Orfeo

60. 2005. 'XIV Wooden objects: A musical pipe [from
King Street, Norwich].'

[156-7 and Fig. 90 in A. Shelley, Dragon Hall, King Street, Norwich: excavation and
survey of a late medieval merchant's trading complex.]

Amongst the finds from recent excavations on King Street, Norwich,
England, is part of a small, polished, lathe-turned tube of boxwood.
With its surviving end flared like a trumpet bell and a series of drilled
perforations distributed along its length it has a distinctly musical
appearance. The report considers whether its shape and size and the
forms and spacings of its holes are compatible with a musical purpose.
In view of its very small size and the absence of any close musical
parallels it is suggested that the object was probably not a fully
functional, traditional instrument but could nevertheless be part of a
child's musical toy, of perhaps the 18th or the 19th century.

59. 2005. 'Tuning and Tradition: the earliest
Northumbrian bagpipes and their relationship to finds
from archaeological excavation.'

[Archaeologia Aeliana, 5th Series, 34, 101-114. Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle
upon Tyne.]

Amongst the uniquely important historical collections housed in the
Bagpipe Museum at Morpeth, Northumberland, England, is the W. A.
Cocks Collection of bagpipes, belonging to the Society of Antiquaries
of Newcastle upon Tyne. These remarkable instruments and their
documentation are of interest not only to practitioners of traditional
musics but also to students of the antiquity of music in Britain. Several
of them are clearly ancient, maybe from as early as the sixteenth
century; but because none has yet been dated scientifically the origins
of the tradition remain a mystery. Archaeology in the North East of
England has yet to furnish any relevant material corroboration.
Nevertheless, finds of wood and bone from further south reveal a
preference for reed-voiced pipes of similar length and narrow bore in
everyday use during the Middle Ages, the Anglo-Saxon period and
even Roman times. How these relate to Northumbrian tradition is not
yet clear but they are capable of producing strikingly similar sounds.
Close inspection of the forms and placements of the finger-holes and
finger-hole margins of some finds reveals traces which indicate
deliberate tuning. Such purpose seems reflected in some remarkable
features of the tunings of the Morpeth pipes. Although their original
makers have drilled all finger-holes with precision, more-or-less equal in
diameter and spacing, subsequent reworking by other, evidently less
skilled hands has resulted in drastic modification to many. The paper
identifies this as a historically significant phenomenon, inviting
questions as to the nature of traditional tunings in Britain at the end of
the Middle Ages and as to the meaning of the changes they
subsequently underwent. A parallel is drawn with transformations
evidenced in the 19th and 20th centuries by the tunings of the
Norwegian fretted stringed instrument the langeleik discussed by
Reidar Sevåg.

58. 2005. 'Ancient European lyres: excavated finds
and experimental performance today.'

[93-120 in S. Hagel & C. Harrauer (Hrsg.) Ancient Greek Music in Performance.]

Depictions and descriptions of musical activity in ancient art and
literature are the raw materials from which scholars have
traditionally sought to recreate the milieux and character of ancient
musical performance. However, detailed inspection of excavated
finds of musical instruments shows just how dangerous reliance on
such sources may be, and highlights the urgent need to prioritise
the search for hard archaeological corroboration. The first part of the
paper takes, as an illustrative example, pictures and excavated
remains of lyres and lyre-players in Europe, between the fifth and
eleventh centuries of our era: a period in which there is an
increasing amount of archaeological evidence with which to test our
theories. It shows how the two kinds of evidence - representational
and material - complement eachother; but it also reveals important
discrepancies between artistic representation and actual practice.
The second part of the paper shows how, armed with these new
archaeological insights, we can begin to recreate early medieval
lyre techniques on a sounder basis, and to attempt to realise their
full musical potential both as solo instrumental expression and as
the quintessential accompaniment to heroic verse. Similarities
between these lyres and their Classical precursors invite us to
consider their implications for still earlier performance practice.

52. 2001. 'Musical relics [from Fast Castle,
Berwickshire]'

[114-116 in K. Mitchell, K.R. Murdoch & J.R. Ward, Fast Castle: Excavations
1971-86.]

Between 1971 and 1986 the Edinburgh Archaeological Field Society
conducted excavations at Fast Castle, a remote, ruined coastal
fortification near Coldingham, Berwickshire, Scotland. During the
later Middle Ages the site was in the possession of the Home
family, who built the present castle at the end of the 15th century.
By 1703 it had already fallen into ruins. Two musical finds are
amongst the material recovered which reveal aspects of life in the
post-medieval phase: a 'Jew's harp' and a coil of Cu- (copper-) alloy
wire. The Jew's harp is identified from radiography of a small Fe
(iron) concretion. The wire's musical identification is suggested by
the care with which it has been coiled: not bundled or twisted but
spooled in large, even, circular loops and turned over at the ends,
as in modern practice. Favourable soil conditions have enabled its
preservation and resulted in its bright, brassy colouration. Parallels
are drawn with other finds of spooled musical wire in Scotland and
in Scandinavia, where musical identity is further supported by the
presence of tuning pegs.

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