History of
Piobaireachd

History of Piobaireachd

Piobaireachd (Ceol Mòr) is the ancient, untamed, historically significant music that was created for the Great Highland Bagpipe. Ceol Mòr means “great music” or “the great music of the Celt.” It was created by the ancient civilizations of Scotland as their life’s blood of music, used to commemorate births, deaths, weddings, funerals, gatherings, battles, baptisms and other ceremonial events. The original composers likely drew their inspiration from their environment, emulating the burbling of mountain and forest streams, thunderous rainstorms, howling winds blowing across the moors, swords clanging in battles, the lull of waves on the ocean, and the sound of women singing as they performed their work in the villages.

The MacCrimmons, the famous family of generations of pipers, created a school of Piobaireachd where pipers from the British Isles and Western Europe came for instruction (and were forbidden to play any other type of music while in residence). Students remained enrolled for 7-12 years in order to commit 150 tunes to memory and attain master status in piping. There was no musical notation, the music being taught by a system of sung vocables created by the MacCrimmons, called Canntaireachd.

The first, melodic line of the composition (the “ground”) creates a foundation or theme from which the tune expands into rhythmic variations and sections with complex taorluath and crunluath movements. Skilled, expert pipers breathe life and story into each piece, using the bagpipe as their musical voice. Throughout history, piobaireachd often turned the tide from defeat to victory, owing to the spiritual inspiration flowing from the sound and energy of the music.