The pibgorn is a

Welsh Welsh may refer to: Related to Wales * Welsh, referring or related to Wales * Welsh language, a Brittonic Celtic language spoken in Wales * Welsh people People * Welsh (surname) * Sometimes used as a synonym for the ancient Britons (Celtic peopl ...

species of idioglot

reed Reed or Reeds may refer to: Science, technology, biology, and medicine * Reed bird (disambiguation) * Reed pen, writing implement in use since ancient times * Reed (plant), one of several tall, grass-like wetland plants of the order Poales * ...

aerophone An aerophone () is a musical instrument that produces sound primarily by causing a body of air to vibrate, without the use of strings or membranes (which are respectively chordophones and membranophones), and without the vibration of the inst ...

. The name translates literally as "pipe-horn". It is also historically known as cornicyll and pib-corn. It utilises a

single reed A single-reed instrument is a woodwind instrument that uses only one reed to produce sound. The very earliest single-reed instruments were documented in ancient Egypt, as well as the Middle East, Greece, and the Roman Empire. The earliest types ...

(Welsh: "cal", or "calaf"), cut from

elder An elder is someone with a degree of seniority or authority. Elder or elders may refer to: Positions Administrative * Elder (administrative title), a position of authority Cultural * North American Indigenous elder, a person who has and ...

(''Sambucus nigra'') or reed (''Arundo phragmites''), like that found in the

drone Drone most commonly refers to: * Drone (bee), a male bee, from an unfertilized egg * Unmanned aerial vehicle * Unmanned surface vehicle, watercraft * Unmanned underwater vehicle or underwater drone Drone, drones or The Drones may also refer to: ...

of a

bagpipe Bagpipes are a woodwind instrument using enclosed reeds fed from a constant reservoir of air in the form of a bag. The Great Highland bagpipes are well known, but people have played bagpipes for centuries throughout large parts of Europe, ...

, which is an early form of the modern

clarinet The clarinet is a musical instrument in the woodwind family. The instrument has a nearly cylindrical bore and a flared bell, and uses a single reed to produce sound. Clarinets comprise a family of instruments of differing sizes and pitch ...

reed. The single chambered body of the elder pipe has a naturally occurring parallel bore, into which are drilled six small finger-holes and a thumb-hole giving a diatonic compass of an octave. The body of the instrument is traditionally carved from a single piece of wood or bone (See photograph right). Playable, extant historical examples in the

Museum of Welsh Life St Fagans National Museum of History ( ; cy, Sain Ffagan: Amgueddfa Werin Cymru, links=no), commonly referred to as St Fagans after the village where it is located, is an open-air museum in Cardiff chronicling the historical lifestyle, cultur ...

have bodies cut and shaped of elder. Another, unplayable instrument at the Museum, possibly of a later date, is made from the leg bone of an unspecified

ungulate Ungulates ( ) are members of the diverse clade Ungulata which primarily consists of large mammals with hooves. These include odd-toed ungulates such as horses, rhinoceroses, and tapirs; and even-toed ungulates such as cattle, pigs, giraffes, cam ...

(See photograph right). Contemporary instruments are turned and bored from a variety of fruitwoods, or exotic hardwoods; or turned from, or moulded in plastics. The reed is protected by a reed-cap or stock of cow-horn. The bell is shaped from a section of cow-horn which serves to amplify the sound. The pibgorn may be attached to a bag, with the additional possibility of a drone, which is then called pibau cwd; or played directly with the mouth via the reed-cap. Pibecyrn

A double-pipe (having two parallel chanters both ending in cow-horn, with a common stock) of unknown provenance, dated 1701 held by the Museum of Welsh Life has caused some controversy as to its possible Welsh or Mediterranean origin.

Early history

The pipes in Wales, of which the pibgorn is a class, are mentioned in the laws of

Hywel Dda Hywel Dda, sometimes anglicised as Howel the Good, or Hywel ap Cadell (died 949/950) was a king of Deheubarth who eventually came to rule most of Wales. He became the sole king of Seisyllwg in 920 and shortly thereafter established Deheubart ...

