Traditional Gaelic Bagpiping, 1745-1945

Arts & Photography

Gibson, John G.

Music

McGill Queens Univ

<p>Pulling together what is known of eighteenth-century West Highland piping and pipers and relating this to the effects of changing social conditions on traditional Scottish Gaelic piping since the suppression of the last Jacobite rebellion, Gibson presents a new interpretation of the decline of Gaelic piping and a new view of Gaelic society prior to the Highland diaspora. Refuting widely accepted opinions that after Culloden pipes and pipers were effectively banned in Scotland by the Disarming Act (1746), Gibson reveals that traditional dance bagpiping continued at least to the mid-nineteenth century. He argues that the dramatic depopulation of the Highlands in the nineteenth century was one of the main reasons for the decline of piping. Following the path of Scottish emigrants, Gibson traces the history of bagpiping in the New World and uncovers examples of late eighteenth-century traditional bagpiping and dance in Gaelic Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. He argues that these anachronistic cultural forms provide a vital link to the vanished folk music and culture of the Scottish highlanders. This definitive study throws light on the ways pipers and piping contributed to social integration in the days of the clan system and on the decline in Scottish Gaelic culture following the abolition of clans. It also illuminates the cultural problems faced by all ethnic minorities assimilated into unitary multinational societies. </p>

McGill-Queen's University Press

<p>The work is the result of over thirty years of oral fieldwork among the last Gaels in Cape Breton, for whom piping fit unself-consciously into community life, as well as an exhaustive synthesis of Scottish archival and secondary sources. Reflecting the invaluable memories of now-deceased new world Gaelic lore-bearers, John Gibson shows that traditional community piping in both the old and new world Gàihealtachlan was, and for a long time remained, the same, exposing the distortions introduced by the tendency to interpret the written record from the perspective of modern, post-eighteenth-century bagpiping. Following up the argument in his previous book, Traditional Gaelic Bagpiping, 1745-1945, Gibson traces the shift from tradition to modernism in the old world through detailed genealogies, focusing on how the social function of the Scottish piper changed and step-dance piping progressively disappeared. Old and New World Highland Bagpiping will stir controversy and debate in the piping world while providing reminders of the value of oral history and the importance of describing cultural phenomena with great care and detail.</p>

Old and New World Highland Bagpiping (McGill-Queen’s Studies in Ethnic History) (Volume 38)

Biographies & Memoirs

Arts & Literature

Old and New World Highland Bagpiping (Volume 38) (McGill-Queen's Studies in Ethnic History)

The step-dancing of the Scotch Gaels in Nova Scotia is the last living example of a form of dance that waned following the great emigrations to Canada that ended in 1845. The Scotch Gael has been reported as loving dance, but step-dancing in Scotland had all but disappeared by 1945. One must look to Gaelic Nova Scotia, Cape Breton, and Antigonish County, to find this tradition. Gaelic Cape Breton Step-Dancing, the first study of its kind, gives this art form and the people and culture associated with it the prominence they have long deserved. Gaelic Scotland?s cultural record is by and large pre-literate, and references to dance have had to be sought in Gaelic songs, many of which were transcribed on paper by those who knew their culture might be lost with the decline of their language. The improved Scottish culture depended proudly on the teaching of dancing and the literate learning and transmission of music in accompaniment. Relying on fieldwork in Nova Scotia, and on mentions of dance in Gaelic song and verse in Scotland and Nova Scotia, John Gibson traces the historical roots of step-dancing, particularly the older forms of dancing originating in the Gaelic?speaking Scottish Highlands. He also places the current tradition as a development and part of the much larger British and European percussive dance tradition. With insight collected through written sources, tales, songs, manuscripts, book references, interviews, and conversations, Gaelic Cape Breton Step-Dancing brings an important aspect of Gaelic history to the forefront of cultural debate.

Gaelic Cape Breton Step-Dancing: An Historical and Ethnographic Perspective (McGill-Queen's Studies in Ethnic History)

Old and New World Highland Bagpiping is a stimulating and controversial book which also provides a comprehensive biographical and genealogical account of pipers and piping in both Highland Scotland and Gaelic Cape Breton.The result of over thirty years' oral fieldwork among the last of the Gaels in Cape Breton, as well as an exhaustive synthesis of Scottish archival sources, this book shows that traditional community bagpiping in the Old and New World Gø idhealtachdan was, and for a long time remained, the same. John Gibson explores the distortions introduced by the tendency to interpret the written record from the perspective of modern, post-eighteenth-century bagpiping.

Old and New World Highland Bagpiping

Birlinn

This book is written from the point of view of some scholarship, and from the point of view of someone whose historical and ethnographic research work has been done mostly from Judique in Cape Breton. The author's imaginative and stimulating blend of personal reminiscence and rigorous research demonstrates that Highland history can almost always be, and often best is, done from a local starting point. It exposes the first struggles from ruralism into industrialism on the fringes of Lochaber and Ardgour and what happened in a depopulated area of Gaelic Scotland for a century from 1840.

The Back O' the Hill: Highland Yesterdays

History

Europe

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Gibson, John G.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Gibson, John G.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Gibson, John G.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Traditional Gaelic Bagpiping, 1745-1945

Traditional Gaelic Bagpiping, 1745-1945

Old and New World Highland Bagpiping (McGill-Queen’s Studies in Ethnic History) (Volume 38)

Old and New World Highland Bagpiping (Volume 38) (McGill-Queen's Studies in Ethnic History)

Gaelic Cape Breton Step-Dancing: An Historical and Ethnographic Perspective (McGill-Queen's Studies in Ethnic History)

Old and New World Highland Bagpiping

The Back O' the Hill: Highland Yesterdays