The European Folk Music Scale: A New Theory

by

Aindrias Hirt
University of Otago, Ph.D. Candidate

An abbreviated version has been published online here:

http://ethnomusicologyreview.ucla.edu/content/origin-european-folk-music-scale-new-theory

Abstract: Research into the origin of the Western European Folk Music Scale has been inconsistent, varied, and
mostly unsatisfying. Melodies using this scale have many characteristics that seem inexplicable to researchers. Some
of these distinguishing traits are that the scale is “gapped,” tuned in a different manner than Pythagorean tuning or
Equal Temperament, is somehow aligned with the ecclesiastical modes, is either tetratonic, pentatonic, or hexatonic,
is missing half-steps when pentatonic, etc. The present paper suggests that the Natural or Overtone Scale is the
foundation of the Western European Folk Music Scale and solves all of the above-mentioned anomalies. The most
prevalent instrument that demonstrates the natural scale is the wooden shepherd’s trumpet that, although vanishing
in Western Europe, still exists in marginalized communities in Eastern Europe. The decline of shepherds’ trumpets
seems linked to the decline of the practice of transhumance (seasonal livestock movement) in Europe. With this
understanding, the dichotomy between “art music” and “folk music” begins to have an understandable relationship
based on differences between intonation systems that has not been suggested to date. This duality of intonation
suggests a spectrum of transcendence of one tuning system over another over time. At one end of the time spectrum,
there is the present day with a musical culture of Western European art music based on the equally tempered
diatonic scale and few elements of the natural scale remaining. On the other end, perhaps 1,500 years ago, there
was a musical culture that was primarily based on the natural scale with a few elements of the diatonic scale.

Introduction:
Explanations as to the origin of the Western European folk music scale have been disappointing. This
may be because the knowledge needed to understand this music is no longer contained within the
boundaries of our modern society. Theories are often rooted in a researcher’s modern-day experiences
and not in past conditions. Some observations that have been made concerning the European folk music
scale is that it is: “gapped;” tuned in a different manner than Pythagorean tuning or Equal Temperament;
either tetratonic, pentatonic, or hexatonic; when tetratonic or pentatonic is also missing half-steps;
uncomplicated; simple; etc. There have been several theories advanced to explain these observations such
as that the music is composed of stacked tetrachords, is related through circular phrase sequences relating
to the cycle of fifths, somehow aligned with the ecclesiastical modes, et al.1 Concerning using the
ecclesiastical modes to describe folk music, Norman Cazden candidly states:

1
Some of the many researchers include Cecil Sharp, (Sharp, Cecil J. 1932 English Folk Songs from the Southern
Appalachians, Maud Karpeles, 2 vols., London: Oxford University Press), Kennedy-Fraser (Kennedy-Fraser,
Marjory 1909 Songs of the Hebrides, 3 vols., vol. 1, London: Boosey and Co.), Gilchrist (Gilchrist, Annie G. 1911
Note on the Modal System of Gaelic Tunes, Journal of the Folk-Song Society 4, no. 16, 150-53), William H. Grattan
Flood (Grattan-Flood, William H. 1905 A History of Irish Music, Book, Dublin: Browne and Nolan Limited),
Donald MacDonald (MacDonald, Donald c.1900 Irish Music and Irish Scales, London: Breitkopf and Härtel),
Bertrand H. Bronson (Bronson, Bertrand H. 1946 Folksong and the Modes, The Musical Quarterly 32, no. 1, 37-49)
and (Bronson, Bertrand H. 1972 Are the Modes Outmoded?, Yearbook of the International Folk Music Council 4,
23-31), Francis Collinson (Collinson, Francis 1966 The Traditional and National Music of Scotland, London:
Routledge and Kegan Paul), James Culwick (Culwick, J.C. 1897 Distintive Charictaristics of Ancient Irish Melody:
The Scales, vol. 3 ), Bradley and Breathnach (Bradley, Seóirse and Breathnach, Breandán 1980 Ireland, Stanley. Ed.
Sadie, The Groves Dictionary of Music and Musicians, London: MacMillan Publishers), Ó Boyle (Ó Boyle, Séan
1977 The Irish Song Tradition, Toronto: MacMillan of Canada), Finlay Dauney (Dauney, W. and Dun, F. 1838
 Today that mode scheme mystifies rather than clarifies both the technical data presented in traditional song
and the cultural history which its study ought rather to document [...] That is why I judge that mode scheme
to constitute today a dogmatic barrier that directly impedes the desired internal analysis of the musical
forms which it purports to promote, and that diverts the student from the further relevancies and
generalizations that such analysis might indicate, all the while encouraging lip-service as a substitute for
thought[...] To make way for a more serviceable frame for study, it is time we recognize that the familiar
mode classifications and categories are historically a travesty and systematically both inept and
unproductive.2
The cause of this problem facing Ethnomusicologists when dealing with folk music organization is that
they have all been formally trained. They have an unconscious predilection for the diatonic scale and
features of “art” music. As Foss believes:
The documentation of music history is entirely that of formal music, i.e. secular “art” music or religious
music. To apply the theories and methods meaningful to this body of documentation to traditional music
and song is therefore attempting to apply the “rules” of formal music to the traditional music idiom. This is
at best impractical and most frequently impossible.
The most persistent efforts to place folksong study within the frame-work of formal music theory are found
in the attempts at describing and classifying the scales found in folksong. This is most obvious in the
widespread use of modal theory and terminology in the study of British and Anglo-American folksong.3
Although such predispositions have prevented the actualization of folk music classification in a lucid
manner, the effort to do so resulted in the recording of musical observations; that is, people made the
effort to transcribe the music, and a good number of tunes were notated on the diatonic musical staff.
Some of these observations were made when there was quite a difference between art music and folk
music. The distinction is much less sharp today; folk music has become so altered through the pervasive
affects of mass media that “traditional” tunes performed today bear little semblance to recordings in
archives. Therefore, earlier observations are valuable because they describe, albeit imperfectly, music that
is, for the most part, no longer extant. Furthermore, as Bronson believes, the organisation imposed on
folk music by using the imperfect ecclesiastical modal system is preferable than to have no system at all.4
Although it is often valuable to pull away from an issue in order to understand it, using foreign cultural
constructs to quantize local patterns is ultimately fruitless. Each system is unique and full unto itself. For
a parallel example, there are deep underlying grammatical forms in the English language. Using foreign
constructs, such as using the grammar of Latin to describe the English language, often results in profound
confusion. The impossibility of there being a split infinitive in a Latin verb does not mean that it is
inappropriate to have a split infinitive in English. So the popular television quotation, “To boldly go
(where no man has gone before)” is perfectly correct, whereas such a statement is not possible in Latin.
Schoolboys in English public schools were taught how to translate Latin into English; split infinitives do
not occur in Latin. Writing/speaking split infinitives became forbidden although it is part of the deep
structure of the English language. Therefore, imposing foreign constructs on the English language does
not reveal that deep structure but rather hinders it.

Ancient Scotish Melodies: From a Manuscript of the Reign of King James Vi: With an Introductory Enquiry
Illustrative of the History of the Music of Scotland Edinburgh Printing and Pub. Co.), etc., etc.
2
Cazden, Norman 1971 A Simplified Mode Classification for Traditional Anglo-American Song Tunes, Yearbook
of the International Folk Music Council 3, 45-78: 46-47.
3
Foss, George 1967 A Methodology for the Description and Classification of Anglo-American Traditional Tunes,
Journal of the Folklore Institute 4, no. 1, 102-26: 103.
4
Bronson Are the Modes Outmoded?

