Norden Sackpipa Association of the Americas (NSAA)

[Black Rose]

I'm trying to focus on "important" tunes to learn on sackpipa, and I don't suppose there are any more important than the "handful of tunes" described in Olle's historical summary of the instrument. Where can I find these tunes transcribed or hear them played? I would like to learn all of the last tunes played by the last piper of the tradition before it was reinvented.

Also, are there any tunes other than these that are definitely composed for or historically played on the pipes, as opposed to regional or national tunes picked up by more recent pipers? Tunes transcribed from and definitely associated with any other pipers over the ages, that is.

It strikes me that if there are only these few bona fide sackpipa tunes to survive the generations, it would be simple enough to learn them all and keep them played in the next generations, and not to do that would be a shame.
_________________
Sigs are a waste of bandwidth

[Olle]

There are no bagpipe tunes after Gudmunds Nils Larsson. He did not play much anymore when he was discovered, and when he did he did not play that kind of music, so the *music* tradition had already died out before him.

Most (almost all) the known bagpipe tunes can be found written down in Per-Ulf Allmos book "Säckpipan i Norden" from 1990. Very few tunes with 19th century bagpipe connections have been discovered since then. Off the top of my head I can only think of one.

Most of these tunes are not playable on Swedish bagpipe per se, though, since they have all been written down 2nd hand, after someone on another instrument (fiddle, most commonly). The tunes tend to have been transformed to fit the new instrument. There are no tunes known to have been written down directly after a piper. So, you have to do some creative synthesis to figure out how the tunes may have been played on the pipes before being distorted. That's a fun excercise.
_________________
Info on Swedish bagpipes at http://olle.gallmo.se/sackpipa
More about me at http://olle.gallmo.se

[Black Rose]

That's a bit disappointing. As many of you may know there are for instance some several hundred "piobaireachd" or "pipe tunes" from the Scottish MacCrimmon tradition, the "formal" Scottish pipe music, and then thousands of old and modern popular tunes. To preserve that tradition you literally need hundreds of pipers learning thousands of tunes. The same can be said of Shetland and Irish folk music. I was hoping that before I morphed together a branch of sackpipa playing that would probably be unrecognizeable to most players of the instrument enjoying it's revival, I would be able to nail down a "handful" of authentic, original pipe tunes nobody could laugh at too hard even in Sweden. Even if the technique and "groove" might not be up to "old timey" Swedish standards, I thought I owed the tradition the effort of helping preserve at least a few basic melodies. I had assumed of course that the "handful" of tunes Larsson was playing were actually from the piping tradition. So I suppose the instrument was still being played, but not the music originally played on it.

Musically liberating I suppose. So not all a bad thing.
_________________
Sigs are a waste of bandwidth

[Olle]

Personally I'm not sure there ever was a particular repertoire for the Swedish bagpipe for us to lose. I think the old pipers played the popular tunes of the time and region, restricted to those which happened to fit the instrument (with or without shoehorn). The tunes we know as bagpipe tunes today are simply the small set of tunes we happen to know that at least one of the old pipers played, but that is not to say that they were made *for* bagpipes. Perhaps, but we can't really know.

So, there really are at least three traditions to consider here. I usually only talk about two, the instrument tradition and the music tradition, but the music tradition could be subdivided into (bagpipe particular) tunes and playing style. The instrument survived. The tunes did not but, as I said, we don't even know if they existed. But instrument specific playing styles and techniques must have existed and it's a real pity that this knowledge was lost to us. From what I've heard, however, I don't think Gudmunds Nils would have been much help in this regard.
_________________
Info on Swedish bagpipes at http://olle.gallmo.se/sackpipa
More about me at http://olle.gallmo.se

[Baglady]

If I've got it right, the pipes we play now aren't exactly like the pipes the old players used. Weren't they modernized? So I've decided to play tunes that fit into the culture I'm in now, the Minnesota Nordic dance tunes and Hardingfele tunes since these two 'national' instruments play together, surprisingly. I'm also investigating herding music since that seems to be what Anne Larsen and Birtha Skifstrom may have palyed. And I like the culture. Female dominated don't ya know...
_________________
A bagpipe is only too loud when it's out of tune