the Pipe and Tabor compendium

the Pipe and Tabor compendium

essays on the three-hole pipe

world wide traditions

USA and Canada

Hawaii - Nose Flute
playerplayer uses the left nostril
player photo of Maui Nei Native Expeditions courtesy of Tripadvisor
groupsmaller pipes give higher notes: auction 1945
decorated nose flutes holding one nostrilholding one nostril
 
Native American
plus beaded bandolier - Nez Perce Museum The bone flute was used to discourage evil spirits in ceremonial use. 
A four-hole Eagle bone flute (instead of the typical five-hole flute)
with its high pitch and functionality with one hand, was used for medicinal
healing, “This allowed the healer to have one hand free for passing it ove
r the body of the person being healed,” (source)
ArizonaArizona, playing for Pascola dance

These are the same indigenous people that still live in Mexico who were moved on in mid Victorian times.

 
Bill Baker paintingNew Mexico, painting by Bill Baker
Bill Baker paintingpainting by Bill Baker
 
USA early music

1897 Elizabethan music at Elizabethan Stage Art - review

“The Elizabethan Stage Society of London is devoted to an “educational work,” which seems to be somewhat
whimsical and impractical.  It gives occasional performances of Elizabethan plays…The old English music was
rendered by viol and virginal, pipe and tabor….”

The New York Times 1897-12-11: Vol 47

1937 Wellesley News

“Miss Evelyn K. Wells of the department of English literature
turned back the pages of history to the time of Queen Elizabeth
in a lecture for 101 students…In conclusion Miss Wells played
popular tunes on the pipe and tabor, the instruments of the country people. When she had finished everyone joined in Sellengers Round, an Elizabethan country dance.”

1939 Wellesley News

“Members of the demonstration group of the English Folk Dance Society of Boston will give a performance of traditional English
and American dances…In addition, Miss Evelyn K. Wells
of the English Literature Department will accompany a group
of morris and sword dances with the traditional instruments,
the pipe and tabor, and the recorder.

1943 Elizabethan Evening

“Elizabethan Evening Will Feature Singing,
Dances, Pipe and Tabor
…Plans for this evening, "in the spirit of a party in Elizabethan times," have been made by Miss Wells…closing the evening will be a few tunes on the pipe and tabor by Miss Wells followed by a country dance for the entire audience….”

Wellesley News,  Wellesley College,  Wellesley, Mass

1944 Elizabethan Program Presents Music, Dance, Popular Centuries Ago

"…The tradition was started eight years ago because
the instructors of English had wished for some time
that students would realize how much Elizabethan music
reflected the social life of the times," said Miss Evelyn Wells, director of the program. The first year Miss Wells was the only performer…There will also be some traditional tunes on
pipe and tabor. The program will end with some Country
dances for as many as will."

Wellesley News, v. 53, no. 10 Wellesley College,  Wellesley, Mass

1959 Radcliffe Concert
The New England Consort will give a program of medieval and Renaissance music at the Radcliffe Graduate Center concert Sunday evening at 7 o'clock.
The group includes… pipe and tabor…”

The Christian Science Monitor 1959-02-27: Vol 51 Iss 78

1972 music disc

Gene Murrow from California plays many instruments including the
pipe and tabor with the Canterbury Country Dance Orchestra

1981concert

“…Calliope gave an entertaining and instructive concert which endeared them to their audience….The Italian selections were delightful, exploring the gamut of instrumental combinations from a passionate viol duet to the sound of pipe and-tabor…”

Middlebury Campus 1981-05-01 : Volume LXXV, Issue 21

 
early musicplayer 20052005 Dick Bagwell and 'His Majestie's Musicians'
20082008 The New York Renaissance Band 20102010 at Pennsic
21st century21st century Musica Antiqua John TysonJohn Tyson, New England  
 
playing for dancing

London: 1624

“... Then Sir Thomas Gates, being desirous for to be revenged upon the Indians at Kekowhatan, did go thither
by water with a certain number of men and among the rest a taborer with him being landed, he caused the
taborer to play and dance thereby to allure the Indians to come unto him, the which prevailed. And then espying
a fitting opportunity fell in upon them, put five to the sword, wounded many others, ...”