2
In a like manner, attempts to discern the structure of folk music have failed largely because folk music
has been analysed through an understanding and mores of a foreign music. Analysis has been made more
difficult since the instruments that create such music are now quite scarce. Additionally, the Christian
Church marginalized these instruments and tonal properties in the past. These issues hinder analysis since
it is firstly difficult to divorce oneself from learned proclivities and secondly to analyse pitch structures of
instruments that have all but disappeared.
There have been few attempts made to understand European folk music from within itself; however, there
have been tentative positive steps made by researchers outside of the English-speaking world. For
example, Eivind Groven suggested that Norwegian folk music was based on the series of pitches
produced on the seljefløte (sallow/willow flute).5 More recent work in the field of Generative Tonal
Theory developed by Lerdahl and Jackendoff infer that the natural overtone series may be the foundation
of folk music around the world. A readily available reference to this postulate can be found in a series of
lectures presented at Harvard University by Leonard Bernstein termed “The Unanswered Question”
which he gave in 1973. These videos are currently on www.youtube.com. His comments during the
segment entitled “Musical Phonology” were supportive of this present paper in that Bernstein suggests
that the essence of a culture’s music is based on where it tends to dwell in the overtone series.
Unfortunately, he equated D4 with D5 and never thought to match overtones to actual pitches produced by
actual instruments. In short, Bernstein thought in terms of theoretical octave equivalency instead of
observing the notes produced by actual instruments that may have produced the overtone series (also
called the harmonic series or the natural scale-the phrase preferred in this paper). My approach was not to
theorize possible notes that may have been used in the distant past, but to identify instruments that were
known to exist, analyse pitches that those instruments produced, and compare them to transcribed music
and observations made by researchers.
My investigation over the last ten years has led me to the conclusion that folk music is not, in fact, “folk
music” at all; rather, it is “pastoral music.” It is the music created by pastoral societies on pastoral
instruments; such societies and instruments have all but vanished. The world of the shepherd is not the
world of the music researcher. The shepherd once had needs and concerns wholly different from those of
the average modern person. Yet, it is possible to re-create the living conditions of a 5-10th century
shepherd by putting ourselves in a shepherd’s mind-set without imposing our own personal understanding
of our own world onto that situation; this is quite difficult. There is a strong tendency to rationalize our
own behaviours or patterns and project them onto the shepherd. For example, if we are accustomed to
shoes, we will try to suggest that shepherds had shoes. If we eat cereal every morning, we will try to
suggest that shepherds ate a type of cereal. We tend to project our experiences and emotions on people of
a bye-gone era and then use our intellect to justify those conditions. It is therefore reasonable to assume
that we would tend to project that tendency when dealing with music from the past. What is familiar to us
about music we would think would be familiar to people from the past. This is not true; we must be on
guard against assuming and rationalizing this.

Living Situation in the Dark Ages

Let us look at the living conditions of a typical shepherd who existed in the 5-10th century A.D.: There
were no grocery stores; you had to kill and butcher what you ate or you’d starve. People did not work and
5
Groven, Eivind 1927 Naturskalaen; Tonale Lover I Norsk Folkemusikk Bundne Til Seljefløyta, Skien: Norsk
folkekulturs forlag.

3
play, they worked constantly but tried to make the work playful. There was no newspapers or tabloids, no
radio, no iPods, no internet, no telephones, no electricity, no cable or TV. There were no books. You
didn’t know anyone who knew how to read or write or do arithmetic; there were no films; there were no
sewing machines; there were no stores; there were no cars; there were no inns; There was a priest and a
church fifty miles away that you attended twice a year, maybe, and there was little or no ecclesiastical
music.6 We have all of those things today, so we subconsciously project those things onto the behaviour
of people in the past. There was nothing but you, your family, your chattel, relatives, and a great amount
of space that was mainly uninhabited and wild. There was the sound of the wind, of animals, your family
talking and singing, and that’s just about it. We intuitively have an inclination to fill up the mind of a
Dark Age shepherd with our own modern-age experiences. I believe that this tendency has hindered the
solution as to the genesis of the European folk music scale. It is difficult to remove from our intellect
what we subconsciously feel as normal.
Moreover, although mostly forgotten in the last few hundred years, humans in Europe had practiced a
pattern of life that sustained them dependably for over six thousand years from the Neolithic Era.7 The
yearly cycle of the sun caused the pattern of heat and cold, summer and winter. People had adapted to this
cycle and had developed a pattern of plant and animal farming that molded with the seasons. With the
agricultural advancements of the eighteenth century, these earlier traditional patterns slowly faded.
Conjoined musical activities likewise waned. Even in cultures that pride themselves on their cultural
momentum, collective modern memory is so short that most people today are unaware of these older
cycles. Yet today, vestiges of older traditions may be seen on the internet through the invisible eye of the
video camera and silent voice of the digital recorder.
The intertwined pattern of livestock movement, agriculture, and food preservation for the famine of
winter in Europe had a necessary partner in music. Other animals respond to music just as we do, and
using this understanding gave us an advantage in exploiting livestock for our own security. In order to
understand this, we need to understand a modicum of how people all over the world respond to the
shifting seasons. Before the industrial age produced machines that provided a great mechanical
advantage, agricultural work had to be done by hand. People did not collect and process fodder for
animals on a large scale since it required an inordinate amount of work. Instead, a practice called
transhumance was followed. With this system, livestock was taken from farms in the lowlands in the
spring; they were moved (called droving) to where the snows had melted on the hillsides and grass was
growing. Animals feed on the grass, were milked, this made into cheese; in the fall, livestock returned to
the homestead in the low country. During the time when animals grazed in the mountains, those people
remaining behind planted and harvested crops. With winter setting in, the returned animals scratched and
scraped through the snow and ate the unmown grass hidden below. Meanwhile, men ate the winter stores
of bread for carbohydrate and siphoned off the protein interest of the livestock (cheese/milk/blood) until
the spring came; with the bloom of spring, people expanded their meager, temporary winter diet for fresh
vegetables and game.

6
It is natural for us to rationalize that a shepherd in a pasture would hook up a horse and buggy and go to church and
that there would be a professionally trained musician there playing on a keyboard instrument; we are accustomed to
rapid transit. This is doubtful. The population of London in 1100 was 15,000. Shepherds generally worked where
there were few people. Organs and organized (interesting pun) music only existed where there were a great many
people in a small area who could pool their wealth and afford such a luxury as an organ.
7
Evidence survives of a transhumance economy in the Alps dating at least to the 4th millennium BC.

4
Research in recent years is revealing the overwhelming commonality of this mostly forgotten migratory
custom and associated musical tools. In particular, one type of instrument was of vital importance in this
daily or seasonal movement.8 Shepherds used wooden trumpets to gather a herd before traveling to and
from a pasturage, controlling them when driving a flock over a great distance in a seasonal cycle,9
frightening away attacking predators (bears or wolves), communicating by specific calls to other
communities or fellow shepherds separated by steep ravines or other geographic impediments, calming
animals by playing to them when milking them, etc. Seasonal migration to high pastures is still practiced
in Norway, Sweden, Finland, through the Baltic States, the Carpathians, and down through to the
Balkans. To the west, it still exists in Bavaria, Austria, and the Swiss Alps. Although transhumance is still
practiced in the Pyrenees, its collaboration with shepherds’ trumpets seems to have disappeared; however,
photographs and postcards of shepherds’ trumpets from the Pyrenees from as late as the 1960s and extant
instruments preserved as family heirlooms may still be found. Transhumance is also practiced in Spain; a
livestock migration through Madrid still occurs where, since at least 1273, shepherds have had the right to
pass through the city for a small fee.
One hindrance to understanding the musical past is that we might have a tendency to think that
instruments were as plentiful a thousand years ago per capita as they are today. Due to industrialization
and the rise of cities in Europe, there was an upsurge of instrument making in the 16th century (hence the
expression, “The Rise of Instrumental Music”). Before that time, making an instrument was laborious and
difficult. However, a shepherd might need to do this wearisome work in order to create a necessary
musical tool. Shepherds needed to gather their domestic animals to travel to or from the pasture in the
morning and evening, call to other shepherds, and frighten away dangerous animals.10 Every shepherd had
a tool to do this. If you examine marginalized societies today where there are still shepherds working in
relative isolation in the Carpathians (Russia/Ukraine), Poland, the Balkans, Estonia, Romania, Sweden,
and Norway, etc., you will see them carrying this instrument. It was made by taking a branch or the trunk
of a small tree, splitting it, hollowing it out, putting the two halves back together with sap at the edges as
glue, and securing the halves with birch-bark or wooden osier (willow) rings steamed or boiled to make
pliable. In short, the instrument was a wooden, valve-less, finger-hole-less trumpet; simply stated, it was a
wooden shepherd’s trumpet. These shepherds’ trumpets seem to fall into two groups. One group consists
of 6 to 10 foot (2-3 meters) trumpets made long so as to facilitate playing upper notes in the harmonic

