The Welsh
Pibgorn
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Hornpipes
The Welsh pibgorn belongs to
the class of instruments known as reedpipes, ie. simple pipes powered by a
single beating reed, without or with fingerholes to allow the playing of
different notes. They form a subclass where a horn, usually cowhorn, is used
as an amplifying bell, and these instruments are variously either simply
mouthblown or part of a bagpipe. They have an almost worldwide distribution,
being found on all continents except Australia. In South America there are some
which are perhaps the simplest form, being no more than a reed inserted into
the end of a horn producing one amplified note only. Others are found across
Europe and into India which are remarkably similar to the Welsh variety. More
complex still are various double hornpipes such as those found across the
Arab world, the Basque country and Greece. The bagpipe varieties are
similarly varied, some being no more than a pibgorn in a bag with a blowpipe,
others having double chanters and extra pipes acting as drones. The Welsh Pibgorn
There are three pibgyrn
in the National Folk Museum at St. Fagans. Two have the pipes made of elder
wood (elder grows with a pith hole down the centre of its branches saving the
need to bore out the pipe) and the third is made from the leg bone of an
unidentified animal. All of them have six finger holes and a thumb hole
giving a range of a single octave, though they appear tuned to their own
scales, and only one, the bone instrument anything like a normal major scale.
Examination, trying different reeds, by Ceri Rhys Matthews and others
recently showed that with the first pibgorn shown below, although the fifth
and octave were perfectly in tune, the other notes were equally spaced between a half and a
whole tone apart.
The St. Fagans pibgyrn. Also in the 18th
century, William Morris of Dulas, Anglesey, wrote to his brother Richard:
`Difr oedd gweld llanciau cadw a'u pibau cyrn tan ei ceseiliau... yn hel
gwarthegau tan chwibanu `Mwynen Mai' a `Meillionen'. `I was delighted to see
the young herdsmen with their hornpipes under their armpits... herding cattle
while piping `Mwynen Mai' and `Meillionen'.' And in the Cambrian Traveller
(1813) it states`A rural pipe, used by shepherds for their amusement, called
the pibgorn, in some measure resembling a hoboy, is said to be almost
peculiar to the isle of Anglesea. This name is given to it from having it's
extremities tipped with horn. It has 7 holes, besides the aperture in which a
reed is concealed. It's tone is between the flute and clarionet. It was from
this instrument that the kind of dance called hornpipe originated.' (see
above) William Meredith Morris in The
Crwth 1897 wrote- `Mabsantau, neithioirau, gwylnosau, &c, were their
red-letter days, and the rude merrimaking of the village green the pivot of
all that was worth living for in a mundane existence. I do not remember much
about the gwylmabsant and the gwylnos - I came a quarter of a century too
late for those wonderful orgies - but I remember the neithior with its
all-day and all-night rollicking fun. We did not have the crwth, but we had
the fiddle, and occasionally the harp, or a home-made degenerate sort of
pibgorn.' He was, however, refering to Pembrokeshire and not Anglesey and one
has to wonder what is meant by a `degenerate' pibgorn. He also described
himself as `a tolerable player on the simplified bibgorn... alas the pibgyrn
are all gone today and I doubt whether there is one left of the old shepherd
players.' In
modern times there has been a great resurgence of interest in Wales in the
pibgorn, there being many players now, especially, and perhaps appropriately
in the North. To satisfy this demand for instruments, one prominent maker was
Jonathan Shorland, while more recently John Tose has been making both the
traditional mouthblown variety plus a bagpipe form of the instrument. Other
makers include John Glenydd of Llanfihangel and Keith Lewis of Pontardawe who
has been experimenting with some success with plastic single reeds. The
photo of the Russian zhaleika is courtesy of Robin La Pasha, for more on
Russian instruments check out his website: http://www.duke.edu/~ruslan/russwind.html |
Russian hornpipe, zhaleika.
Libyan bag-hornpipe, zukkra. In `Musical and Poetical Relicks of the Welsh Bards' (1784), Edward Jones, `Bardd y Brenin' wrote: "Its tone is a medium between the flute and the clarinet, and is remarkable for its melody...it is now peculiar to the Isle of Anglesey, where it is played by shepherds, and tends greatly to enhance the innocent delight of pastoral life." This description of the sound produced by the pibgorn seems to have passed verbatum into other literary works, though in fact it bears little similarity to reality.
One of Jonathan Shorlands’ pibgyrn.
Pibgorn by John Tose. |
