Description
The Craft of Pibroch provides students with an introduction to ‘the great music’ of the bagpipes as well as the harp. This repertoire is highly developed, complex and technically challenging. At its heart, it is a story-telling vehicle, capable of evoking high emotion, delight, laughter and sorrow. Using 'McLeod’s Lament' as a model, we will explore piobaireachd as a process, not as a fixed goal. Instead of building the course around learning to play a particular piece, we will explore fundamentals of melody, harmony and figuration to create our own examples of piobaireachd on harps or lyres with gut or wire strings. We will discover parallels in the repertoire of medieval Welsh harp music, where compositions were devised according to ancient measures -- various combinations of alternating moments of tension and resolution. There will be considerable focus on learning figuration, from Irish as well as Welsh sources, to provide us with the technical vocabulary to embellish our stories on the strings.
The purpose of the Welsh measures was three-fold:
— To produce music; to compose
— To recognize music; to appreciate and understand the framework
— To keep music in mind; to cultivate memory
Within the course, we will aim to compose according to the ancient instructions, using a variety of measures, with some being regular, and others irregular. We will explore modality, where the tuning of the harp is only the beginning of the process; choosing where the finalis lies will govern the affect of the piece.
This course welcomes all levels of players except pure beginner. There will be a considerable element of freedom to compose within one’s own skill level. Some students may wish to challenge themselves to create elaborate pieces; others may prefer to be more conservative in their structures.
Harps and lyres welcome!
EARLY-BIRD DISCOUNT: enroll now for €99 and save 24% off the full price of €130. Offer ends 26 April, 2025