Date: Sun, 4 Oct 1998 06:08:37 -0700 (PDT)
From: William Marshall <sol_marsh@yahoo.com>
It is interesting to read the definition of half-long pipes in the NS Pipers's Soc rule book. Is there an equally definitive explanation for the origin and meaning of the term "half-long"?

From: James Richmond <Seumas.Richmond@btinternet.com>
Date: Sun, 04 Oct 98 17:18:29 +0100 ( + )
William Marshall has just raised questions about the 'so-called' half-longs. This subject has already had quite an airing in NSP's Newsletters and Magazine.
Refer to N/L Nov 96, page 3, Magazine (Vol 17) 1996, N/L July 97 page 10, N/L Oct 97 page 16.
We - at Morpeth - consider that the only reference to half-longs should be about the Robertson Half- Longs, and that the correct name should be Border or Lowl and Pipes. Robertsons of Grove Street, Edinburgh - together with others of the Society, during the 1920's - invented the drone arrangements for these pipes by putting in a dominant between the base and the tenor, instead of a base and two tenors.
There is a wealth of information in the archives of the Chantry Bagpipe Museum, and even though the Border pipes are my main instrument and I only live about 9 miles away, its all a matter of finding the time to get there and do the research.

Received: from RTE395@aol.com
Date: Sun, 4 Oct 1998 20:34:49 EDT
In Thompson's LIFE OF JAMES ALLEN, Newcastle, 1828, he gives, as a footnote, the following. Even though many of the events recorded are likely mere folklore, the footnote description and terminology of the pipes current in 1828 is interesting, and it has a ring of first hand knowledge about it. I haven't seen this quoted in Society literature, so for the benefit of others who have also not read it, I send it here. The EMPHASIS is mine.

"The HIGHLAND BAGPIPE consists of a CHANTER AND TWO SHORT DRONES. It is an open chanter, the same as the German flute [transverse] or hautboy [oboe]. It plays only the natural notes, and its sound is exceedingly martial and deafening.
"The IRISH or UNION PIPE has TWO SHORT DRONES AND A LONG ONE. It is tuned by lengthening or shortening the drone, and produces very soft and melodious sounds.
"The NORTHUMBERLAND PIPE was much anciently used by the borderers, and is the SAME AS THE SCOTS LOWLAND PIPE. It is blown with bellows, and HAS A BASS like the Irish pipe. It cannot play the natural notes, but, in its improved form, has F sharp. The lowest note is in unison with D on a violin tuned concert pitch; and it has but fourteen notes, the highest being B in alt. From its peculiar construction, the music which it plays is accompanied with such peculiar ornaments as neither violin nor even organ can imitate but in an imperfect manner. It is extremely well calculated for playing that rustic species of music called reels.
"THE SMALL PIPE is remarkable for its smallness. By having the lower hole of the chanter COMMONLY STOPPED, and also by the peculiar way in which the notes are expressed, it plays in a way called by the Italians STACCATO. It is surprising what volubility some performers on this instrument will display, and how dexterously they overcome its NATURAL DISADVANTAGES. The late Mr. JOHN PEACOCK, of Newcastle, IMPROVED THIS INSTRUMENT GREATLY; and Mr. REED [SIC], piper, in North Shields, has MADE SOME VERY ELEGANT AND SWEET TONED PIPES.

He goes on to say, " James Allen could play on the HIGHLAND BAGPIPE, but he excelled most on the SMALL PIPES. He also played well on the NORTHUMBERLAND RAISING, or GATHERING PIPES, called THE GREAT PIPES, to distinguish them from the small ones; and could perform well on the UNION PIPES."
Bob Graham

Date: Sun, 4 Oct 1998
From: Ian Lawther <ian@northernlight.demon.co.uk>
Robertson and others (Charlton and Cocks included I think) did come up with this drone arrangement for the revived half-long in the 1920s, but I do not think theirs was original thought.