8
I am reminded of a time when I was walking through Garmisch-Partenkirchen in Germany and in the center of
town heard the lowing of cattle from within a house. It was actually a stone barn on the road attached to a house.
The family would walk the cows through town every early morning to the town pasturage and then back again at
night.
9
Movement of livestock was extremely important to those in Europe. Overgrazing local fields was a serious
problem. Therefore, there was pattern of movement to move animals to higher areas in the summer (in England, this
was reversed) where grass seldom grew in the early spring or late fall, and then moving them back down after those
areas were grazed over. The usefulness of shepherds’ trumpets to control the herd cannot be overstated. In England,
there was reverse transhumance. In Wales during the summer pasturage, people stayed at a hafod, in lowland
Scotland a (bothy or shieling), in the Highlands (àirigh), in Ireland (buaile or booley).
10
Since writing this article, it has become obvious that shepherds’ trumpets were of profound importance in the
almost forgotten practice of transhumance. Seasonal transhumance took place before the agricultural revolution in
the eighteenth century (in Britain at least). Before that time, animals were not fed stored fodder, but were expected
to survive off the land during winter. So in the spring, animals were led away from the fertile lowlands and
(normally) up to the highlands. Animals ate there; cheese was made. The animals were then led down to the farmer’s
permanent residence in the fall to feed off the relatively rich and unharvested pasturage. Although this seasonal
migration was a vital practice for survival in Europe for perhaps 9,000 years, the vast majority of people today are
completely ignorant of it.

5
series/natural scale. The other group is much shorter, but has a marked flare to the instrument; it swells
roughly to 8” (.2 m.) over its 2-3’ (1 m.) length and generally resembles a large animal horn. This shorter
instrument is only capable of playing a few notes that reside rather low in the natural scale.
Ancient practices such as transhumance can often be linked through language use as well. Linguists have
discovered that if a similar word exists in several cultures’ languages, the word’s existence did not
migrate from one culture to the next, but rather originated from a parent culture and was spread with
migration from it. For example, the word for lyre (“crowd” in English) is also known as chorus (Latin),
cithara (Greek), cruit (Scottish Gaelic), crwth (Welsh), crotte, rotte, etc. Since the words are all similar,
they are assumed to have originated from a root language and associated culture, much like a parent with
offspring. Many of these languages can be traced to an originating language termed Proto-Indo-European
(PIE), which originated before 3,500 BCE (some suggest 8,000 B.C.) and spread into Europe through
demic and/or cultural diffusion. Notable languages in Europe not a part of the Indo-European group
(English, German, French, Italian, etc.) are the Finno-Ugrian (Finnish, Hungarian, Estonian), Turkic, and
Basque groups. Among many hypotheses, Kalevi Wiik has synthesized linguistic, genetic, and
archeological evidence and suggested that the predominant language in Europe was of the hunter-fisher-
gatherers (proto-Finno-Ugrian), which was slowly replaced by people who introduced farming and animal
husbandry and brought their PIE language with them.11 Therefore, if trumpet playing was important to
transhumance, one would expect to see a PIE root word and variants in PIE daughter languages for the
shepherd trumpet. This seems to be the case.

11
Wiik, Kalevi 2008 Where Did European Men Come From?, Journal of Genetic Genealogy 4, 35-85: .It should be
pointed out that the majority of academics do generally not hold Wiik’s theories in repute.
As an aside, I would like to point out that this is perhaps the root cause of the health crisis that is sweeping North
America. The people who came into Europe from the south brought in a new and stable manner of surviving through
the cold of winter. These new people (Early Farmers) brought in a processed, mechanical method of keeping food
preserved though warm and cold spells in winter. Humans need carbohydrates and protein in order to survive. Grass
seed (wheat, as a carbohydrate) could be kept indefinitely since starch does not decompose until the combination of
warmth and water start the process of turning starch into sugar. Cheese (made from the enzymes contained in a
calf’s stomach–the reason why people eat veal) was also processed. Humans kept cows not for meat, but for milk,
blood, and cheese in order to have a steady supply of protein in the winter. Since these foods are inherently
unhealthy (we cannot digest grass seed and can only do so by forcing wheat to be consumed by yeast, which we then
eat; in effect, we are eating baked bug manure; cheese is made from the enzyme of a calf added to milk which is
then eaten by yeast–again we are eating bug dung), it causes people who cannot process this food to die from
sickness or starvation. If this mechanism is working on a population for millennia, those persons who cannot tolerate
this winter-processed food will not breed, and their genes will fade from the population. So the PIE language bearers
could handle/process food to some extent. The indigenous people in Europe (Old Europeans or Hunter-Fisher-
Gatherers as Wiik calls them) could not as much. So even though the food system was adopted by the Old
Europeans, their genetics did/have not adapted to it completely; i.e., they have not been killed off yet in high enough
numbers for the population at large to tolerate dairy and bread. The genetics of Northern Europeans is largely Old
European and show a vulnerability to winter famine food. Since this food can be easily stored, the old cycle of
leaving the winter diet in the spring has been abandoned today. People are now eating winter food year-round,
which aggravates those of Northern European genetics. Therefore the rate of obesity, Crohn’s disease, Celiac
disease, Lactose Intolerance (which is completely natural–one is normally weaned after the first year of age), etc.
can all be linked to intolerance to the new technology introduced by migrating PIE farmers from originally 8,000
B.C. who developed bug manure food to get them through the winter. People from cultures who have had no
exposure to this food are very much at-risk: Native Americans, First Nations, Aboriginals in Australia, New
Zealand, etc. Alcohol (another type of bug manure) also affects non-Proto-Indo-European people strongly.
Alcoholism seems linked to Hunter-Fisher-Gatherers (Northern Europeans and aboriginals) and not significant with
the PIE farmers (Africans, Arabians, Southern Europeans, etc.).

6
Words for wooden shepherds’ trumpets include trembita (трембіта, tрембіта, трембита), trombita,
trambita, trâmbiţa, trambica, trâmbiţă, trânghită, tulnic, trimitis, taures, torvi, touhitorvi, etc. For a PIE
root word, linguist Dr. Thomas Markey12 has suggested a reflex of the zero-grade of the Indo-European
(IE) *drem- = *drm-, which in Germanic would yield *trum-; this is reflected in Old English trymian <
*trum-ya- (a *yo-causative, cf. Skt. -áya-) [trumme is a variation of trymman/trymian]13 which is highly
polysemantic and produces “to strengthen, fortify, confirm, comfort, exhort, incite.” Suffixation of *drm-
with the instrumentalizing/individuating suffix Indo-European (IE) -bh- gave rise to the Old Icelandic
trumba which yields an IE *drm-bh-eH2, namely a feminine long “a” stem; so the instrument which was
used to exhort/incite troops in battle. The Latin tuba is perhaps derived from a (probably entirely fictive)
Frankish *trumpa, and the Old High German (OHG) trumpa; however, one might logically expect trumba
here, which is found in both Old Norse and Old Saxon. The -p- in OHG is probably really an expressive
variant of an original -b-. The present author also noticed the appearance of that trumba (in The Gaelic
Maundeville) and trompa (The Flight of the Earls) in Irish Gaelic and trompaid in Scottish Gaelic (stoc is
also common, meaning “tree”); it could be that these Gaelic words spring from the Old Irish tob which is
attested in a Würzburg gloss of tuba from the Pauline Epistles (8th century). In English of the fifteenth
century tuba (and buccina) = trumpe.14 Dr. Markey also mentioned that the Middle French trompette first
appears in 1339.
Jewsharps (probably a corruption of “juice harps”)/jawsharps also were called “trumps” and create
pitches of the harmonic series. In many areas where transhumance and associated musical instruments
have been lost, the word “trump” is thought to be applicable only to Jews harps even when the context
suggests signal playing in a military encampment (as in the Robert Southwell’s “The angels’ trumps
alarum sound”). Additionally, it is doubtful that the word was used to refer only to metal trumpets in
antiquity, since compared with our industrialized society today, metal, particularly sheet metal, was
exceedingly rare; wood was much more plentiful. In short, the present hypothesis answers this issue. The
word “trumpet” is a derivation of a PIE word and has cognates in many other languages.
Other words are used for shepherds’ trumpet as well are: bucium, buinne, búaball, büchel, busine,
buisine, buccina, buysine, buzine, busaun (which becomes posaune) from which we have in English
“bugle,” etc; perhaps originally from buuc (Latin: buccula [perhaps from bucculae: two cheeks, one on
each side of the channel in which the arrow of the catapult was placed; also English bucca, a male goat
(horn?)]). In the Scandinavian countries, the terms näverlur, neverlur, raklur (straight lur), langlur (long
lur) are used for wooden shepherds trumpets and are most often wrapped with birch bark. Additionally,
kṛnu is PIE for an animal horn. One can see/hear the Latin cornu from this and the Celtic carnyx as well.
The English “pipehorn” was originally a pipe or reed with an animal horn inserted in the end. Variations
on “horn” are alpenhorn, alphorn, druðhorn (11th cent. English), vallehorn, midwinterhoorn, hölzenhorn,
and hirtenhorn among many others. The reader should remember that, unlike today, horns are usually
shorter than a trumpet; trumpet makers will often search out curved wood for their trumpets so as to shape