(died 949–50). The earliest transcription of these dates from 1250Music in Welsh Culture before 1650: A study of the principal sources by Sally Harper and specify that "the King should recognise the status of a Pencerdd (the second in importance of the three court musicians, namely; Bardd Teulu, Pencerdd and Cerddor) in his service by giving him an appropriate instrument – either

Harp The harp is a stringed musical instrument that has a number of individual strings running at an angle to its soundboard; the strings are plucked with the fingers. Harps can be made and played in various ways, standing or sitting, and in orche ...

Crwth The crwth (, also called a crowd or rote or crotta) is a bowed lyre, a type of stringed instrument, associated particularly with Welsh music, now archaic but once widely played in Europe. Four historical examples have survived and are to be fo ...

or Pipes." In modern Welsh orthography these three instruments are called telyn, crwth and pibau. Peniarth 20 (

Brut y Tywysogion ''Brut y Tywysogion'' ( en, Chronicle of the Princes) is one of the most important primary sources for Welsh history. It is an annalistic chronicle that serves as a continuation of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s ''Historia Regum Britanniae''. ''Bru ...

) c 1330, states that there are three types of wind instrument: "Organ, a Phibeu a Cherd y got", "organ, and pipes and bag music". However, the instrument itself is older than these references, and is part of a pattern of distribution of similar idioglot reedpipes, hornpipes and bag-hornpipes throughout Asia, Europe and North Africa that includes the "Old British pibcorn or hornpipe"

alboka The Basque ( es, albogue) is a single-reed woodwind instrument consisting of a single reed, two small diameter melody pipes with finger holes and a bell traditionally made from animal horn. Additionally, a reed cap of animal horn is placed arou ...

arghul The ''arghul'' ( ar, أرغول or يرغول), also spelled ''argul'', ''arghoul'', ''arghool'', ''argol'', or ''yarghul'', is a musical instrument in the reed family. It has been used since ancient Egyptian times and is still used as a trad ...

boha The boha (also known as the ''Cornemuse Landaise'' or bohaossac) is a type of bagpipe native to the Landes of Gascony in southwestern France. This bagpipe is notable in that it bears a greater resemblance to Eastern European bagpipes, particularl ...

and others.

Eighteenth- and nineteenth-century references

William Morris writes in a letter to his brother, the folklorist Richard Morris, in 1759: "(Translated) How pleasing it was to see the young farmworkers with their pibau cyrn (horn pipes) under their arms....gathering the cows and piping 'Mwynen Mai' and 'Meillionnen’." According to

Daines Barrington Daines Barrington, Fellow of the Royal Society, FRS, Society of Antiquaries of London, FSA (1727/2814 March 1800) was an English lawyer, antiquary and naturalist. He was one of the correspondents to whom Gilbert White wrote extensively on natur ...

, who presented the pibgorn specimen shown at the Museum of Welsh life to Fellows of the Society of Antiquaries of London, an Anglesey landowner called Mr Wynn of Penhesgedd, offered an annual prize for pibgorn playing towards the end of the eighteenth century. One such competition at Castellior Farm attracted 200 players. There is a further description by Siôn Wiliam Prichard (1749–1829) of Christmas celebrations on the Castellior farm where the pibgorn and other instruments were played. Barrington described the tone of the instrument as played to him: "by one of the lads ho had obtained the prize.. considering the materials of which the pibgorn is composed is really very tolerable"

David Griffith (Clwydfardd) David Griffith (29 November 1800 – 30 October 1894), known by the bardic name of "Clwydfardd" (), was a Welsh poet and Archdruid of the National Eisteddfod of Wales. Early life David Griffith was born on 29 November 1800 in Denbigh, D ...

(Died 1894) recalls his father telling him that "playing the Pibgorn was a common thing in those days in the South and that farmers' servant men were in the habit of carrying them with them when driving cattle to the fairs."