Part of the thinking was to provide a local instrument for marching bands on the highland pipe band style. This process had already been gone through by the Irish. Roughly speaking the Scottish regimental bands came into being in the 1840s and 50s, and Irish regiments followed in the 1860s and later. These originally used a revived Irish warpipe which was a highland pipe with a tenor drone removed to give the resemblance of older pipes illustrated by Derrick. Later a more developed Irish pipe was invented by William O'Duane and Henry Starck who patented it in 1906 and called it the Brien Boru Warpipe. This had drones tuned in fifths, tenor A/ baritone E/ bass A.
Assuming that the desire was to have a Northumbrian "military/ marching" pipe in the same way that the Irish had followed the Scots it is very likely that Robertson/Cocks et al would have been aware of the Brien Boru pipes and the drone configuration. It is of course also the normal intervals at which the NSP are tuned so it would make sense to copy it
I have no evidence that this is how the development went but there seems a lot of logical progression in it.

From: "Ewan Barker" <e.barker@ballarat.edu.au>
Date: Mon, 5 Oct 1998 10:26:43 +1000
I have always thought (without really knowing) that it is natural for cylindrical bore instruments to have a drone set up of tonic-fifth-tonic because the lowest drone is only one octave below the chanter key note. Thus the drones are the second, third and fourth harmonics of (and so imply) a notional drone two octaves below the key note.
On the other hand, with conical bore instruments the bass drone isalready two octaves below the key note, and so bass-tenor-tenor orbass-tenor-fifth are the fundamental, second and second (or third)harmonics of this drone. With these instruments tonic-fifth-tonic drones would imply a drone three octaves below the chanter key note.

Date: Mon, 5 Oct 1998 09:31:16 -0700 (PDT)
From: William Marshall <sol_marsh@yahoo.com>
Thanks to those who responded to my query about the meaning of half-longs. The e-mails made interesting reading. But, beyond the all-important aspects of drone arrangement etc, what I really want to know is, why the term "half long"? Does it mean half as long as something or half as long again as something else? What is the usual answer to this basic etymological question? (Or is etymological to dowith insects? I can never remember which is which....)

 From: "Philip Gruar" <philip@gruar.clara.net>
Date: Tue, 6 Oct 1998
The problem with drones which include the fifth is that they will clash with tunes that use the three-finger note as tonic. Tunes which use the limited range of one octave, i.e. most early pipe tunes, tend to be divided into those where the tonic is at the bottom of the range - the tune lies between tonic and tonic, "six-finger tonic", and those where the tonic is in the middle - it lies between dominant and dominant, "three finger tonic". (I over simplify of course, there are also those where the tonic is the "five-finger" note, and double-tonic tunes,) Anybody who has played in a Highland pipe band will know the cheerful abandon with which marching sets of tunes switch between three-finger and six-finger tonics. Any pipes which have a drone at the fifth above the six-finger chanter note cannot cope with such changes and retain the sympathy of the sensitive listener. The single drone note of the Highland pipes goes with both tonics.
A three finger tonic also presupposes a chanter with a flattened 7th, as with a chanter tuned in the Northumbrian manner there will be an augmented fourth above the three-finger note - e.g. C to F sharp. Of course Northumbrian smallpipes often get round the problem of tunes that lie between dominant and dominant by still keeping the six-finger note as the keynote, but using the keys to go below it. Incidentally, the French baroque musette de cour, following what I think is the more usual French style, assumes a three-finger tonic as normal, which is why the musette extended the range upwards with keys on the "petit chalumeau", and not downwards like the Northumbrian chanter.
How did the marching bands with Half-Longs cope with the problem? Was it by severely limiting their choice of tunes? What about the 7th - Should the Northumbrian "Half-Long" have a sharp 7th and the Scottish Border pipes a flat 7th.?

From: "Gerald Gardiner" <gardiner@orangenet.co.uk>
Date: Tue, 6 Oct 1998 01:17:04 +0100
I've been sitting on this for a while, the moment seems ripe, so here goes (unfortunately without highlights and italics as written) I hope to get a more polished version out for the NPS magazine.( if they want it)

