PIPING PAST AND FUTURE
Instrument celebrated in recent new books
Instrument celebrated in recent new books.
Mention Celtic music and most people think fiddle. Talk to Barry Shears for a few moments and it’s not long before you can imagine a time when the bagpipes were heard just as much.
Originally from Glace Bay but now living in B.C., Shears was recently in Cape Breton releasing his latest two books, “Play it like you sing it: The Shears Collection of Bagpipe Culture and Dance Music from Nova Scotia, Volumes 1 and 2.
Shears, 62, who has spent more than 40 years extensively researching the instrument’s history in Cape Breton, says piping used to be much more popular around here. Apparently every community had their own pipers and some places even made their own instruments. In a phone interview with The Cape Breton Post, he says one piper told him he played five dances a week with a piano player during the 1930s.
“In some areas the violin was not as popular as people make it out to be,” said Shears in a recent interview. “In some areas violin players were not that plentiful so the piper was called to play for the scotch fours and the lancers.”
Pipers often played dances up until the 1960s although it doesn’t happen much now.
“Pipers were the purveyors of dance music in a lot of communities.”
Ironically, Shears found himself called out for trying to ride on the fiddle’s coattails when he played an event a few years ago in Antigonish with his
daughter who step-danced.
“We’re not trying to play fiddle tunes on the pipes, the fiddlers are playing pipe tunes on the fiddle,” Shears reminded the person. “Pipes were here first - we were there first.”
Shears began learning the instrument when he was 12 years old. He took lessons from Angus MacIntyre on Highland St. in Glace Bay and during the summers, he’d go to army cadet camp in Gagetown and learn the more competitive “correct” style needed to play in groups. In addition to playing with other pipers, he’s played with John Allan Cameron and Stan Rogers in Scotland as well as with John Morris Rankin and Jerry Holland and his music has been used in movies. He won the Champion Supreme trophy in Nova Scotia an unprecedented six times and studied piobaireachd (classical piping known for its difficulty) in Scotland before the unthinkable happened.
“I got a job at the telephone company and my spurs kicked out on a pole at George’s River and I fell,” he said. “I separated
my shoulder so I have a disability in that arm. Some days I would play better than others and in competition, you can’t really do that. You can’t really be at the top of your game. I competed a few more years like that but I started to get interested in other pipers around.”
Because of that injury, Shears devoted himself to learning everything about Cape Breton piping and six books later, he’s done just that. Through his research, he’s unearthed hundreds of tunes, including a variety of settings for traditional standards. The new books feature 250 of those in the second volume while the first volume is devoted to photos of pipers, a look at the lineage of various piping families and a section on immigrant and locally made bagpipes.
According to Shears, at one time it was commonplace for competitions to occur between fiddlers and pipers to see who could play the best dance music. And many people played both instruments.
“A lot of them were dual musicians,” he said, adding that several well-known fiddlers like Ashley MacIsaac and Kinnon Beaton are descended from pipers or piper/fiddlers.
One piper/fiddler in particular, Dan Rory MacDougall, was particularly known for his stamina.
“I heard stories of him walking 30 to 36 miles to play for a wedding and then the dance would follow, alternating between the pipes and the violin all night and into the morning. He had a great lift to his music.”
Many of these musicians learned their music from their mothers and grandmothers who would sing them Gaelic songs. It’s that ability to play an instrument as if you’re singing that makes all the difference and inspired the book’s name.
“Several pipers had told me that’s how you get the inflection. Just play it like you’re singing it.”
Piping may not be as popular now but Shears says a lot of that has to do with the instrument itself. Tuning and loudness issues can be a problem but a newer instrument, the Scottish smallpipes, is proving to be a more quiet and adaptable solution that blends well with other instruments. Shears expects the smallpipes to keep growing in popularity among players.
In addition to several events in Nova Scotia, Shears will launch the books in Victoria, BC and Seattle, Washington next month. He says while he still gives workshops, teaches and occasionally performs, he really enjoys the research aspect of his piping life.
“If I didn’t fall off that poll and retire from competition in my early 30s I probably wouldn’t have gone around and collected all of this stuff,” he says. “Maybe it was meant to be.”