Scottish Tradition Cassette Series 6: Pibroch

Interview is a spoken-word recording genre that documents a conversation—typically between a host and a guest—focused on biography, creative process, cultural context, or timely topics. Although not musical in the strict sense, interview releases are integral to the music ecosystem: labels and media have long issued press-only promos, radio transcription discs, fan-club LPs, and CD box-set extras featuring interviews with artists. These recordings foreground voice, narrative, and authenticity, often serving as historical primary sources that frame an artist’s work and era.

Pìobaireachd (often anglicized as pibroch; Gaelic for "pipe music") is the classical art music of the Great Highland bagpipe. It is characterized by a theme-and-variations form built on a ground (urlar) followed by increasingly elaborate variation cycles. The music is typically non-metric or flexibly pulsed, with expressive pacing, extensive ornamental movements (such as taorluath and crunluath), and a continuous drone from the bagpipe’s three drones. Tunes are often categorized as laments (cumha), salutes, gatherings, and battle pieces, reflecting ceremonial and commemorative functions within Highland culture. Pìobaireachd is traditionally transmitted both through staff notation and through canntaireachd, a mnemonic vocal system that encodes melody and ornamentation using syllables. The repertoire emphasizes modal melody (commonly mixolydian on the bagpipe’s A) and deep phrasing over harmonic progression.