HALF LONGS HOUGH LUNGS Ged Gardiner
I have for some time now found myself intrigued by the meaning of the term Half Long given to border/lowland pipes. For a while I let the problem simmer, occasionally pondering as I wondered whether the term was a phonic approximation rather than literate.
I eventually came across a clue in Matt Seattles book on the Dixon Manuscript The Master Piper, where some racy text was given for the tune Lasses make your tails toddle (I advise those of a nervous disposition to leave the translation of this one alone) spread your houghs lat in the dodle etc., this was clearly anatomical either knees or thighs. I also recalled my dear departed mother-in-law stating that hough (pronounced hoff ) was the best cut for stewing and as her husband Billy Milburn was a weel-knaan butcher in the Grainger Market, I was sure I could have no better authority for this fact.
A search in Collins English Dictionary clarified that Hough is a scotch word, synonymous with hock ( the joint of the tibia ibid.) also the cut of meat known as shin (the lower foreleg ibid.) in England . As well, is given Haugh a piece of low lying land by a bend in a river ( probably from the old English Healh a nook or corner)
In the The Scots Word Book by William Graham, I found Hoch lower thigh. The Oxford Dictionary gives a full column to Haugh, from which one can distil a northern word for the rear knee or elbow of a horse or other quadruped. Taking the Old English root of the word and its varied anatomical uses, both animal and human, as well as topographic it is perfectly possible that the word could also have been used for the human elbow or arm. Taking this together with one of the ODs entries for Long- obscure form of Lung, and we have Half Longs- Hough Longs Elbow Lungs Bellows Pipes !

Ray Sloan mentions in his 1996 article "Whats in a name?" that the Stoddart family of Ashington, descendants of Muckle Jock Milburn. had known his pipes as "Half Longs" for 150 years. It follows then, that this expression was valid a long time ago, so long ago, that its original "meaning" has been forgotten, to the extent that its use is almost spurned by some today.
Such a familiar colloquialism as Elbow Lungs seems more appropriate than Border Pipes or Lowland Pipes as the sortt of term by which these pipe would be known to the pipers and their native audience, and which would immediately distinguish them from other pipes.

From: RTE395@aol.com
Date: Tue, 6 Oct 1998
Very interesting. Certainly sounds analogous to Grattan Flood's "Uilleann--Shakespeare's phonetic 'wollen'--further corrupted to Union, meaning elbow, ei, bellows pipes!
Bob Graham

Date: Tue, 6 Oct 1998
From: Julia Say <Julia.Say@nspipes.demon.co.uk>
The Stoddarts were photograped in 185? - therefore Ged is talking about 1700-ish. (The photo is in Matt Seattle's Morpeth Rant tune book)
I was going to add (?) to the discussion an extract from Mike Pindar's 'Glossary for Northumbrian Pipers' in the 1996 mag:
Half-longs - a sort of bagpipe, half as long as Highland pipes, and twice as long as Northumbrian. Said to be a halfway house between the two. This doesnt half seem unlikely.
and, a local explanation: so called because players are only tolerated for half as long as they would like to be.

From: "Robin AP Worrall" <robin.pazzazz@vip.cybercity.dk>
Date: Tue, 06 Oct 98 22:40:07 PDT
Have followed the debate so far it seems that Gerald Gardiner is absolutely spot on with his erudite analysis of the definition of the half-longs.
As a former native of Edinburgh for 26 years, where, as it happened I liv ed for some time a mere 50 metres from Grove Street, the home of Robertso ns, I would agree with all that Gerald Gardiner has written about 'hough' (used to buy it myself from the local butcher.
What I should like to offer (from my experience of Scottish dance and reel music, both as a dancer and a player) is an addendum to how exactly 'Ho ugh Lungs' should end up as 'Half Longs'.
Looking at the development of pipe music as a whole we would all have to agree that the 19th century was the key era for the development and suppo rt of the music that we know today played on all the UK mainland chanter and drone instruments. ( I purposfully exclude Ireland in this context.

Victorian Pax Brittania was an extremely powerful engine for the encouragement of the arts and music, and we need to look no further than the film starring Billy Connelly (Tha Bigyin), playing Brown to Queen Victoria in 'Mrs Brown', to understand that the Middle and Upper classes took to the idea of Scottish Dance and Pipe music precisely because 'Her Majesty' was pleased to do so. This de-facto approval of 'Scottish' music (also including the fiddle) was echoed across the broad spectrum of the upper and middle classes who patronised players, composer, and instrument makers throughout Britain. And even before Queen Victoria gave the nod, so to speak, the Coal Barons of lowland Scotland, estate owners etc, had been commissioning the like s of Robert Macintosh to write countless tunes for their wives and friend s (viz Lady Beatrice Hamilton (strathspey) The Countess of Seafield(jig) Duchess of Richmond (reel) etc, etc, etc)
Of course this kind of middle and upper class patronage extended to the Northumbrian Small Pipes (as it continues to do so today).

