This is a glorious piece of music, unjustly neglected. Its combination of brevity and musical depth is ideally suited to amateur pibroch players and learners. If competition organisers can’t change the rules to allow gems like this to gain currency, then something is seriously wrong! This is one of many good tunes that don’t fit our institutionalised thinking or event categories. The […]
lyre
pentatonic scales and lyre tunings
This is a detail from one of the most precious books in Glasgow University Library - the Hunterian Psalter (MS U.3.2, fol. 21v), produced in southern England c.1170. The triplepipe I recognise, but what is the other boy playing? It looks to me more like a monochord than a bellows-pipe. My curiosity led me via the 1-string Japanese ichigenkin to […]