Music of Northumbria

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Music of the United Kingdom
History	Nationalities
Early popular music	England
1950s and 60s	Scotland
1970s	Wales
1980s	Ireland
1990s to present	Caribbean and Indian
Genres: (Samples) Classical - Folk - Hip hop - Opera - Popular - Rock - Jazz
Timeline: 1999 - 2000 - 2001 - 2002 - 2003 - 2004 - 2005 - 2006
Awards	Mercury, Brit Awards
Charts	UK Singles Chart, UK classical chart, UK Albums Chart
Festivals	Glastonbury Festival, The Proms, Homelands, Creamfields, Cambridge Folk Festival, Eisteddfodd, Download Festival, Reading and Leeds Festivals , V Festival, T in the Park, Isle of Wight Festival
Media	NME - Melody Maker
National anthem	"God Save the Queen"
Regions and territories
Birmingham - Cornwall - Man - Manchester - Northumbria - Somerset Anguilla - Bermuda - Cayman Islands - Gibraltar - Montserrat - Turks and Caicos - Virgin Islands

Here Northumbria is taken to mean the traditional counties of Northumberland, the northernmost county of England, and County Durham, as well as the Newcastle/Gateshead conurbation. The region possesses a distinctive style of folk music with a strong and continuing tradition. The region is particularly noted for the Northumbrian smallpipe, a form of bagpipe unique to north-east England, but there is also a strong fiddle tradition in the region that was already well-established in the 1690s. Northumbrian music is characterised by considerable influence from other regions, particularly southern Scotland and other parts of the north of England. Irish tunes are also much played in the region, as they are elsewhere. However, there is often a distinct difference between a Northumbrian version of a tune and versions from elsewhere. For instance a simple Irish tune, The Chorus Jig, with 3 strains, appears in the Northumbrian tradition as Holey Ha'penny, an ornate five-strain variation set. A Scottish strathspey, Struan Robertson's Rant appears, stripped of the Scotch snap, as a smallpipe tune, Cuckold come out of the Amrey, again a variation set.

1 Bagpipe music
2 Fiddle music
3 Other instruments
4 Selected Recordings
5 External links

[edit] Bagpipe music

There were several types of bagpipe in use in the region in the 18th century, ranging from the conical bore, open-ended border pipes, to the cylindrically bored smallpipes; the closed-ended form with its single octave compass and closed fingering is known to have existed since the 17th century, and open-ended forms were also known. The Union or Pastoral pipes, the precursor of the Irish Uillean pipes, are also known to have been played in the region. The earliest known bagpipe manuscript from the UK is a tunebook by William Dixon of Stamfordham in Northumberland, dated 1733. This includes 40 tunes with extensive sets of variations. Some of the tunes correspond to later versions of known smallpipe tunes; others, with a nine-note compass, must have been played either on Border pipes or on an open-ended smallpipe, like the Scottish smallpipe.

In the early 19th century, makers such as John Dunn and Robert and James Reid added keys to the closed-ended smallpipe, extending its range to almost two octaves. With its greater flexibility, the instrument became more fashionable at this time. On the other hand, the Border pipes seem not to have been found in Northumberland much after the middle of the century, though they were revived as the 'half-long pipes' in the 1920s and more successfully in the 1970s and 80s.

Many families have been associated with traditional Northumbrian piping. Willy Allan and his son James were noted pipers in the 18th century: James was the first piper to the Duchess of Northumberland. Most notably, the Clough family of Newsham produced six generations of pipers, including Tom Clough, who made an important early recording in 1929, and taught many pipers, including Billy Pigg.

Other important or influential pipers in the mid-20th century include G.G. Armstrong, George Atkinson, Jack Armstrong, and Joe Hutton. Colin Ross, who has played a major part in the recent revival of the instrument, has been influential not only as a player and teacher of the instrument, but has also been an important pipemaker. There are now many players of smallpipes in the region and elsewhere who continue the tradition, including Chris Ormston, Andy May, Adrian Schofield and Pauline Cato; Kathryn Tickell has played a significant role in popularising the instrument.

[edit] Fiddle music

The eariest source of music for fiddle from Northumberland is Henry Atkinson's tunebook from the 1690s. This includes tunes current in both the southern English and Scottish music of the time.

A later source, unfortunately lost, was John Smith's tunebook from 1750. Some tunes from this were copied out by John Stokoe in the 19th century: these include an extended set of variations on the song The Keel Row for fiddle (the earliest known version), pipe tunes with variations such as Bold Wilkinson, and a version of Jacky Layton with variations for fiddle. It is clear that as in Scotland, the playing of extended variation sets on the fiddle was current in Northumberland at the time.

Twenty years later, William Vickers made a manuscript collection of dance tunes. 580 of these tunes survive, including both pipe tunes and fiddle tunes, and as well as tunes from Northumberland there are many from Scotland, and also from southern England, Ireland and even France. This is a fascinating and detailed picture of the very extensive and varied repertoire of a musician at this time.

In the 19th century the most notable feature of the region's music was the popularity of the hornpipe in 4/4 time, and in particular the very influential playing of the publican, fiddler and composer James Hill. His compositions include The High Level Bridge, The Great Exhibition, The Beeswing, The Hawk and many others. Many other fine tunes have been attributed to him, but these include some he cannot possibly have written.

In the early and mid 20th century, influential fiddlers included Ned Pearson, Jim Rutherford, Adam Gray, George Hepple and Jake Hutton, father of the noted piper Joe Hutton. John Armstrong of Carrick played together with the piper Billy Pigg. In the later part of the century, Willy Taylor was perhaps the most highly respected of the many fiddlers in the region.

[edit] Other instruments

Other musical instruments which have been used in the region include the flute and piccolo - some 19th century manuscripts contain tunes which are in keys and registers appropriate to the flute. Billy Ballantine was a piccolo player from the west of the region, who played for dances in the mid-20th century. The style of his playing was very distinctive, mixing staccato notes for rhythmic emphasis with more ornate passages. His recordings of tunes like the Kielder Schottische and The Gilsland Hornpipe for the BBC are worth a listen.

Free reed instruments have been of growing importance since their development in the nineteenth century. In particular the mouth organ or "moothie" was played notably by Will Atkinson - there are some good recordings of him on FARNE. The melodeon has been used for dance music - listen, for example, to The Linehope Lope/The Pop Along Polka recorded by Willy Taylor for the BBC, on Holey Ha'penny, re-released on Ranting and Reeling.