But my real point is how the 'Hough Lungs' became the 'Half Longs'.
Well it's a question of the spoken language in the circle of the patrons. Imagine ' if ya wull' a worth middle/upper class patron enquiring of a maker or player of the ' Hough Lungs' "now tell me my good man what exactly did you say these pipes were called?"
And the answer was that 'auld bugger-lugs wouldne ken nought aboot 'Hough Lungs sae i teld ham "half-longs sir, there called 'Half longs'. And so I suspect ever since they have remained. ("Fine player we had tonight on the 'half longs' we had tonight Gerald. Half as long as the Highland War pipes don't you think ..... etc, etc)

As a PS to this, and because I now live in Denmark, you can also see what the middle and upper classes did to gentrify the cloakroom. Orininally 'Kloak' in nordic languages meaning drain (you can still be a kloak meste r (drain master craftsman) in Denmark today), the word 'kloak room' would have originally referred to the early sanitary arrangements first introd uced indoors during and the late 16th and early 17th century. And surpris e surprise Scotland's very own James VI (James I of England and Scotland 1603) was married to (yes you guessed it) a Danish princess.
Skip 250 years forward to Victorian and Imperial Britain and you arrive in an era of middle and upper class prudity where under no circumstances should bodily functions either be discussed or alluded to. So what better way to dispose of the real meaning of the 'kloak room' but to turn it into a 'cloak room' adjacent to a hall where you hung your coat. And what better word to adopt for the real drain room than, that simply rose peta l smelling french derivated (toilette) word, the 'toilet'.
Noo I hae nae maire lungs left.

Date: Thu, 8 Oct 1998
From: Barry Say <Barry.Say@nspipes.demon.co.uk>
First, a reply to Ian's post:
Half-lungs:Colin Bradford (who may well be eavesdropping on this) said that he was convinced that this was the proper name for these pipes, because when he was working in the north of the county they were referred to as hairf lungs (lousy representation). I have just purchased a set of pipes from someone who lived at Middle Haugh Cottages, which I would pronounce hoff as in cough, but on the phone he pronounced it as something much closer to half (the fraction). Northumbrian vowels are flexible

From: "Gerald Gardiner" <gardiner@orangenet.co.uk>
Date: Sat, 10 Oct 1998
I think that quote dates from a mid 1920s magazine article or the acquisition of the Muckles or in correspondence with Cocks ( poss all concurrant) so I'm prooooobably talking about 1772 ( the date on the Muckles ?)

From: Colin Ross <Rosspipes@aol.com
Date: Sat, 10 Oct 1998
I remember going up to Edinburgh some years ago to try to persuade Andy Ross at Glen's the pipemakers to make some simple sets of NSP's from a set I had made as an example. His response was predictable in that he regarded the set as a toy and couldn't help me. It wasn't a real bagpipe in his eyes and although he wasn't unpleasant about it he made it quite plain his attitude to the "toy" pipes.
Can I suggest that this was a common attitude to any other pipes in Scotland apart from the Highland pipes,not only in recent years but going back some time e.g.MacDonalds Compleat Theory of the Scots Highland Bagpipe 1803, where he refers to the Pastoral pipe and its music with such terms as "wretched, insipid. contemptible, etc."(see page 28 in the reprint)
With this in mind his contemporaries in the 18th Cent may have called any other pipe than the Highland pipe "Halflins" The definition is found in Chambers Scots Dictionary(as found by my wife Ray) and says - Half grown, a stripling, not fully grown, incomplete .Could be a derisory term used by the Highland pipers to anything less than the Piob mhor.
The other meaning of "Halflin" -halfwitted or foolish would add to their opinion of these lesser pipes especially if they were over the Border It doesn't take too much of a stretch of the imagination to change Halflin to Halflong although it takes a bit of swallowing to think we have been living with the joke for so long.