12
Personal correspondence with the author, 11February, 2014. Dr. Markey is well known and respected in his field;
he is a retired full professor of linguistics: Harvard, University of Michigan. He regularly writes scientific
(linguistics) articles in French, German, Swedish, Italian and Spanish and translates Norwegian, Icelandic, Polish,
and Slovene into English. Has written over 257 scientific (linguistics) publications and twelve books.
13
Bosworth, Joseph and Toller, T. Northcote, "An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary," ed. T. Northcote Toller (Oxford:
Clarendon Press., 1898).
14
Wright, Thomas 1968 Anglo-Saxon and Ld-English Vocabularies, Richard Paul Wülcker, Second ed., 2 vols., vol.
1, Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft 666, 34.

7
them to look like animal horns. As previously noted, names for instruments often change over time;
words such as cornu, korn, horn, bugle, bucina, buinne, trumpet, trupa, tromba, tuba, etc. could all be
used to specify the very same instrument in different cultures during different periods of time. Laxness in
naming conventions was and is common; e.g., trumpeters ask each other who made their horn.
Here is an example of a few shepherds’ trumpets (below). These trumpets are all shaped from tree
branches or the trunks of saplings (often resulting in a shape similar to the large Swiss alphorn with a
thick, upturned “bell”; this large, curved bell often results from a branch or trunk curving up sharply from
the bank of a steep hill). I have found that trunks of trees do not produce a marked flare near the bell area,
while branches do. This strongly influences the volume and intonation of the resulting pitches. Here is an
example of four trombitas, Figure 1, below:

Figure 1: Various Shapes of the Trombita

The above figure is interesting for a number of reasons. Firstly, the osier rings are clearly present and are
spaced along the length of the instrument. Secondly, note that one of the trombitas in the figure curves up
at the end. This shape is very similar to the horn-pipe which was originally a hollow reed or pipe with an
animal horn inserted at one end. This feature is also is reminiscent of the alphorn and Roman lituus.
Although vanished in the west, shepherds and their use of the wooden trumpet is still in evidence in
Eastern European nations (see below, Figure 2):

8
 Figure 2: A Romanian Shepherd and his Trumpet, 1938 (Photograph: Kurt Hielscher)

The internet has many deleterious characteristics, but one positive one is that it has the ability to link
formerly separated communities through the display of visual and audio examples of remote and
marginalized societies. The necessity of shepherds to play wooden trumpets to collect their flocks, send
an alarm, and to communicate to other communities that are geographically separated still exists in many
Eastern European communities. Photographs similar to the one displayed above in Figure 2 are
everywhere. You just have to look for them. For example, a recent interview of a trombita maker and
player (the episode “Predchodcovia telefónov? Trombity”: http://tv.sme.sk/v/23365/predchodcovia-
telefonov-trombity.html, on the show “Nehaňte ľud môj”). Here is an example of a photograph from that
interview (Figure 3):

Figure 3: Trombita Players. Photograph: Martin Kleibl

The video of this interview shows how the trombita is made as well as showing examples of how the
instrument is used melodically and in harmony with other trombitas.

9
Making Wooden Trumpets
I decided to make a shepherd’s trumpet in order to determine the actual labour involved and also how bell
flares actually influence frequencies of upper and lower partials. Most musicians are not aware that the
shape of the bell in a musical instrument is determined by the strength with which a standing wave is
created, not the ability to disperse energy. The purpose of the bell is to keep as much energy inside the
instrument as possible so that the reflected wave supplements the incident wave. This is in contrast to the
loudspeaker horn whose main purpose is to radiate sound as efficiently as possible. Additionally, the bell
acts a "barrier" that behaves differently at varying frequencies. At low frequencies, the bell reflects the
wave sooner. The higher the frequency, the longer the wave travels down the bell before it is reflected.
This has the effect of lowering the pitch at higher frequencies from the theoretical model” 15 It also means
that the more the bell is flared, the stronger the individual pitches “lock in” and create a resonant sound.
Practically speaking, the long, thin trembita as used by the Hutsul people of the Carpathian Mountains
should have a thin sound where the upper partials are difficult to isolate (they make their trumpets from
long, straight saplings, so the base of the tree is not deeply flared). In contrast, a shepherds’ trumpet with
a sharply flared bell such as that used in the Swiss Alps should have a more robust sound with clear upper
partials (the Swiss traditionally made their trumpets from a tree growing from the side of a hill or
extending into the root, giving the resulting instrument greater proportional thickness at the root than a
trembita).
Additionally, trembitas are long and narrow; therefore, the conical flare from mouthpiece to about two-
thirds of the way down the length is minimal compared to that of the alphorn. This is important, as most
Baroque natural trumpets have been described as two-thirds cylindrical and one-third conical.16 Horns
have been described as having the reverse proportions (two-thirds conical and one-third cylindrical).
Therefore, I have decided to make two instruments concurrently. One instrument will have a flared bell
and will be 8’ (2.4 m); the other will be 7’ (2.1) and will have a small flare at the end. The first instrument
should produce a more melodic and pleasant sound, whereas the latter should produce a quieter, “thinner”
sound. The 8’ instrument should be easier to play since it is longer (the difficulty in playing a pitch for the
trumpeter does not appreciably shift as the instrument gets longer or shorter as the lips must vibrate at the
same frquency; the purpose of having piccolo valved trumpets to play Baroque pieces composed for
natural trumpets is to make the harmonic intervallic distance between two high-pitched notes large, so
that the trumpeter will not misplace a note; so, to miss a note on a shorter trumpet, one’s lips have to
vibrate at a much more distant pitch from the desired note than on a much longer natural trumpet). The
shorter 7’ trumpet will be placed in D which will allow me to play with bagpipes in A-mixolydian and
fiddle tuned in High Bass (as they still do here in Nova Scotia occasionally).
The first step is to cut down saplings, which I did in the summer of 2013. I then waited until the spring of
2014 to strip the bark from them. Here is a picture of me doing this (below, Figure 4):

15
Hirt, A., "An Analysis of the Baroque Trumpet" (Hobart College, 1984), 5.
16
Sachs, Curt 1940 The History of Musical Instruments, New York: W.W. Norton and Co. Inc.

