Pibroch Rhythm: Translating Early Gaelic
Bagpipe Music in the 21st Century

Robinson McClellan

Written in Partial Completion of the Doctor of Musical Arts Degree
Yale School of Music
March 30, 2007

Abstract
Since the 18th century, rhythm in pibroch (the classical music of the Highland Bagpipe) has been a subject of heated debate among pipers and a cause of bewilderment for newcomers.  Conflicting sources and confusing rhythm terminology have helped to lend pibroch an aura of impenetrability that has, in part, kept it isolated from the wider interaction of world musical cultures in recent years.  Drawing on concepts and terms from the Western classical and pibroch traditions, this study seeks to make pibroch’s rhythmic idiom more easily accessible to musicians both within and outside of the piping community.  The analysis separates two elements of rhythm in pibroch: first, the cognitive maps of rhythmic patterns and groupings perceived by listeners and performers; and second, the actual performed durations through which those underlying rhythmic structures manifest.  Taking an ethnomusicological approach to pibroch's dual history of oral and written transmission, the study compares precise transcriptions of recorded performances with existing scores and written and spoken explanations.  The study builds a simple but meticulously defined set of terms and concepts for understanding and discussing pibroch rhythm. 

Synopsis
It is not easy for one approaching pibroch from the outside to make sense of its complex history and its treacherous mix of opinions and myths—especially when it comes to rhythm.  To make pibroch more accessible, this study carries out an act of translation by creating a simple, but carefully defined, framework for pibroch rhythm.  To accomplish this translation, each chapter explores pibroch from a different angle.  Chapter 1 takes the perspective of a reader trained in the Western classical tradition.  Rather than claiming a universal understanding of rhythm for such a vast tradition, I approach pibroch specifically from the viewpoint laid out by Grosvenor Cooper and Leonard Meyer in The Rhythmic Structure of Music, applying their terms and concepts to a close analysis of the pibroch Maol Donn.  Chapter 2 describes the way the mainstream pibroch tradition teaches, performs and understands the music, using several tunes as examples to illustrate salient points.  Chapter 3 explores the findings of pibroch scholars who have recently offered important new insights into the way pibroch's early composers and performers may have understood the music. 
Together, the three perspectives build a comprehensive model for understanding pibroch rhythm that not only incorporates the way pipers themselves understand their music, but also accounts for the assumptions an outsider might carry into such an investigation.  The final chapter draws together the evidence to present a set of terms for describing pibroch rhythm that are adapted from both classical usage and pibroch usage.  A final section briefly explores possible implications of this study for the piping community, and then departs from the analytical approach of the first three chapters to address anticipated concerns of creative musicians in the classical tradition, especially composers.

My treatment of pibroch resembles that of many ethnomusicologists who have studied 'non-Western' musical traditions.  While pibroch is a European art form and so cannot be described as 'non-Western,' it nevertheless lies outside the canon of European-American classical music as taught in 21st-century concert halls and universities.  An ethnomusicological vantage point also informs my methodology.  Because the written scores used by pipers frequently do not reflect the way the rhythms are actually performed, my analysis rests on transcriptions rather than existing pibroch scores, which provide secondary reference.  Though the use of precise transcriptions is not new in pibroch (Cooke), no scholar—to my knowledge—has undertaken a systematic analysis of the performed rhythms of pibroch using transcriptions; my study seeks to fill this seeming gap in the study of pibroch. 

Due to the 'architectonic' nature of music in which smaller units (motives) groups themselves into increasingly larger ones (phrases, periods, etc.), pibroch's large-scale formal and harmonic structures can be understood as an aspect of rhythm at higher architectonic levels.  Pibroch's formal and harmonic structures have been studied in considerable depth, and so I follow the work of others in this area more than in my study of the surface-level performed rhythms.  Nonetheless I include this aspect of rhythm in order to present a comprehensive framework for further study at all rhythmic levels. 

The entire study rests on a basic analytical distinction between two aspects of rhythm.  First, all musicians rely on a mental map of accentual patterns and rhythmic groupings in order to understand and perform a piece of music.  I call this the rhythmic organization of music.  Second, the performer brings a particular manifestation—a set of actual durations, to that underlying rhythmic organization.  In most traditions there are particular ways of performing the music, including rhythmic interpretations, which make the music sound idiomatic to that tradition.  I call this the rhythmic performance practice).  Listening to pibroch without knowing which durations result from the underlying rhythmic organization, and which are the performer's way of expressing that organization, we are left to make guesses about how the music really works.  The task in each chapter of this study, therefore, is to separate rhythmic organization from performance practice so that we can understand each more clearly. 

My analysis of rhythm is intended for two main audiences.  First, it is for pipers and pibroch scholars in hopes that it will help to fill a need in current scholarship for closer analysis of performed rhythms, apart from scores; I hope such analysis could lead to a deeper knowledge of the way rhythm operates and informs pibroch's distinctive sound.  The larger purpose of this study is to make pibroch more available, both intellectually and creatively, to those who may not have encountered it yet.