From: "Gerald Gardiner" <gardiner@orangenet.co.uk>
Date: Sat, 10 Oct 1998
Dear Colin and earthlins
The OD has;- Halflang - 1875 Encyc Brit - a cross betwixt the Cheviot ram and a Black faced ewe - must have been very confusing for the shepherd pipers !
also:,Halfling - generally in the sense as given above by Chambers all of which gets us back round to half longs and to " half what ?" which is where I came in !

PS any interest in a delicious Hough recipe ?

From: Rosspipes@aol.com
Date: Sun, 25 Oct 1998
No, the Hoffnungs. Invented 100 years ago from the remains of a Victorian vacuum cleaner. This was the original instrument that was copied in the 1920's and mistakenly called the Half - Longs after the name of its inventor Mr. G. Hoffnung. I rest my case.(about time!)

Date: Mon, 26 Oct 1998
From: Bill Telfer <telomsha@netvigator.com>
Sounds as plausible as the 'hough lungs' version. Having just come back after being away for a few weeks (so forgive me for raking over what to most will be cold coals) it was amusing to read the whole thread at one sitting.
What I had concluded from Colin's wrap-up of the matter in the Newsletter of Oct? 97 was that the term 'half long' itself was probably a spurious 1920's invention - a 'misnomer'
Is there any evidence other than that quoted as coming from within the family descendants of 'Muckle Jock' that the term was used at all before the ill-fated 20's revival?
Why, if a quintessentially Scottish word like hough is to be invoked,(and it's still widely used- potted hough, ham hough etc., or at least it was when I was a halflin. Even in Glasgow that's what you'd ask for at the butchers. Houghmagandie has always been widely available too, but not generally at the butchers),why was nothing resembling hough or half ever used to describe the same pipes, played far and wide throughout Scotland?
Besides, hough in Scotland is pronounced with the old guttaral ch sound as in 'loch'. While this has been lost in modern English, surely even in Northumberland today, and more especially 200 years ago you wouldn’t pronounce the word as if it had an "f" at the end would you? Hepple Hauff?
Ged takes us on a tortuous (but not ingenious, since he clearly has the Irish 'uilleann' for elbow in mind all along-and I'll deal with that in a minute) route from shin then thigh bone to arm and elbow.
Smallpipes playing involves the same arm/elbow actions and could be imbued with the exact same bellows,bag, lungs analogy, so why were they never covered by such appellation? No, I fear this is a rationalization leaning heavily on the uillean pipe precedent.
Yet this in itself could be rather dubiously founded. I quote from an article entitled "Unravelling the History of the Uilleann Pipes" by Paul Roberts in Common Stock Vol.1 No. 2, nov 1984 :

"Finally in 20th century Ireland they (the Irish Union pipes) have come to be called the uilleann pipes. This name is now so universally accepted that it seems pedantic to object to it, yet it is really quite spurious. In 1911 the Irish scholar Grattan Flood put forward the theory that "union" could be a corruption of the Irish word "uilleann" meaning "elbow". It was an interesting idea, though there was no evidence as such to support it. Unfortunately enthusiastic Irish patriots seized on the name and popularised it.....".

So Grattan opened the Floodgates (sorry) of political correctness.
Even though, as Paul explains elsewhere in the article they had been called union pipes historically and for quite good reasons which he explains, there being previously nothing politically pejorative in the use of the term 'union', at least in that context. Or so I imagine. We seem to have a need for couthy derivations and myth-invention. For example the widespread adoption of the silly term "cauld-wind pipes" for all Scottish bellows pipes in their current revival, which I am yet to be convinced has any more meaningful foundation than the silly 'half-long' term you seem stuck with in Northumberland. Lowland, or Border pipes suits me fine.

From: RTE395@aol.com
Date: Mon, 26 Oct 1998 11:58:18 EST
Creative anachronism seems to run rampant in anything to do with historical reenactment--especially where BAGPIPES are involved.

Date: Tue, 27 Oct 1998
From: Julia Say <Julia@nspipes.demon.co.uk>
I have perused the entire works of Mr G. Hoffnung (printed and recorded) of which I have an almost complete collection left me by my father (how traditional can you get??) and can find no reference to bagpipes in any form.
However I feel that an appropriate transcription of the 'Quartet for three vacuum cleaners and an electric floor polisher', perhaps adapted suitably for SSP and Border pipes, would be a valuable addition to the revival repertoire of those interested in orchestral use of these instruments, and would complement the burgeoning use of NSP in chamber music and orchestral type pieces, currently being promoted by some of our 'traditional arts' organisations.
Not.

