. It requires greater musicianship, as the performer may extend (or not) the cadence according to the musical intention trying to be communicated at the time of performance
4. No performance choice can be “wrong”, insofar as the element of variation is built into the score

It is not easy. But we encourage Club Members to give it a try.

While the dust is still settling from the previous post on cadences (visit that post here), let’s move on to other interesting things we see in the primary sources.

Ponder these. Let them sink in a bit.

Oh, and add this one into the mix, too, while you’re at it:

• two-note
• three-note
• four-note
• from high A
• to F
• G-F-E
• high G from high A
• straight 64th notes
• “tripping” on 32nd note E

And these are in addition to what we already know.

There certainly seems to have been a lot more available to pipers in the 18th and early 19th century (the extent of our empirical evidence; who knows what it was like earlier?) than there are today.

What would it take to get pipers to begin reintroducing them into their performances?