Talk about Campbell Canntaireachd

During the Piping Live festival in Glasgow, there was a talk on “The Quest – the Search for the Lost Volume of the Campbell Canntaireachd” at the Piping Centre in Glasgow.

The talk was light-hearted and informative, explaining what the Canntaireachd is, with 2 tunes being played in full by Derek Midgely. One of these had been taught to Derek in the “traditional” manner – ie not using written music at all, but entirely learned by listening to the tune being sung or played on the practice chanter. This manner of learning a tune used to be the norm, but is now uncommon, though I hear it occurs in Germany, and Barnaby Brown is a keen fan of teaching using Canntaireachd.

In addition the talk ended with the first public performance of an unpublished Campbell Canntaireachd tune called Mac MhicAlisters Dead Lament. The scoring of this tune onto the stave is still being perfected, and is a bit tricky, as several vocables are missing from the ground and the variations.

Here is a description of what the Piobaireachd Society has done so far in trying to trace the possible lost volume and also a further explanation about the Campbell Canntaireachd

Thank you to those who came along and supported us.

Peter McCalister