Early twentieth century

The Reverend Meredith Morris (Died 1922) of The Gwaun Valley in Pembrokeshire writes in his autobiography in 1910: "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. I myself am a tolerable player on the simplified bibgorn."''

Contemporary use

After a hiatus of fifty years, the pibgorn, alongside instruments such as the

crwth The crwth (, also called a crowd or rote or crotta) is a bowed lyre, a type of stringed instrument, associated particularly with Welsh music, now archaic but once widely played in Europe. Four historical examples have survived and are to be fo ...

, bagpipes, and the

triple harp The triple harp is a type of multi-course harp employing three parallel rows of strings instead of the more common single row. One common version is the Welsh triple harp (Welsh: ''telyn deires''), used today mainly among players of traditional W ...

, has witnessed a resurgence in popularity as part of a general revival of interest in Welsh folk music. Some modern instruments play a tempered scale to accommodate fixed pitch instruments such as guitar or keyboard, and are commonly pitched in D. Historical instruments play in a variety of just scales and pitch. Jonathan Shorland, after measuring and playing the instruments in co-operation with the then-keeper of instruments, D. Roy Saer, at the Museum of Folk Life in Wales, concluded that the instrument made of bone was no longer playable due to splitting. Of the two elder pipes, The shorter instrument gave a six-finger key note near to F and played a scale close to the Locrian mode. The longer instrument gave a six-finger key note near to Bflat and an unnamed mode (Major scale with a flat sixth). Shorland noted that the finger hole for the sixth note was shaped differently and was significantly smaller than the rest, and that the flat note was intentional.Offerynnau Traddodiadol y Cymru, Huw Roberts. CLERA Contemporary pibgorn makers in Wales include Jonathan Shorland, John Tose, John Glennydd, Keith Lewis, Gafin Morgan, and Gerard KilBride. In Scotland, Julian Goodacre (double-hornpipe). In the United States; Alan Keith, Sean Folsom, and Chad Fross. Contemporary repertoire makes use of folksong and Hymn tunes adapted to the instrument, manuscript and printed collections of dance music that may be adapted to fit the instrument's compass of an octave, as well as the general oral tradition. Bands like Fernhill, Calan, Mordekkers, Taran, Saith Rhyfeddod, Rigantona, Carreg Lafar, Crasdant, Calennig, and Aberjaber have incorporated the instrument in their line-up in mixed consort. In the United States, bands Oceans Apart and Moch Pryderi have done the same. Contemporary players of the instrument in Wales include Jonathan Shorland,

Ceri Rhys Matthews Ceri Rhys Matthews (born 29 May 1960) is a Welsh people, Welsh traditional musician, record producer, and teacher. Biography Matthews was born in the suburb and historical village of Treboeth, in Swansea, Wales. Educated in Welsh language, Wels ...

, Stephen Rees, Andy McLaughlin, Hefin Wyn Jones, Patrick Rimes, Huw Roberts, Jem Hammond, Hafwen Lewis, Gafin Morgan, Antwn Owen Hicks, Rhodri Smith, Peni Ediker, Eva Ryan, Idris Morris Jones, Gerard KilBride, Mick Tems and Peter Stacey. Players in the United States include John Good, Bill Reese, Sean Folsom, and Chad Fross. Use of pibgorn, bagpipe and bag-hornpipes with electronic and digital dance music has been seen in recent years, initially with Ceri Rhys Matthews collaborating with johnny r of r-bennig on a dance mix called "Y bibgorn aur" in 1992; later in the nineties with hip-hop outfit Y Tystion on their album "Shrug off ya complex, Y taffi triog"; Lews Tewns' recording for "PUP Project"; and "Wepun EX Project". The Mordekkers have used Drum and Bass mixes with pipe music in a live context for a number of years playing at British festivals. More recently Celtech and Taran have also combined pibgorn and pipes with Drum and Bass, Dub, and House styles. Ceri Rhys Matthews has recorded an album of music devoted solely to traditional music on unaccompanied pibgorn and drone called "Pibddawns"

References

External links