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A Parallel between Scottish Pibroch and Early Welsh Harp Music FRANS BUISMAN This article discusses a similarity in the system of ornamentation found in the standard variations of Scottish pibroch a special kind of bagpipe music composed in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, mainly for ceremonial occasions and the table of ornamental figures listed by Robert ap Huw in his manuscript of Welsh harp music of c.1613.1 The Scottish pibroch variations and the Welsh crafiad ('scratch') and plethiad ('plait') classes of harp figuration are shown to share the same twofold opposition. That the two systems were related historically rests on the possibility that pibroch can be linked with music for the Irish- Scottish wire-strung harp or cláirseach (Irish, clàrsach). Scottish pibroch indeed borrows a number of terms from such music, one of which is le[í]th-leagadh ('one-sided leagadh'). The Irish leagadh figures can be accommodated nicely in the Welsh system, and systematic combination of Robert ap Huw's figures with those found in Edward Bunting's Ancient Music of Ireland, drawn up more than two centuries later, reveals many similarities (Appendix II, pp. 22-3). However, the pibroch figures show a fundamental difference from the Welsh and Irish forms in that their subsidiary notes are fixed, rather than changing with the contours of melody. This distinction arises from the fact that the instrument for which pibroch was composed the Highland bagpipes is fitted with drones. To pibroch composers, the drones were clearly not a negligable asset, but something that enabled them to develop entirely new musical devices or significantly recast older devices. And so the case made here, while establishing possible historical links between the repertories, also warns us never to expect precise coincidences when looking for links between pibroch and harp music. Little is known about the origins of pibroch. One encounters claims that it derives from the music of the Scottish-Irish wire-strung clàrsach, although little of that music has been preserved, and nothing survives of its full harp finger movements. We are left to guess what the connection actually was. It is too easy to overlook the fact that a tune has to go