BELGIUM

Belgium (Dutch: België; French: Belgique; German: Belgien), is a federal monarchy in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters as well as those of several other major international organizations such as NATO. Belgium covers an area of 30,528 square kilometres (11,787 sq mi), and it has a population of about 11 million people.

Straddling the cultural boundary between Germanic and Latin Europe, Belgium is home to two main linguistic groups: the Dutch-speaking, mostly Flemish community (59% of the population), and the French-speaking, mostly Walloon population (41% of all Belgians). Additionally, there is a small group of German-speakers who are officially recognized.

Belgium's two largest regions are the Dutch-speaking region of FLANDERS in the north and the French-speaking southern region of WALLONIA. The Brussels-Capital Region is officially bilingual. A German-speaking Community exists in eastern Wallonia. Belgium's linguistic diversity and related political conflicts are reflected in its political history and complex system of government.

Historically, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg were known as the Low Countries, which used to cover a somewhat larger area than the current Benelux group of states.

"TRADITION"

Because of their geographical situation and political history, the Low Countries have always been open to foreign cultural influences. Consequently, they share most of their musical traditions with neighbouring areas in Germany and France. Since the Middle Ages the Low Countries have also been among the most urbanized areas of Europe, which has meant a continuous cultural interaction between social classes.

We call traditional music: songs, tune and dances mostly unwritten taught by person to person through generations. We can honestly say that this kind of "tradition" stopped around the 1st World War and because of the mechanisation of agriculture, industrialisation, the radio, and the introduction of commercial entertainment, improvement of transport and the advent of electricity, by which twilight – the best time for singing in the family circle – was lost.

REVIVAL

In the 1960's and 70's starts the folk revival: many people started to look back for traditions. The result is that revival ensembles have not limited themselves to the most recent traditional forms, as collected from the surviving, mostly aged, musicians. They also go back by drawing from older written sources and by reconstructing and playing (virtually) extinct folk instruments. An important tendency within the revival aims at revitalizing traditional music by performing it using non-traditional arrangements, techniques, instruments and line-up. Traditional music now seems to have carved out a lasting, though still marginal, lace in the contemporary music scene of the Low Counties.

SONGS

The traditional song repertory can basically be divided into 2 parts:

- songs transmitted orally, generally of a cheerful nature and meant to be sung by a group, for instance game- and dance-songs. Verses are short and fulfilled by repetitions, refrain or meaningless syllables. - songs whose lyrics were originally written down. They may tell a merry or sad story. The lyrics tended to suffer when transmitted orally.

Part of the repertory is linked to important events in life such as work, marriage or moving house. There are, however, hardly any songs connected with birth and death. Another important group consists of seasonal songs and lucky-visit songs for Carnival, May Day, midsummer, Christmas...

From the 16th century until the beginning of the 20th, broadside singers were familiar at markets and outside churches after Mass. Their repertory dealt mainly with sensational news and love stories.

MUSIC

The traditional music is mainly documented by tune books, and tunes "of the orallity" collected in the 1960's.

It's mainly dance music: in group (contradance) or pair-dances (Scottisch, Polka, Waltz...).

Those pair-dances have been very popular since 19th century. They are still danced by young people as a social event.

About the middle of the 18th century popular music had apparently become predominantly tonal. The use of drone accompaniment gave way to harmony. This happens together with the decline of drone instruments like the bagpipe, the hurdy-gurdy or the zither.

Fiddle started to be very popular to play music.

The accordion became a truly popular instrument about 1880. I quickly dethroned the fiddle as the main folk instrument for small dance parties.

The industrialization of wind instrument making in the first half of the 19th century brought about the formation of village wind/brass bands. From that time, dance bands often consisted of a clarinet, a cornet a trombone and a tuba.

BAGPIPE

The bagpipe, with its venerable history, is one of the oldest musical instruments of mankind. The early ancestors of the bagpipe, the ancient reed-sounded single- or double-pipe, can be traced back to ancient Egypt and Middle East (Babylonia, Mesopotamia). The invention of a bag as the air supply was merely an addition to the existing pipes. With the early double-pipes one of the pipes probably sounded the melody and the other the accompaniment, analogous to the later bag-blown instrument. It is likely that the basic means of producing the sound in the pipes and reed is a discovery belonging to prehistory. Someone discovered that it was possible to produce a musical sound by pinching the flat end of a straw or plant-stalk and blowing into it with compressed lips. This first experiment became the principle of the double reed since the straw naturally produces two flattened surfaces or "blades" at the squeezed part. These two blades vibrate under the pressure of the breath and produce sound. The earliest specimens of such reed- sounded pipes have been found in excavated tombs in Babylonia and Egypt.