JAMESTOWN: 1609-10: “STARVING TIME” GEORGE PERCY_
A TRUE RELATION of the Proceedings and Occurances of Moment which have happened in Virginia from the Time
Sir Thomas Gates shipwrecked upon the Bermudes anno 1609 until my departure out of the Countrywhich was in anno Domini 1612

18th century dancing: 18th century

Wooden Shoe Dance

"Wooden shoes were worn by the peasantry ….
During the throes of the Jacobite threats in the 1710s,
wooden shoes were used as a literary and visual metaphor
for the poverty and "slavery" to France and Rome that
popular imagination associated with a Catholic succession."

‘Country Dances from Colonial New York’ by Kate Van Winkle Keller
and George A. Fogg, 2000

 

1794 The Country Dance1794‘The New York magazine, or Literary Repository.’ c.1 v.5 pg 278, 1794

 
song for dancing title country dancesong‘Country Dances from Colonial New York’ by Kate Van Winkle Keller
and George A. Fogg, 2000
Victorianplaying for a couple dancing [drum page 4]
early Victorian

1881 The Household Cyclopedia of General Information - a handbook
of the practical and domestic arts of America in Victorian times, regarding sailors:

"... they should be indulged in any innocent amusement that will keep their
minds as well as bodies in a state of pleasant activity, and perhaps none is
then more proper than dancing. This makes a fiddle or a pipe and tabor
desirable acquisitions on board of every ship bound on a long voyage."

1982 1982Southwick Suffield Advertiser 1981-1983 Massachusetts
19621962 Nick playing for dancing,
North Carolina
19771977 Ernie Fischbach
playing in California
instrumentsBrad White 20232023 Brad White
In 1820 at the Peale Museum in Philadelphia, USA, when:
'Signor Helene and his Pandean Band' performed he did play on his 5 different instruments at the same time.
These included the Italian viola, Pandean pipes, Chinese bells, Turkish cymbals, and tenor drum; during
performances he also imitated a mockingbird and a canary with his voice.
'Building Little Italy, Philadelphia's Italians before Mass Migration' by Richard N. page 70, Juliani Pennsylvania State University Press,
1890 background music 1890Reports, Constitution, By-laws and List of Members - Page 12 Century Association (New York, N.Y.). 
 
folklore
1826 poem ‘The Death of Rosamond’1826‘Elegant extracts : a copious selection of instructive, moral, and entertaining passages, from the most eminent poets.’
1829 May Day

“…The peasants of the most romantic and secluded of our counties would rather spend their holiday
at a dog or a manfight, or in the smoky kitchen of a public-house, than join in the gayest sports of the
loveliest of May mornings…”

‘Atheneum; or, Spirit of the English Magazines’

1832 May-day not the same as it once was 1832The Journal of Health. v.3
1851 May Queen 1851Gleason's Pictorial Drawing-room Companion Volume 1 page 1 1853 May Day 1853Harper's New Monthly Magazine Volume 6 page 850
1860 poem ‘The Queen of the May’1860‘The household book of poetry’ by Dana, Charles A.
1891 1891American Monthly Review of Reviews Volume 3 page 547
1933 poem 1933The Deaf-mutes' Journal Vol. 62 No. 44 (Nov. 2, 1933)
1881 1881The Republican Journal (Belfast, Maine.), March 31, 1881


USA playing for morris dancers
Despite early attempts to use the pipe and tabor player to defeat the Native Americans over land, and some early 20th century
morris sides, the expansion of morris dancing did not occur until the 1970's.

1901 story

“…Would I were a morris-dancer now, with practice of this motion” he thought, as the muscles of his legs
became more and more weary ; and he marvelled understandingly at Will Kempe s famous dance to pipe
and tabor
from London to Norwich….”

‘CHAPTER XX. HOLYDAY S FURTHER ADVENTURES. in Captain Ravenshaw, or, The maid of Cheapside a romance of Elizabethan
London’ by Stephens, Robert Neilson

1968 program on CBS-TV;" The size of the space available limited the dancers to...six morris men and four girls for the country dances. Music was supplied by Fiddle, Accordion and Pipe and Tabor."  

