Of Dance and Diversity BARRY SHEARS’ ‘DANCE to the PIPER’

CAPE BRETON CAPE BRETON ‘Old days’ of dance and diversity BARRY SHEARS’ ‘DANCE TO THE PIPER’ APE BRETON piper and scholar Barry Shears’ new book, Dance to the Piper: The Highland Bagpipe in Nova Scotia BARRY SHEARS… (Cape Breton University Press), gives his three previously “If we’d had someone like an Angus MacKay, a C Donald MacDonald or a David Glen collecting in published books of collected tunes a more detailed socio-historical Cape Breton in the 19th century we might have had a written record of a wonderful tradition but context and presents new evidence towards a better understanding we didn’t and I feel we have lost so much.” of the development of Highland piping over the past two and a half centuries. Barry Shears is a scholar and piper who performs in the distinctive Cape Breton style at concerts and for dances, judges piping competi- tions, and teaches and lectures on Cape Breton dance music, at home and abroad. Dance to the Piper: The Highland Bagpipe in Nova Scotia is based on his 2005 Masters dissertation for Saint Mary’s University in Halifax, Nova Scotia: a well-illustrated drawing together of more than 25 years of research in the scattered communities of his native Cape Breton, and of time spent with the last aging representatives of a unique tradition that originated among the many pipers who, from the late 18th century onwards, left Scotland to settle in Nova Scotia. It complements and extends the work of Dr John Gibson, whose books Traditional Gaelic Bagpiping 1745-1945 and Old and New World Highland Bagpiping were published in 1998 and 2002. What these players — including some distinguished players of their day — offered to the musical heritage of Cape Breton never coalesced into a generally prescribed set of performance conventions as in Scotland, but accepted technical diversity as the music took on a vigorous role as the inspiration for step dancers. Barry Shears’ new book comes with a CD that gives a sampling of this music from 1923 to 2007, and illustrates the shifting and varied performance styles of Nova Scotia pipers. Some of the tracks are from well-worn old 78rpm recordings and “in the field” tape recordings, and so are of variable quality, and most of the performers were in their 60s, 70s and 80s when the recordings were made, and well past their prime. But the selection achieves the intention of illustrating the old piping styles of northeastern Nova Scotia and Cape Breton. The CD also includes performances by three well-known Cape Breton fiddlers playing bagpipe tunes to highlight the relationship between Cape Breton’s bagpipe and fiddle traditions. Players include Pipe Major MacKenzie Baillie, Pipe Major Rod Nicholson, Pipe Major Duncan MacIntyre, Joe Hughie MacIntyre, Jimmy MacArthur, Alex Currie, Rory MacKinnon, Buddy MacMaster, John Willie Campbell and others. “If you can get past the standardised competitive modern way of thinking about ‘correctness’, it is very interesting to hear some of these pipers,” said Barry Shears. “A project of this type could only have been conducted here because I know of nowhere else in the world where some of these older archaic forms of piping remained in play for so long.” Barry Shears was 12 years old when he began taking piping lessons PIPING TODAY • 27 CAPE BRETON CAPE BRETON with Angus MacIntyre, a retired coal miner. He went on to gain the Canadian Armed Forces (Reserve) Pipe Major’s Certificate at 24, and BIG JIM the Senior and Teacher’s Certificates from the Institute of Piping (now the Piping and Drumming Qualifications Board) in Scotland. SHEARS - 3 A successful solo competitor, he was a six times CAPTION winner of the Champion Supreme trophy for professional piping in Nova Scotia. “I work for the local telephone company and, in 1983, I fell off a telephone pole and injured my shoulder. It left me with a nerve impingement in the bottom hand that’s kept me out of competitive piping. Piping was such a big part of my life so, inspired by people like Helen Creighton, I began to do research instead.” Helen Creighton was a Nova Scotian broad- caster who began collecting folklore in 1928 and, over the next half century compiled 13 books of folk songs, ballads and stories and an extensive collection of photographs, sound recordings, documents and cinematography in English, French, Gaelic, Mi’kmaq (the aborigi- nal language of eastern Canada) and German. “She came to Cape Breton to record stories in the 1960s but there was one piper, Rory MacKinnon, who refused to tell her any stories until she