10
 Figure 4: Author Debarking a Tree with a Drawknife

The tree chosen was cut into two lengths. The upper half will be made into the 7’ trumpet, the lower half
into the 8’ trumpet. Here is an image of the two sections with the bark removed by a drawknife ():

Figure 5: Two Sections with Bark Removed

A drawknife was then used to remove wood near the mouthpiece ends. One can see that a good deal of
material would have to be removed from the thicker (longer trumpet) instrument.
After the rough wood removal was completed, a spokeshave was then used to make the instrument look
more appealing. This is not a required step (as a shepherd cannot be expected to possess anything but a

11
large knife and/or an axe). I then sanded the outside and applied a few coats of tung oil to protect the
wood before splitting it. I may rip-saw the instruments, but have not decided whether to follow traditional
techniques here or not. The wood did not dry as slowly and for as long a period as it should have;
therefore, it has begun to check (another reason for the tung oil). This is a serious problem since the
sympathetic harmonic motion of the wood around the split will create noise (the split wood will buzz). As
this is just a trial, experimental run, I will simply fill any checking with wood glue or wood filler.
Here is an image of the instruments prior to splitting (Figure 6):

Figure 6: Two Trumpets Finished on Outside

Note the difference in diameter between the mouthpiece-end of the long instrument and the bell-end of
the smaller instrument. Since they were from the same tree, their diameters at those points were once the
same.
Here is a photograph of the two instruments ripped by a bandsaw (Figure 7, below):

12
 Figure 7: Two Trumpets Ripped

They were ripped (lengthwise cutting) instead of split since a router will be used to remove material along
the length of the instruments. This is not a traditional method. I simply do not have the time at present to
experiment by gouging out the inside by hand (using hand gouges). I will do this in the future and note
the change in the intonation of the harmonic series.
I also noticed a problem with checking. The wood was not seasoned for a long time, and the wood
checked (see Figure 8, below):

Figure 8: Ripped Line (Below) Checked Line (Above)

The top line is due to checking. The millwright who ripped the wood (Philip Clark) mentioned that in the
past, it was the practice to cut the wood and submerge the poles (normally Black Spruce) in ponds for a
number of years. This allowed the wood to dry out (his words) without splitting or checking.

13
After the wood was ripped using a bandsaw (to minimize the kerf), the internal tensions of the wood
caused the wood to twist/warp. This can be seen in the figure below (Figure 9). The wood is actually
touching and is quite tightly pressed together. The space was caused by the twisting of the wood after it
was ripped.

Figure 9: Twisted Wood After Being Ripped

Here is another image of this problem (Figure 10):

Figure 10: Twisting Along the Length

A router will be used to form a half-circle along both halves for about one-half of the length. The gouged
portion will then be expanded to about .5” (½ of an inch) from the outside of the exterior surface.
Even without removing the interior material, the wood is surprisingly light weight.
I will update this paper as I progress with the construction of these instruments.

Wooden Trumpets Linked to Metal Trumpets

14
There is a strong connection between wooden shepherds’ trumpets and metal natural trumpets of the 14-
18th centuries. This has not been explored in musical research to my knowledge, but the connections are
rather clear. The osier rings shown in the above figures of wooden shepherds’ trumpets seem to match not
only thousands of images in iconography from the Middle Ages, but also of extant instruments. For
example, consider components shown on a 5’ (1.61 m.) 14th century metal trumpet found at Billingsgate,
London during an excavation in 1984. The Billingsgate trumpet is shown below in Figure 11:

Figure 11: Digitally Re-Touched Image of the Billingsgate Trumpet; 14th Century. British Museum, London

In the figure above, I have circled two elements of the trumpet, termed bosses. For metal trumpets, some
have believed that bosses were purely decorative and serve no apparent purpose. Others believe that they
serve as a structural support when joining two sections of tubing.17 In any event, they are simply small
cups soldered together and cut to fit on the bell section. It seems likely that they were added to make
metal trumpet bosses resemble the wooden osiers used in wooden trumpet construction and perhaps add
rigidity (which is also a construction feature of wooden trumpets). Could it be that at one time kings were
not concerned as to what material trumpets were made? Could it be that the nobility simply found the best
shepherd/trumpet players and recruited them to be at court?18 This would seem a fertile area for research.
Length constraints within the current paper prevent further discussion on this topic.

Diatonic Scale:
In order to understand the interplay between natural instruments and those tuned to the diatonic scale, it
might be worthwhile to examine both scales. Let us begin with the diatonic scale.
It is not known if the diatonic scale came about from the Pythagorean tuning method or if Pythagorean
tuning was at one time simply considered the best of many diatonic tuning methods. However, I tend to
believe that the diatonic scale came about by the method of tuning multi-stringed instruments to octaves
and fifths generally known as Pythagorean tuning.
This is how the method is roughly applied. Imagine plucking a string on a harp (say C4). Tune another
string (to remove all beating between notes) to that plucked string a perfect fifth higher (G4). Now tune
another string an octave higher to the first string (C5). Now tune another string an octave lower than the

17
Simon O’Dwyer, personal correspondence 01Mar2013.
18
I’m reminded of a friend who once told me that all professional sports teams come from the same general
situation: some children in a neighborhood play a game. They’re rivals to those on the next block. When the town
plays the next town beside them, they put their rivalries aside and get the best players from all of the areas in the
town for the town’s team. They start paying them. In a like manner, trumpet players at court were possibly just the
best shepherd-trumpet players in a chief’s domain who were asked to play at court. Over time, they may have simply
formed themselves into brotherhoods (guilds) and passed along their knowledge to their children.

15
second string (G3). Continue this cyclical process (see Figure 54 and Figure 56, but centred around G,
below) and the sequence (C4, D4, E4, F4, G4, A4, B4, C5, et al.) will be created. This scale might be familiar
to most people today, but is actually extremely odd. We are not taught that this is so, but a little reflection
might help to see how unusual the scale is. A perfect fifth is actually a ratio of 3:2 (two strings under the
same tension with one string one-third shorter than the other). A major third is the ratio of two strings set
at 5:4 (two strings under the same tension with one string one-fifth shorter than the other). The
explanation can be a bit convoluted, but the end result is that you can’t have both perfect fifths and major
thirds all fitting within one octave because the ratios of 5:4 and 3:2 cannot fit within the same length. It’s
akin to finding the last decimal place of Pi. It is simply not possible. So with the Pythagorean tuning
system of combining perfect fifths and octaves, the strings closest to being in the ratio of 5:4 (thirds) are
brutally out of tune (22 cents sharp-about a quarter of an equally tempered half-step) when played in
harmony with the root. Tempering this tuning, that is, making some thirds flat and some fifths a little out
of tune (sharper), then has the effect of making triads (root, third, fifth) bearable. Most people are not
aware that in the equal temperament system that we use today, all of the major triads are slightly out of
tune; they are eight cents sharp. It’s quite noticeable if you hear a chord played exactly in tune and then
the same chord played in equal temperament.
For me, what’s important is that tuning to fifths and octaves produces the diatonic scale (C4, D4, E4, F4,
G4, A4, B4, C5) and that this diatonic scale has certain unusual features. The most important feature is that
there are the same number of notes per octave. This might seem obvious to you, but it is not obvious to a
shepherd or someone else from a different culture. The diatonic scale is exponential with respect to
frequency (cycles per second, called “Hertz” and abbreviated as Hz.). So if you have a string that vibrates
at 100 cycles per second (Hz.), the next octave will vibrate at 200 Hz. (a span of 100 Hz.). There will then
be six notes added between the octave notes. Now, here is where it becomes apparent that the scale is
exponential: the next octave note is double the frequency of the last and is 400 Hz., not 300 Hz. You now
need to fit six notes between 200 Hz. and 400 Hz. (a span of 200 Hz., not 100 Hz. as it was in the lower
octave). To make matters more complicated, in Pythagorean tuning, the six whole and half steps between
the octaves are not equally spaced as they are in equal temperament. So there are combinations of two
steps that are almost equal (the half steps) and the remainders are approximately equal (the whole steps),
but they are not exactly equal. So the distance between C4-D4 and the distances between D4-E4, E4-F4, G4-
A4, and A4-B4 are not the same. Each interval is different. In the chart below, I have placed the notes in
order as integer values and plotted that against the frequency of the pitches beginning on C4 (C4, D4, E4,
F4, G4, A4, etc.; see Figure 12, below):

16
 Figure 12: The Diatonic Equally Tempered Scale, Notes Number vs. Frequency

Here the x-axis reflects the note value (1=C, 2=D, 3=E, etc.), and the corresponding frequency is placed
on the y-axis. If I had placed the notes so that they would trace a smooth parabolic curve, you would then
notice that the notes would not be equally spaced. The purpose of this diagram is to show that the notes
are not equally spaced in relation to other notes and that the overall pattern of movement is parabolic.
So originally, there were no whole steps or half steps. They were all slightly different. Some were closer
to others, some farther away. Also notice that the line connecting the points is not a linear, straight line.
We tend to think of the diatonic scale (piano keyboard) as equal and linear. It is not; it is going up very
rapidly as you scan to the right of the figure. This is an increase in exponentiation of the frequency. So, if
C4= 100Hz, then C5=200 Hz, C6=400Hz., C7=800 Hz., C8=1600 Hz., etc.

