Our previous example, “The Stars and Stripes Forever,” might just as well have been discussed in Chapter 9 as an example of music embodying national identity. Not only is it the official National March of the United States, but it has come to be associated with patriotic events, especially Independence Day. Our next example would be even more at home in Chapter 9: Both the tune—“Scotland the Brave”—and the musical tradition—Scottish Highland bagpiping—are intimately connected with Scottish history and identity. This is, of course, hardly surprising. When we talk about marches, we are often talking about military tradition, and it is nearly impossible to disentangle military history and practice from national identity and pride.

Scottish Highland Bagpipes

Scottish Highland bagpipes are certainly a military instrument. The first written account of bagpipes being carried into battle dates from 1549, when the piercing sound of bagpipes was found to carry across the battlefield even better than that of a trumpet. Pipers were regularly attached to combat regiments, and they could be heard on both sides of the famous Jacobite rising of 1745, when Charles Edward Stuart sought to regain the British throne. In this conflict, bagpipes served not only to urge troops into battle but to mark the identity of the combatants: the Jacobites carried Scottish Highland bagpipes, while the British troops carried Lowland bagpipes (a related instrument that has fallen out of use).

Pipers continue to serve in the British military into the present day, although their role is now only ceremonial and they are no longer deployed in combat. The last appearance of pipers on the front line took place during a 1967 uprising in the British protectorate of South Arabia (now part of Yemen). Pipers also led assaults during both of the World Wars, but the practice was largely abolished due to the high casualty rate.

There is no question that the Scottish Highland bagpipes are an outdoor instrument. They are extremely loud. Scottish bagpipes seem to have come into use during the 1200s, although it is unknown whether they were adapted from a Roman instrument or developed independently. The basic principle of any bagpipe is the same: An air reservoir (usually a bag) is squeezed so as to force air through a series of pipes, thereby producing sound. Most of the pipes are tuned to a fixed pitch, but one is equipped with holes that allow the piper to sound specific notes. While bagpipes can be found around the world, the Scottish instrument and associated tradition has certainly gained the greatest prominence. Today, pipe bands can be found in almost all former British colonies and throughout the United States.

In Scottish Highland bagpipes, the air reservoir is filled when the piper blows into a long air pipe. Although the piper must regularly refill the reservoir, this action has no impact on the sound of the instrument, which is continuous and always at the same volume. This is because the sound is produced by air from the bag—which is kept under a constant pressure—flowing out through the pipes. The fixed-pitched pipes are three in number, and they all play the same note, although in two different octaves. The other pipe—termed the chanter—allows the piper to play nine distinct pitches spanning just over an octave.

The fact that the melodic capabilities of the Highland pipes is so limited means that performers must either play repertoire suited to their instrument or adapt other melodies by changing some of the notes. For example, pipers frequently play the melody from Dvořák’s Symphony No. 9 “From the New World” (Chapter 9), which is usually retitled “Goin’ Home.” However, the Highland pipes do not have a pitch that is required to correctly perform the middle section of the melody. Instead, pipers simply play the closest pitch that is available on the instrument, which happens to be one half step lower than the pitch Dvořák had intended.

It is typical for pipers to borrow tunes from other repertoires. In fact, the two tunes most frequently played on Scottish Highland bagpipes—“Amazing Grace” and “Scotland the Brave”—began life and became popular independent of the piping tradition. “Amazing Grace,” discussed in Chapter 11, is a Christian hymn. Although the lyrics were written by an English preacher, they were paired with their melody in the United States, which is also where the hymn became popular. In a sense, therefore, “Amazing Grace”—like “Goin’ Home”—is a musical import.

Scotland the Brave

“Scotland the Brave,” on the other hand, seems to have been written in Scotland in the 1890s, although it was initially played on other instruments. The tune first appeared in the 1895 Gesto Collection of Highland Music, in which it was titled “Scotland Forever” and labelled as a “trumpet march.” Around 1911, it was included in a collection of pipe music published by the Boys’ Brigade Bands of Glasgow—an indication that Scottish pipers were playing it. The tune, however, did not become famous until 1951, when Cliff Hanley added a patriotic text so that it could be sung in a theatrical production. “Scotland the Brave” quickly became a hit, and in 2006 placed second in a public poll to select an unofficial national anthem for Scotland.

“Scotland the Brave” bears all of the typical characteristics of a march. It is in duple time, to facilitate the tramping of feet. It is in a bright major mode (although the tuning of pipes is not always equivalent to that of a piano). The melody is rhythmically straightforward: There is a note on every strong beat, meaning that the melody will coordinate with the steps of marchers, and the notes that fall between the beats are placed sparsely and predictably. After all, a complex melody would be lost in the noise of an outdoor march, and would confuse the regular rhythm of the movement. It might even prove catastrophic to coordination. The melody also features uneven, or dotted, rhythms, which have long been associated with royalty and pomp.

“Scotland the Brave” is also packed with repetition. It is in a rounded binary form, meaning that its two parts both end with the same melodic phrase. That phrase also constitutes the first half of the first part, such that the tune can be diagrammed as [A A’] [B A’]. In a single turn through the tune, therefore, we hear the A phrase three times—and the B phrase is closely related, bearing the same rhythmic characteristics. Although this form is common in folk music of the British Isles, the melody of “Scotland the Brave” is particularly effective. Both the A and B phrases include the lowest and highest notes of the tune, although they reverse the melodic contour. The A phrase ascends immediately from the low octave to the high and then back down, while the B phrase begins in the high octave and plummets to the low—twice. The result is dizzyingly triumphant. When we hear pipers play “Scotland the Brave,” we hear more than just the notes of the melody as it might be sung or played on the trumpet. That is because pipers deploy a variety of idiomatic melodic ornaments that are uniquely available on their instruments. These sometimes sound like glitches or hiccups, but they are in fact specific sequences of between one and four pitches that are quickly and precisely added to the melody using the finger holes on the chanter. Each ornament has a name and is considered appropriate for a specific type of music, and pipers in large bands perform ornaments in perfect unison. In “Scotland the Brave,” ornaments help to emphasize the march rhythm. After all, the Scottish Highland bagpipes can only produce sound in a constant, uninterrupted stream. Ornaments break up the sound and introduce rhythmic excitement.

We hear several other instruments on our recording. The pipers are aided by a line of drummers, who keep the pulse steady while also emphasizing the rhythmic contour of the melody. The second time through the melody the pipers are joined by the instruments of a marching band, including brass and flutes. These instruments play a simpler, unornamented version of the tune. We can detect subtle clashes when the pitch produced by the bagpipes, which are tuned according to a unique system, disagrees with that produced by the other instruments.