Pete Stewart, pictured below during this year's competition, took third place in the new composition class, with Richard Skowgall's Salute to the Burghers of Haddington from the Wall Head of the Tolbooth. Here he explains that lengthy title

A FEW years ago I entered into the Society's annual New Composition competition a tune called The Earl of Samuelston's Jig. This was a celebration of the Earl in his efforts to resist the Burgh of Haddington's attempts to suppress the May Games that he allowed to be held on his lands outside the town, and which had become a country- wide attraction. I have since found that this event had a knock-on effect for musicians in the district and pipers in particular, since it seems that a black list of pipers was produced as a result. This is recorded in the recent excellent essay “Secular Music in the Burgh of Haddington 1530- 1640” by John J McGavin, published in Music and Musicians in Renaissance Cities and Towns (Fiona Kisby, Ed, 2001). “In 1598 the presbytery of Haddington identified (for possible future prosecution) five

pipers within their bounds (Patrick Scougall, John Cathie, James Ramsay, David Gibson, and John MacCalyen); at the same time [they were] attempting to prosecute a Robert Stewart, piper (also called a ‘minstraller') for incestuous adultery ... they finally prosecuted him for profanation of the Sabbath by playing the pipes in West Fenton.”

The first name on the hit-list was the tailor, Patrick Scougall, none other than the Burgh of Haddington's official piper. McGavin goes on to report the extraordinary events that took place on a separate occasion in Haddington, involving Patrick's son Richard (who later was to be town piper in Haddington until his death, when Patrick took over again). It seems that in September of 1610 John Wilkie, one of the town's notaries public and a person of some importance in the town, had, for some unstated reason, been confined to the Tolbooth (the town's prison). Well aware that he could not escape, he was also aware that there was nothing to stop him inviting his friends in, which naturally enough resulted in “drinkand and playand an gestand in Richert Skowgall thair commoun pyper and swascher with ye swasch and his pype as also Johne Grahame pyper playand all that nycht in the Tolbooth and upon the wall heid thairof with thair pypers and the swasch schouting crying and makein proclamations upon the walheid of the tollbooth and using sundrie insolences in contempt of the magistrates quha had wardit him in hie and manifest contempt of our soveraine Lorde lawis and acictis and of the said magistrates and toun.”

It was clearly quite a party. One thing about this record, apart from it obviously needing a tune in celebration (which I duly offer here), is the description of Skowgall as “commoun pyper and swascher”, that is “piper and drummer”; he is there with his pipe and drum, together with John Grahame the piper. More than one commentator has pointed to the fact that “town pipers” did not necessarily play bagpipes (the Aberdeen town piper was instructed to play on his “almondy whistle”; the Hexham town piper was to play “upon some audible musicall instrument, and shall often as he goeth alonge, salute the people, acquainting them with the tyme of night or morning and what weather blows”). Now it seems to me that we have something similar here, except that Skowgall is also playing the drum; that is, he is playing what we now call the “pipe and tabor”, the three-holed pipe played with the left hand whilst beating the drum with the right. There are a number of references to this combination in Scotland dating from the mid 15th century up till the late 18th when Isaac Cooper, music master in Banff claimed to teach, among many other instruments, the “pipe and taperer”.

In his Musical Memoirs, Dalyell mentions a record in the Treasurers Accounts of 1502 of payment “to Guilliam Tabronar, to by him qhuissilis” and, of course, there is the magnificent carving of a pipe and tabor player in Rosslyn Chapel. However, though bagpipe and pipe and tabor is a traditional duo in Catalonia and the Balearics, this is the only reference to the combination I have seen in Scotland. It is a pairing worth reviving, though possibly not while drinking and jesting on the wallhead of the tolbooth.