Natural Scale (Harmonic Series):

The scale produced by natural instruments (a wooden shepherd’s trumpet, an un-stopped willow flute) is
very different than the diatonic scale. This melodic natural scale is often unconsciously obfuscated by
musicologists who study the harmonic/overtone series for an understanding of how to create perfectly in-
tune chords. The melodic possibilities are almost always ignored.
When you vibrate your lips on the mouthpiece of a wooden trumpet, you create a standing wave. One
whole wave can fit within the length of the tube (this is almost physically impossible to do for this low-
pitched note). If you increase the airflow and couple this with increased lip vibrating speed, you can now
fit two waves in the length of the tube. Then you can fit three, four, five, etc. waves within the length of
the tube (these are called “partials”). This sequence is called the natural scale or the harmonic or overtone
series. There are a different number of pitches per octave. Compared to the diatonic scale, there are more
notes per octave in the upper range than the lower. Also, the relationship between the notes is uniform;
that is, the distance from one note to the next is an increase in frequency equal to the principal frequency.
So if the principal note, the first partial, has a frequency of 50 Hz., then the following pitches would be 50

17
(1st partial frequency) + 50 = 100Hz., then 100 + (1st partial frequency) = 150 Hz., then 150 + (1st partial
19
frequency) = 200 Hz., 250 Hz., 300 Hz., 350 Hz., 400 Hz., etc.
So, if available notes are plotted against those notes’ frequencies, the following results (see Figure 13,
below):

Figure 13: Natural Scale: Notes Available vs. Frequency (Cycles per Second)

The x-axis is the note value (here the partial number, but it is just the integer value of the notes available,
in order) and the corresponding frequency value in Hertz placed on the y-axis. This musical scale is scalar
and not exponential. Therefore, the diatonic scale and the natural scale are vastly different.
Here is the natural scale written in diatonic music notation for a natural instrument approximately 8’ (2.4
m.) long. This is familiar to diatonically-trained musicians as a D natural trumpet as used by Bach,
Telleman, Torelli, Fasch, Zelenka, etc. in the “Choral Key” but with a C crook added.20 See Figure 14,
below:

Figure 14: The Natural Scale as it is Often Presented

19
This is not exactly true. The shape of the lead-pipe and the shape of the bell pushes or pulls the lower or upper end
of the harmonic series a bit (see Benade, Schilke, et al.) Therefore, you might note that over time, the shape of
trumpet bells between the 17th and 18th century became more exponential (more flared, less cone-shaped; see
Smithers, Don 1973 The Music and History of the Baroque Trumpet before 1721, Syracuse, New York: Syracuse
University Press ) in order to more closely match equal temperament.
20
The pitches of shepherds’ trumpets and their pitches at A=440 Hz. are: D=110cm (3.6ft/43.3in.), C=120cm
(3.9ft/47.23in.), B♭=134cm (4.4ft/52.83in.), A=142cm (4.67ft/55.9in), G=160cm (5.25ft/63.0in), F=180 cm
(5.9ft/70.9in.), E♭=202cm (6.6ft/79.5), D=214cm (7.0ft/84.3in.), C=242cm (7.9ft/95.3in.). B♭=272cm
(8.9ft/107.1in.).

18
Some of the notes above have been made bold/solid. This is to indicate that they are a good deal different
than the intonation of notes in the diatonic scale (equal temperament); some of these notes are the 7th, 11th,
13th, and 14th partials. The 7th partial is between A4 and B♭4,21 the 11th partial is halfway between F♮5 and

F♯5,22 the 13th partial is between A♭5 and A♮5,23 and the 14th partial is between A♮5 and B♭5.24 Arrows
point in the direction that the natural scale note sounds in comparison to equal temperament.
If a transcriber listens to a tune played on a natural instrument playing the 7th partial and also hears the
tune end in C, the transcriber does not consider the pitch of B♭4 for this note since B♭4 is not in the key of
C major. The choice is between A4 and B♮4. The 7th partial is closer to A4 and the transcriber will
probably write A4 and not B♭4. Also, the 11th partial is written as F♯5; it could also be written as F♮5 since
it is almost exactly halfway between the two notes.
If the natural scale’s representation on the diatonic staff is adjusted with these concerns in mind, the
playable notes might be represented as seen in Figure 15, below:

Figure 15: The Natural Scale as Transcribers Have Used It

Juxtaposing the Two Scales

The music notation that we currently use was originally designed to list all notes of the heptatonic (seven
notes per octave/diatonic) scale sequentially. So visually, the distance between half steps and whole steps
appears to be the same when you look at the diatonic notational staff. When you try to put the natural
scale on a page using a system that was designed for the diatonic scale, it looks awkward when in fact it is
much more consistent; this is demonstrated in the graphs above.
With an understanding of the two different systems, almost all of the confusion about the folk music scale
can be eliminated. The “gapped” nature of the folk scale appears to be trumpets playing in a low-to-mid
range. This apparently produces a tetratonic (four notes per octave) or pentatonic (five notes per octave)
scale. The trained musician should be wary on this point: terms such as tetratonic, pentatonic, hexatonic,
heptatonic, etc. refer to the number of notes per octave; natural instruments do not have octave
equivalency (equal number of notes per octave). As a natural instrument ascends in pitch, more notes
exist “per octave” compared to the diatonic scale. By using terms such as pentatonic, hexatonic, etc. to
describe folk music, musicologists are immediately excluding the natural scale from consideration

21
The 7th partial on a C natural trumpet is 69 cents sharper than an equally tempered A 4 and 31 cents flatter than an
equally tempered B♭4. There are 100 cents in an equally tempered half step interval. On a scale of 100 between A4
than B♮4, the 7th partial would fall on 35; therefore, it is closer to A4 than B♮4.
22
The 11th partial is 51 cents sharper than an equally tempered F5 and 49 cents flatter than an F♯5.
23
The 13th partial is 59 cents flatter than an equally tempered A5.
24
The 14th partial is 31 cents flatter than an equally tempered B♭5.

19
because natural instruments do not possess octave-equivalency. This is further compounded by
researchers who describe pentatonic music as evolving due to some sort of circle of fifth relationship.
This may not be incorrect, but they may possibly be doing the analysis (at least tacitly) since there is
interest in pentatonic scales because folk music has been described as being pentatonic. While
researchers’ conclusions about the formation of pentatonic scales may be correct, if the theory presented
in this paper is correct, those investigations are meaningless. Those researchers are only trying to describe
pentatonic music because they believe folk music to be pentatonic. If folk music is not pentatonic, their
theories as to how a pentatonic scale is created has no value.
In other words, if my theory is correct and folk music is based on the series of notes that a natural
instrument can produce (a natural shepherd’s trumpet), and since the natural scale does not possess
octave-equivalency, then all theories relating pentatonic scales to folk music are false. This is rather
troubling. Those are hundreds of books, thousands of papers, and touch upon tens-of-thousands of current
Ph.D. theses. Of the hundreds of folk tunes that I have analysed using this present theory, every one,
without exception, has been found to be play-able on a natural instrument. Of the handful that apparently
cannot be played on such an instrument, it was found that they were either modern compositions by
modern composers attempting to imitate the sound of old folk songs, or deliberately composed on a
diatonic instrument such as the harp or bagpipe. Every folk song (as opposed to instrumental piece) that I
analysed fit the natural scale.
The suitability of the natural scale to folk music is difficult to see at first. One of the tools that I have
found to be useful is to re-create the process of transcription. That is, I transcribe the music being played
by a natural instrument as though trained as an art musician. By doing this, the points of conflict between
what overtone partial is being played and what error arises as the pitch is being transcribed can be clearly
identified.
What I found is the following. If a trained art musician hears a natural trumpet playing in the lower range
(see Figure 15: G3, C4, E4, G4, A4, C5), that musician will classify the tune as tetratonic (four notes per
octave; that is, four notes ascending including and starting on C4, and then the octave, C5). If the tune
happens to rise to D5, the diatonically trained musician will then assume that D4 is in existence (a note an
octave lower)25 and declare that the tune is pentatonic (missing F4 and B4, but having five notes per
octave; that is, five notes starting at C4 and then the octave, C5); this implies that the pitches present are
G3, C4, D4, E4, G4, A4, C5, D5, when in fact D4 does not appear in the tune at all. A similar erroneous
assumption may occur again on a different note (F5) as a shepherd’s trumpet ascends in pitch. A tune that
would be classified as pentatonic (missing all Fs and Bs), is declared to be hexatonic once F5 is found;
this is because the trained art musician will assume that the lower octave F4 is in existence. To explain
this last point in more detail, examine a tune which scholars have classified as pentatonic (having C4,
(D4), E4, G4, A4, C5, D5, E5) until the tune ascends to an existing F5/F♯5. Once the tune includes F5/F♯5,
scholars will assume that the lower octave F4 exists, and the tune is then declared to be hexatonic (missing
B4, but not F4), resulting in a scale of: C4, (D4), E4, (F4), G4, A4, C5, D5, E5, F5, etc. This classification
occurs even though both D4 and F4 do not exist.
Simply put, because diatonically trained musicians think in terms of seven notes per octave and “octave
equivalency,” it has never occurred to them that they were dealing with a system that was not octave-

25
As mentioned above, Bernstein did this during a Harvard University lecture series termed “The Unanswered
Question” which he presented in 1973.