With the invasion of Britain (at first by Caesar in 55 and 54 B.C, later followed in 43 A.C. by Claudius) and the expansion of the Roman Empire, the bagpipe spread quickly over Europe, evident in the various types of bagpipes, like the gaita in Portugal and Spain, the gajda in the Balkan area resp. the gajdy in Eastern Europe, the duda in Hungary or the zampogna in the Italian. As well as varying in name there are slight variations in the basic construction of the pipes that give each version its own uniqueness of its region of origin. As well as uniqueness in the appearance and construction of the pipes, there is also usually a traditional costume sported by the piper that also varies with the country and can be seen at traditional musical events and celebrations.

The earliest references to the bagpipe in Belgium can be dated from the end of the 13th century. It had a sewn bag, a conical chanter with a double reed and one or two cylindrical drones with a single reed.

Peasant Wedding (detail) Pieter Bruegel the Elder – 1567

In the 18th and 19th centuries, shepherds in the province of Hainaut favoured a type with parallel arrangement of chanter and small drone in the same stock, while the bass drone rested against the shoulder: the MUCHOSA.

The bagpipe tradition in Belgium lingered until the beginning of the 20th century.

HOW DOES BAGPIPE WORK – DIFFERENT PARTS

A - Blowstick The player fills the bag (with air from his lungs) using the blow stick like a mouthpiece. This attaches to the bag. There is also a valve inside that keeps the air flowing into the bag (and not back out). The player must continuously fill the bag to sound the pipes.

B - Bass Drone The drones are responsible for the characteristic low "humming" sound that emanates from the pipes. The bass drone produces a tone that is one octave below that of the tenor drones, filling out the sound.

C - Tenor Drones The drones are responsible for the "humming" sound that emanates from the pipes. The sound travels out through the top of the drones (over the player's shoulder).

D - Bag The bag is a bladder that is continuously filled with air (from the blowstick). Once the bag is filled, the player must squeeze air out of the bag (using his arm). This pushes the air through the chanter and drone reeds to make a sound. Originally made of sheepskin or cowhide, pipe bags are now made of synthetic materials that are always airtight. Constant and steady pressure must be applied to the bag (using the player's arm) in order to maintain a steady tone from the drones. E - Chanter Reed The chanter reed, made of two tightly woven bamboo slivers, is hidden inside the pipes, between the bag and the chanter. Air is pushed from the bag through the reed, producing the sound for the chanter notes.

F - Pipe Chanter The chanter is the part of the pipes that actually produces melody notes. The player holds the chanter vertically and "fingers" the chanter similar to a clarinet. Covering up or uncovering a hole with a finger produces a different note. There are only eight holes and nine notes on the chanter, but the highly intricate finger movements take a great amount of technique and manual dexterity.

G - Drone Cords These are fancy, woven cords that are tied around the shaft of each drone. Though they look nice and often match the bag cover or uniform, the drone cords allow the drones to hang a certain distance apart from each other, while staying together.

H - Tuning Slide By shortening or elongating the length, the player finds the desired note and tunes drones. Parts of the tuning slides are often ornamented with silver, ivory or other materials, though these are only decorative and do not change the sound of the pipes.

I - Drone Reeds Each drone has one long reed inside of it, at the base. It is inserted into the base of the drone, between the bag and the drone itself. Acting as an airflow valve, it allows air to be pushed through into the body of the drone, producing the low humming sound. Originally made of bamboo stalks, many players now use drone reeds made of synthetic materials that are not as easily affected by changes in humidity.

SOURCES:

- The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, vol. 15, London: Macmillan, 2001. - Volksinstrumenten in België en Instrumenhts populaires en Belgique by Hubert Boone and Wim Bosmans (Leuven: Peeters, 2000) - http://www.bagpipes.co.uk - http://en.wikipedia.org - http://www.ppfpd.org/pup/construction.cfm - http://www.essentialvermeer.com