Jessica Murrow played the pipe and tabor for The Bouwerie Boys Morris Dancers in New York City, USA, early 21st century. In 1981 she played Oboe, English Horn, Pipes and Tabor in a production of Macbeth on Broadway, USA.

Maggie Erickson also played in the same morris band on the pipe and tabor (1994).

USA
 
1964 World Fair1964 World Fair 20032003 playing for
morris dancing
Margaret Dale Barrand

20062006
Dennis Sherman

20092009 Boston Ale
 
20092009 Boston Ale
20092009 Jessica Murrow playing for morris dancing,
May Day New York
Roger CartwrightRoger Cartwright, Amherst, Massachusetts, died 2011 20132013 playing for
morris dancing in California
20132013 Ruth Olmsted Albany, New York
 
20182018 Carla McKenna
20212021 Ron Carnegie Jamestown,Virginia
Dennis SharmanDennis Sharman teaching
20232023 Ellis Montes  
 
illustrations
1860's1860's political cartoon 1898 advertisement1898 advertisement  

1910's1910's Christmas Card

early 20th century cartoonearly 20th century, drum and trumpet 20th centurylate 20th century
 
Canada

1812 - patriotic song.

'Hull's Incursion into Canada,'
“Come, tune up and summon, with pipe and with tabor,
Sweet Echo to sound a Salute to Our Neighbour,
Whom Nap, the Destroyer of peace and good Order,
Persuaded to make an Attack on our Border….”

A COLLECTION OF THE POEMS OF JONATHAN ODELL WITH A BIOGRAPHICAL
AND CRITICAL INTRODUCTION by JOAN JOHNSTON ANDERSON page 23

1814 - satire.

'A SECOND SALUTE TO NEIGHBOUR MADISON'
“Once more let us summon, with pipe and with tabor,
Sweet Echo, to sound a Salute to our Neighbour,
Whom Nap, the Destroyer of peace and good Order,
Set on to invade our Canadian Border.
Impell'd by the foe to all peace and good Order,
Neighbour Madison rashly invaded our Border….”

A COLLECTION OF THE POEMS OF JONATHAN ODELL WITH A BIOGRAPHICAL
AND CRITICAL INTRODUCTION by JOAN JOHNSTON ANDERSON page 119

JOhn Galt Poem‘The Collected Poems of John Galt,’ 1779-1839, vol II
1888 Ye Greate Arte Fayre Toronto - ‘The Piper ... Mr Stuart Morrison’1888Toronto Daily Mail - Thursday 17 May 1888
1901 poem 1901'The Downing legends, stories in rhyme' by De Forest, John William

1901-1942 Toronto textbook poem:
‘The Procession of the Flowers’ by Sydney Dobell

“…As the happy people come
When the war has roll’d away,
With dance and tabor, pipe and drum,
And all make holiday….”

Folder 143 — Textbooks — Margaret Eaton School Toronto 1901-1942

1968 poem

 “…The lights are dimmed, shocked shades no longer moan,
Stilled the rude roaring of the saxophone;
The song is done, the poet makes his bow,
Then makes an end, cease pipe and tabor now….”

‘Old Times’, January 1968

1972 ‘AN ENTERTAINMENT FOR ELIZABETH being A Most Excellent Princely Maske of the Seven
Motions orTerpsichore Unchain‘d’

MUSICIANS OF THE CONSORT included Shelley Gruskin who played Flute, recorder, crumhorn,
pipe & tabor amongst other instruments.

‘An entertainment for Elizabeth : a Renaissance spectacle with singers, dancers and instrumentalists’by University of Toronto. Faculty of Music

1929 newspaper article 1929The Carbon chronicle (1929-10-10) 19291929 Joan Sharp
19841984 Ontario
Ian Morrison
with Marlboro Men


Canada 21st century21st century Canada

 

20072007 Orange Peel Morris, Ontario
CanadaNorman Stanfield,
British Columbia, Canada

2007 Norman Stanfield

 “…The Morris Men were performing during the fair and met Norman Stanfield, one of only a handful of North American musicians who played the pipe and tabor, an original Morris dancing accompaniment. Stanfield … introduced them to Mummer plays….”

‘Canadian Consulting Engineer’, 2007, Vol.48 (6), p.98

20232023 Annette Bauer Montreal, Canada
 

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