20
based. If you look at old folk melodies, particularly tunes in the song tradition, you will see that many
tunes have been classified as pentatonic or hexatonic when in fact the notes D4 and F4 simply do not occur
while their octave-equivalents do. The condition of an existing F5 but not an F4 occurred to me when I re-
set the first piece of The Celtic Lyre.26 It happened repeatedly afterward.
Since folk/pastoral music has been something of an anathema, trained art musicians have often defined
the music by theorizing that it is a type of music that they know is in existence, but is a type of music with
which they have actually never heard. For example, if a trained art musician notices that folk/pastoral
music has a different intonation than the music with which they are accustomed, say equal temperament,
they will suggest that folk music is tuned in the Pythagorean method, even though that trained art
musician has never heard an instrument tuned by the Pythagorean method.27 If a trained art musician
hears music that has a different ending pattern or structure than what the musician is used to, the musician
might declare the music to be based on the ecclesiastical modes, even though the musician has never
heard music based on the ecclesiastical modes. Hence the problem with folk/pastoral music classification:
very few trained art musicians in the last few hundred years have researched the properties of natural
instruments, and even if they have read of the natural scale and perhaps done theoretical work with it,
they have never actual heard it. Therefore, they speculate that folk music is based on the ecclesiastic
modes when in fact the tunes are all ending on specific pitches which correlate to the natural scale. Those
pitches may very well be of the natural scale, not exclusively the diatonic scale.
I believe that this confusion occurred because of the rise of cities/civilization and the diminution of
pastoral society. If you were to imagine a pictogram of the presence of the two scales and their
importance over the centuries, you might see something as displayed in Figure 16, below:

Figure 16: Relative Importance of the Diatonic Scale and the Natural Scale

Most folk music research has been done to the far right of the time-line displayed above, when the natural
scale was scarce and of little concern to trained art musicians. In large cities, natural trumpets began to be
superseded by slide, keyed, and valved trumpets by the late 18th century. This was hastened by the
decline of the courts and the subsequent dearth of paid positions for natural trumpet players and

26
Whyte, Henry 1885 The Celtic Lyre, Ed. Truman Matheson & Musical Ed. Aindrias Hirt, 2012 ed., St. Andrews,
Canada: Sìol Cultural Enterprises.
27
Dauney and Dun Ancient Scotish Melodies: From a Manuscript of the Reign of King James Vi: With an
Introductory Enquiry Illustrative of the History of the Music of Scotland.

21
supporters of their guild by the nobility. Most folk music research had not begun in earnest by this time.
Therefore, most folk researchers and folk music enthusiasts had probably never heard natural trumpets
and their intonation.

Extrapolation of Increased Shepherd Trumpet Prevalence in the Past

If you observe the above figure (Figure 16), you might see at least three possible time-points of interest.
To the far left of the above figure is my speculation that the natural scale was more prevalent quite a
while ago with only some sporadic traces of the diatonic scale. The middle area of the above figure where
the two lines intersect indicates a time when both scales were on an equal footing. The area to the far right
is the present day where the diatonic scale is the only scale heard for the most part in the mass media in
Europe and North America.
The first point of interest is in the area to the far right, our present day. Music that we hear played on the
radio is mainly diatonic with trace elements of the natural scale. Those vestiges include triadic harmony
and equal temperament. These elements came about due to the ability of natural instruments to play major
thirds in tune while Pythagorean-tuned instruments could not.
Fortunately, unlike the distant past, we have records of this middle period that have survived. Therefore,
if we bring our speculation of the distant past into our analysis of this middle area, we should be able to
see a greater prevalence of natural instruments that has been largely overlooked. As an example of this,
consider the following: I found a web site that stated that researchers had re-created the “forgotten”
instrument called the lituus. They had done this work because J. S. Bach had written a cantata “O Jesu
Christ, mein's Lebens Licht,” BWV 118, and wrote two parts for two litui in B♭. The pitches matched the
natural scale, but the length of the instrument needed to be about 9’ long to produce the pitches as written.
The researchers used a computer application to model how this instrument was possibly constructed.
They basically made a trembita. The modellers were initially contacted by Mike Diprose of Scola
Cantorum, Basil, who was simply looking to make a trembita-like instrument using a new software
application to prevent simple mistakes from occurring which could waste an inordinate amount of time to
correct. It never occurred to anyone that the instrument was probably a German alphorn and that the
Swiss equivalent of this instrument could be readily purchased.
A lituus is an instrument with a confused past. Most scholarship indicates that it was originally a religious
instrument that evolved into a signalling instrument used by the Roman cavalry. There are two main
shapes. One is a hollow tube of about the same diameter for the length of the instrument. It curls back on
itself and is in the shape of the letter <J>. It is three feet long. The other shape appears to be a
development of a horn-pipe (a pipe with an animal horn inserted at one end with the other end having a
cupped mouthpiece). In this case, the bell expands rather quickly and points upward. Here is an example
of the latter (Figure 17):

22
 Figure 17: A Lituus

It is about 1 m. long. Neither one of these two instruments is the required 9’ needed to produce the
overtone series that Bach required. Yet, the bell in the figure above curls upwards like an alphorn and is a
natural trumpet (no tone-hole/finger-hole openings).
Bach knew how to utilize instruments in order to produce a desired emotional response in a congregation.
For example, when he orchestrated his cantatas for St. Michael’s day (a war between St. Michael and the
serpent/devil), he used trumpets, knowing that the men in the congregation who had fought in combat
would remember the sound of the trumpet from the battlefield and empathize with St. Michael’s and his
predicament. In the case with BWV 118, Bach probably had read some poetry and decided to set it to
music. There were fourteen verses in the original poem, but he could only include a few of them in the
cantata he was creating. The poetry engendered a pastoral feeling and seemed much like the 23rd psalm.
The 14th verse is, “How joyful then I shall be/I shall sing with the angels/and with your chosen
flock/forever behold your face clearly.” Unfortunately, Bach didn’t have room for this verse in the
cantata, but perhaps wanted to somehow engender the feeling of the pasture into the minds of the
congregation. He probably chose an instrument of the shepherd and orchestrated BWV 118 for two
German alphorns. This would create a sympathetic response in the congregation, as people there had
probably heard alphorns being played before (hence my point, that pastoral society was becoming more
marginal, but still present in Germany at the time).28 Pastoral instruments were forbidden in the church, so
Bach probably gave the instrument a new name in order to have his own way. This was not the first time
he would have done this. There were no trumpeters where he was located in Leipzig. Only members of
the Kammerdshaft (Brotherhood/Trumpeters’ Guild) were allowed to play the trumpet, and they could
only ply their trade at a court. So Bach used (among others) Gottfried Reiche who was a Stadtpfeifer (city
piper) and not a member of the Kammeradshaft. Reiche played on a coiled trumpet that didn’t look like a
trumpet, but nonetheless sounded the same. It was called a Jägertrompete (hunting trumpet). So Bach
could compose for natural D trumpets because the instrument he was composing for was not a trumpet,
but a hunting trumpet. By giving the trumpet a different name, he could get around the prohibition.
So, it seems likely that Bach probably wrote for a 3 m. long alphorn, but if challenge as to why he
brought a shepherd’s trumpet into the church could explain that it wasn’t a shepherd’s trumpet at all, but
the revered, sophisticated, honoured instrument of the Roman Empire; it was a lituus.