Date: Wed, 28 Oct 1998
From: Julia Say <Julia@nspipes.demon.co.uk>
>Is there any evidence other than that quoted as coming from within the family descendants of 'Muckle Jock' that the term was used at all before the ill-fated 20's revival?
No. As far as I know.

>surely even inNorthumberland today you wouldn’t pronounce the word as if it had an "f" at the end would you? Hepple Hauff?
Oh yes you would. Hepple Haugh (which as Ged said derives from a different source) is pronounced hauff - well actually more like herff, but there's about five vowels involved, and which combination is used depends on the exact origins of the speaker - to within a few miles, Isuspect. Even today.
The sudden change of accent at the line of the Border has to be heard to be believed.

From: eroot@webtv.net (Eric Root)
Date: Thu, 29 Oct 1998
Is it too much trouble (or would it "spoil a surprise") to leave the discussion on the list? I'm an "amateur philologist" at heart and love almost any amount of discussion of word origins. Or if I promise to behave myself could you add my e-mail address to wherever the "union pipes" discussion goes if it goes offlist?

Date: Fri, 30 Oct 1998
From: Sue Wilkins <Sue.Wilkins@vuw.ac.nz>
Here's another "amateur philologist" who would like to keep in touch with the above discussion...

Date: Thu, 29 Oct 1998
From: Steve Meyer <steve@oseda.missouri.edu>
Me, too. Else I'll have to hough, clough and bellow in ignorance....

Date: Fri, 30 Oct 1998
From: Sue Wilkins <Sue.Wilkins@vuw.ac.nz>
What ever else happens, let us not bellow in ignorance - doing it in public is bad enough.

From: "Gerald Gardiner" <gardiner@orangenet.co.uk>
Date: Fri, 30 Oct 1998
Having just returned from the NE, where I found time for a few hours perusal in the archive of the Cocks collection, I have to report that the term halflong was in use by GV Charlton and Cocks before they were in contact with Mrs Stoddart. So that it is not so much a source, rather a confirmation of the validity of the term. I would like to make a more thorough search however, to try and answer this question - does anyone out there KNOW of a source for the use of the term prior to 1920?

From: RTE395@aol.com
Date: Wed, 28 Oct 1998
It seems some of the Half-Long problem is that the they are not any part of a REVIVAL, but rather an attempt (the second!) at RESURRECTION. The GHB and NSP never quite died, and there are a couple of centuries of written history in the form of musical manuscripts. When they went through periods of decline, they never quite died, so could be REVIVED. The half-long seems part of a tradition of local/regional variations in bagpipe build, and seems never to have been standardized, as the NSP was by Peacock/Dunn/Reid et al. RESURRECTIONS are hard to come by, these days. Even if someone could absolutely find a set that could positively be identified as **HALF-LONG**, had it set up and filled the thinng full of air......whoa! What now? How did they USED to play the thing? Of course, that won't stop anyone; they will stuff things up the chanter, move some holes around, wrap tape around the rest, pinch it up to get another octave....And, on THIS SIDE, garb themselves in ancient style, arm themselves with dangerous looking weapons, and go forth to do battle.
It seems the half-long may have been a regional Northumbrian variation on a rather variable beast from the Border area. It is a pity that Cocks and others didn't adopt a set patterned on the Kilburn set, rather than letting Robertson call the shots and muddy everything up. James Thompson's description of the playing of the "Northumbrian pipe," (not the smallpipe) sounds like it was played in the Highland manner, but the manner of playing may have been variable. I fear the SSP is much the same case. Oh, well. People are having fun. No point in upsetting them. They WILL RESURRECT the thing. I just wish that in respect for HISTORY, they wouldn't take their inventions so seriously.
A lot of people are having a lot of fun doing new things with the NSP also, which is OK. It is a living tradition that will evolve, unlike the ridgidly codified GHP music. I hope the music of the preceeding generations of players survives as well. Actually, I am sure it will. Bob G