Renewing the Antiquated

A friend who is a fellow piper sent me an antiquated hymnbook. It’s about 50 years old, and he asked how I’d like to do some transposing and arranging to bring to life these hymns by rewriting them for the Highland bagpipes. Afterwards we could publish and share them with pipers who play in church. I liked the invitation, and yet, when I perused the pages, I realized this was going to be a bigger task than I had ever undertaken in writing music.

The music was written in an old style known as shape-notes, in which the notes were either printed as triangles, circles or squares, with each one mounted on a stem, making them appear not unlike little tulips, with their tails resembling leaves. These were eighth or sixteenth notes. Some had no tails, so they were either whole, half, or quarter notes, This style of writing was once considered useful for choirs, so sopranos, tenors and bases could readily identify their lines.

I began with a hymn I suspected would be the easiest, choosing to follow the triangles, and soon realized this was no ordinary undertaking because there were no beams to organize the notes into 4/4, 6/8, 6/4 or whatever time signature had been chosen. Besides, for bagpipes, the pitch is higher than today’s concert pitch, so the hymns had to be transposed. This would be a major undertaking.

My first approach to the task was to play a few of the hymns on the piano, to get the rhythm, and determine where to place the beams. I rewrote the hymns, following the triangles, transposing the tune into either the key of A or D, whichever was suitable. I realized that I wouldn’t be adding a key signature to the bagpipe notation, because the pipes don’t conform to familiar keys, but to a Pythagorean scale, also called a Myxilodean scale, for which there is no key signature.

Once the music was transposed and transcribed on paper, the embellishments essential to pipe music were added. Because the instrument is played with continual sound, and the notes need to be separated if two adjacent notes are identical, grace notes are an essential part of writing bagpipe music. The best choice of grace notes, doublings, grips and tuorluaths is remarkable in providing expression to the music. This has been an exacting task because embellishments must be chosen so the piper’s fingers will not get tangled up, but will automatically strike the natural embellishments.

Hymns are arranged in this manner, and reviewed days later, to permit a second look and some refinement. Successively more difficult transposing follows, with each hymn being resurrected from the old book where it would have decayed, never to be played. The music was obviously written by a musician gifted with the poetic muse in addition to that for composing, for he wrote two or three verses for each hymn, along with a Chorus.

My friend is an expert in engraving music, and uses the most sophisticated music program. The same program is used to engrave music for the Vancouver and Winnipeg Symphony Orchestras as well as for The Church Piper. With the beams slanted according to the melody, sight reading is facilitated.

We are nearing the time when this especially prepared hymnbook for pipers will be ready, and we are longing to complete it for your enjoyment. Meanwhile, I shall write an article on the rules one should abide by when writing music.