My name is Dominic Haerinck. I’m a harper (nylon/wire) from Quebec City, Canada. My brother Christian (who plays the pipes) introduced me to the fantastic world of pibroch.
There’s been some suggestion in recent years that pibrochs are direct heirs to the ancient, aristocratic harp music of the Gaels. Whether that’s the case or not, they just sound darn good on the wire harp (clarsach), this most ancient instrument of the Gaels.
So here’s the pibroch The Company’s Lament. I tried to follow to the best of my ability (and the harp’s possibilities) the grace notes of the pipes and the feel of the tune.
I hope you enjoy it. Tks.
Thoroughly enjoyable!
I’ve loved all the harp performances of pibroch I’ve listened to at this site, the music of each piece really comes to life.
Thanks, and please record more; better yet, record a CD of several pibrochs played with harp, and perhaps some light accompaniment, and I’ll purchase it.
Dear Airmheadh, thank you very much for your comment.
I’m actually in the process of recording a cd with my brother Christian who plays the Scottish pipes. It won’t contain only pibrochs but there will be this one at least, and other Scottish music (songs, airs, reels, traditional and original).
Tks again.
Dominic
Well done, Dom! It is a delight to hear more people doing these experiments.
Here are a few thoughts - I hope they are helpful. When you are confident with your pibroch ‘translation skills, you will have a vast repertoire at your fingertips.
1. Key. Is your harp set up with sister strings? If so, use them as the drone - after all, the octave below the sisters is called “Cronan - Drone bass” by Bunting (1840, page 22: see http://www.earlygaelicharp.info/irish_terms/). You can think of the sisters as the tenor drones. Don’t worry about pitch - you could tune your sister strings to G, A, B flat, C. The point is their sympathetic ringing, getting your harp to produce a glorious resonance that, like pipe drones or a fiddle’s open strings, serves to imbue each pitch of the melody with a different colour. Make sure the 3rd is tuned pure with the drone (Meantone, or 14 cents below ET) - that enhances the ringing considerably.
2. Development. Treat the series of cycles as a journey, travelling further away from the Urlar. The Gaelic term for a set of cycles is Siubhal which means ‘travel’. If you stay in the same place, then coming home is less special. Take risks: you could go further in tempo, in texture, in tonality, in compass (a contraction or an expansion). You are not a bagpipe - be bolder exploiting the possibilities of the harp.
3. Melody & Gestures. Try assigning the melody and the trance-inducing gestures which reiterate the drone to separate hands. I suggest Treble takes the gestures, Bass the melody - but you could try it the other way round. This is the solution Bill Taylor and I used, applying Bunting’s Barrludh fosgailte to the second Siubhal of http://www.altpibroch.com/learning/bill-taylor-ps135-on-harp/
4. Harmony. Exploit the contrast between a fixed drone (letting the Cronan and sister strings ring throughout a cycle) and a moving bass. Don’t be tied to any rule here. The further back through the source material you go, the more diversity you find. This musical craft was bursting with creative ingenuity - I would go so far as to say that, in the 18th century, diversity was at the heart of pibroch.
I’m very honored by your taking the time to listen and comment, sir. Thank you very much. A few points on your comments and on my general choices.
1) Key : No, I don’t use the sisters strings. I never explored this setting. As I mostly play reels, jigs and airs, I’m not sure what impact that would have on my playing (since I’m used to playing without the sisters) and my bass-left-hand lines. Also, I play both nylon- and wire- and I guess I Iike going from one to the other without having to re-adjust the fingerings and my mental map of where the strings are.
2) Development: I mostly play this tune not on my own but along my brother Christian who plays the (Scottish) pipes. And obviously the version I learned is from the bagpipes’ usual setting. So, the version I posted here is the one I play when I play along with the pipes. But, yeah, were I to play this as a solo tune, I definitely would have to explore changes in tempo and texture like you suggested.
3) Melody and Gestures. I’m not sure I understand correctly what you mean here. Do you mean something akin to the Coupled Hands approach? If that is the case, were I to use left-bass hand for the melody and right-treble hand for the Gestures, wouldn’t that prevent/restrict the left hand from doing any interesting accompaniement?
4) Harmony : One of the main reason I went with no variations whatsoever in the bass line is the fact that, like I said above, I only play this piece alongside my brother who plays the pipes. And the drones of the pipes (even that of his Scottish smallpipes) pretty much drown my accompaniement and render any attempts at subtlety in the left hand pointless. But yeah, again, were I to play it as a solo piece, I definitely would have to change something here. I actually do this in the two other pibrochs I know, MacCrimmon’s Sweetheart and Clanranald’s March to Edinburgh,
So, I will take your advices to heart and try and apply them to my future interpretations of the piobrochs I learn. Again, tks a lot for taking the time. Much appreciated. Cheers from French-speaking Quebec City!!
Dominic