recorded him playing the bagpipes. The recording is only a couple of minutes in duration but it’s great and reflects an older form of bagpipe performance” said Barry Shears. “I’ve found that, in a lot of these old recordings of the ear players (pipers trained solely by ALEX CURRIE… “He had over 600 tunes; he never really read music and had learned most of his repertoire from his mother and grandmother singing the tunes. That’s a lot of puirt à beul. Alex said that during the Depression he’d play the ear and example), each region had its own style pipes for social dancing sometimes five nights a week. People wanted to dance to the pipes because you could hear them of playing. I’m not about to say that, because over the sound of the dancers.” these people were from Skye and Raasay, for example, as was the case with Rory MacKinnon’s much like pipers here in the 1820s. Scotland “For all that,” he said, “it came as quite a family, that this is the way they used to play in went through a series of changes and so did we. shock to me when, during my pipe major’s Skye and Raasay in the 19th century. We can’t Here though, the big changes — like musical course in Ottawa in 1980, Archie Cairns, senior be sure. But it is interesting that they played the literacy and military piping — came in at a piper with the Canadian Armed Forces at the way that they did, given that they were only two much later date and a lot of the traditional time, told me strathspeys and reels were not and three generations removed from the immi- practices, like bagpipe making and traditional meant to be danced to. The only exception was grant pipers and fairly knowledgeable in what step dance music, lingered here until well into playing for Highland dancers.” they’d picked up in their own communities, the 20th century. Barry Shears said that at the workshops he often from extended family members. “When he was teaching me, Angus Mc- gives around North America, the first ques- Intyre, a descendant of the MacIntyre pipers tion people usually ask is what the difference “IN Scotland, piping developed into a form of to Clanranald from Smerclate in South Uist, is between Cape Breton piping and Scottish art music,” said Barry Shears. “It’s very techni- would say, ‘this is how they played it,’ and he’d piping. cal and beautiful to listen to but it doesn’t serve show me variations of the way the old timers “I tell them Cape Breton piping is largely a community function in the same way that fingered certain embellishments. But I never dance music,” he said, “whereas in Scotland, it dance music did in Nova Scotia. paid much attention to that then because, became art music and the playing of strathpeys “What I’m trying to say with this book is when I was 15 and went into the Militia, and and reels in the old country is unsuitable for that we had our own tradition here until com- was taking courses in Ottawa and at summer step-dancing.” paratively recently. It is very likely that pipers Army camps, they played pretty much in the Barry Shears said there was, early in the 20th in Scotland in the 1820s were playing very standard competition style. century, a step dance piper in Cape Breton PIPING TODAY • 28 CAPE BRETON CAPE BRETON had different names and different settings for many of the tunes, said Barry Shears. “I sat down with Alex Currie (1910-1997), one of the last ear-trained pipers in Cape Breton, one evening with a copy of William Gunn’s Caledonian Repository of Music, first published around 1848. In the case of some of the tunes he recognised, he had better settings than those published in Scotland. He had over 600 tunes; he never really read music and had learned most of his repertoire from his mother and grandmother singing the tunes. That’s a lot of puirt à beul. Alex said that during the Depression he’d play the pipes for social dancing sometimes five nights a week. People wanted to dance to the pipes because you could hear them over the sound of the dancers. “On the CD, I have included a few minutes of a recording I made sitting with Alex Currie ‘BIG’ JIM MacINTYRE, whose father, Donald MacIntyre, emigrated from South Uist around 1826-28, was the grandson going over puirt à beul. He was 85 years old at or great grandson of Duncan MacIntyre, piper to MacDonald the time. He tells the story of the tune, sings a RORY MacKINNON… “Rory MacKinnon played snippets of Clanranald, around 1759. ‘Big Jim’, a celebrated piper and of a variation of Cha Till Mi Tuille (I Will Return No More) dancer in Cape Breton, died in 1916.

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