28
I am reminded of a time when I was walking through Garmisch-Partenkirchen in Germany and in the center of
town heard the lowing of cattle from within a house. It was actually a stone barn on the road attached to a house.
The family would walk the cows through town every early morning to the town pasturage and then back again at
night.

23
The Natural Scale in Folk Music of the Past
A point in support of my theory is that the transcription process followed by folk music transcribers can
be reversed so as to put the music back into notation that reflects the perhaps original notes once played
on a wooden shepherd’s trumpet. I did this in a recent version of The Celtic Lyre published by Sìol
Cultural Enterprises (2012).29 I believe that most transcribers attempt to accurately write folk music as
they hear it. Sometimes, however, many try to “improve” or disguise the music by embellishing it with
diatonic conventions; this is often done to make the music appear to have mainland conventions due to
cultural bias levied against the originators of the songs. Such alteration gives a patina of respectability
often coveted by maligned cultures. This last point should not be underestimated. Racial and cultural
bigotry were once quite virulent.30 I have noticed this myself when travelling, even at sound archives at
universities in Scotland. Having said that, I have noticed that, in general, the pitches of the stressed notes
(the strong beats) have almost always been correctly delineated by transcribers in musical transcriptions.
Contrarily, the pitches of unstressed syllables placed on unstressed beats are generally placed halfway
between the pitches of the two stressed beats flanking them whether they are performed that way or not.
For example, if the performer is playing/singing a sequence of syllables where the pattern is stressed-
unstressed-stressed, and the stressed syllables are located on an E4 and a G4, the transcriber will often
indicate that the linking unstressed syllable is an F4 between the two, regardless of its actual pitch.
However, if the tune is ascending in pitch between two stressed beats/syllables and a middle note also
falls on a stressed beat, the transcriber will annotate the pitch correctly; the transcriber will write it as
performed as either an E4 or a G4 but not as an F4. The transcriber will often have a deep familiarity with
the diatonic scale and see it even if the performer is unaware of its existence.
Another point in support of my theory that folk music is based on the natural scale can be seen by
utilizing the work of trained art musicians who attempted to classify folk music by using the ecclesiastical
modes. As mentioned above, it should first be noted that diatonically trained musicians perhaps should
not have applied the ecclesiastical modes to folk music in the first place if they believed them to be
tetratonic, pentatonic, or hexatonic. The ecclesiastical modes only apply to heptatonic (seven notes per
octave)/diatonic music. This is because the ecclesiastical modes require two half steps per octave. If there
are not two half steps per octave, the ecclesiastical modes become indistinct. It is therefore questionable
using the ecclesiastical modes when describing any tune that does not possess seven notes per octave.
Folk music did not seem to follow the major/minor tonality system of art music. Tunes would end on
notes that might be seen as being other than the tonic or root. This may be why the ecclesiastical modes
were used to describe folk music;31 the shepherd’s trumpet also explains the percentages with which each

29
Whyte The Celtic Lyre.
30
For example, Boswell, J. 1896 Boswell's Life of Johnson: Together with Boswell's Journal of a Tour of the
Hebrides and Johnson's Diary of a Journey into North Wales, ed. Boswell’s Life of Johnson vol. III. Westminster:
Archibald Constable & Co. Birrell, 1896. The Clarendon Press, displays bigotry that is quite shocking to modern
sensibilities. This should not be discounted, but understood as normal for the times. If this prejudice is embraced,
then the force which impelled people to defend their "national" music might be better understood.
31
The ecclesiastical modes were brought into Europe from Greece albeit in a distorted form. When a tune ended on
a particular note of the diatonic scale, it was thought to impart a particular sentiment to the listener; the Church
found that this purported trait made it very useful in orchestrating the emotions of the congregation. The original,
permissible ecclesiastical modes were dorian (ended on D), phrygian (ended on E), lydian (ended on F), and
mixolydian (ended on G). Ionian (ended on C, the major mode) and aeolian (ended on A, the natural minor) were
originally proscribed; the ionian (major) mode acquired the epithet of the modus lascivus (lustful mode).

24
individual ecclesiastical mode is alleged to have occurred. If a tune played on a shepherd’s trumpet ends
on the 3rd, 4th, 5th, etc. partial, transcribers would suggest that the tune would be, in order: G major (3rd
partial; I have never seen this occur and will ignore this possibility), C major (4th partial), E minor (5th
partial, as the relative minor to G major with the 11th partial heard as F♯5), G major or G mixolydian (6th
partial), A minor (7th partial, as the relative minor to C major), C major (8th partial), D dorian (9th partial),
E phrygian (10th partial), etc., from easiest to play to more difficult to play (which is a reflection of
airstream flow and how we speak as well). In general, this matches what musicologists have said of folk
tunes of the past. For example, concerning Celtic melodies, Bradley suggested that 60% were ionian
(major), 20% were mixolydian, 12% were aeolian (natural minor), and 8% were dorian.32 Breathnach
suggested 60% were ionian, 15% were mixolydian, 10% were dorian, and aeolian tunes were the least
numerous.33
I have found similar results. While I was taking a break from the University of Otago and living in a
Gaelic-speaking region of North America, I was approached by a publisher and asked to re-set The Celtic
Lyre, a set of four music books from about 1885; he wanted me to bring them up to modern standards. I
decided to place the melodies so that the natural scale was apparent if applicable. Of the sixty-eight tunes,
sixty-six could be easily played on a shepherd’s trumpet (that’s 97%); the other tunes I thought simply sat
too high in pitch (although I found later that might not be a concern; see the next section, “An Example of
Transcribed Lur Music,” below). The tunes set rather high also may have been composed for/on the
bagpipes, which, since it is diatonic, would place the tune rather high for a shepherd’s trumpet. I found
the tunes ended on the following notes with these percentages: C: 54%, G: 21%, D: 13%, A: 12%. This is
roughly in-line with the ecclesiastical modal attribution percentage that Bradley and Breathnach had
given to Celtic folk songs. If this is written as the percentages of The Celtic Lyre/Bradley/Breathnach, we
have: ionian (54%/60%/60%), mixolydian (21%34/20%/15%), aeolian (12%/12%/least numerous), and
dorian (13%/8%/10%). That’s quite a coincidence considering that 97% of the tunes of The Celtic Lyre
could easily be played on a shepherd’s trumpet. This implies that the tunes analysed by Bradley and
Breathnach could also be played by shepherds’ trumpets.
If we match the natural scale to the ecclesiastical modes, we get in order of theoretical likelihood:35 ionian
(C4, C5, also G4), aeolian (E4, A4), mixolydian (G4), dorian (D5).36 This would suggest why “[T]he modes
on A and C were excluded from the ecclesiastical list, their effect judged as being ‘lascivious’ and
‘worldly’ and unsuitable for religious use since their influence would be pernicious.” 37 So if you assume
that my theory is correct, everything makes sense. Pastoral melodies were played on shepherds’ trumpets
that trained musicians would describe as being the equivalent to the ionian and aeloian (and some
mixolydian and some dorian) modes. The church banned those modes and pastoral instruments from
church because they were linked to coarse, immoral behaviour. Over time, the forbidden modes became

32
Bradley, Seóirse and Breathnach, Breandán, "Ireland," in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed.
Stanley. Ed. Sadie (London: MacMillan Publishers, 1980), 317.
33
Breathnach, Breandán 1996 Folk Music and Dances of Ireland, Cork: Ossian Publications, Ltd., 10.
34
I have given the notes ending in G to be that of the mixolydian mode, it could also be G-ionian.
35
It is generally more likely for tunes to begin and end on lower pitches.
36
This explains why the early Christian Church eschewed both the ionian (major) and aeolian (minor) modes. They
wouldn’t want the pastoral music being played during a church service.
37
Vincent, J. 1951 The Diatonic Modes in Modern Music University of California Press 225.

25
increasingly acceptable until they overwhelmed the ecclesiastical modes.38 By that time, the culture and
the instruments that created that fulcrum of change had all but disappeared.
I should also point out that shepherds’ trumpets were spread all over Europe; folk music from various
cultures, including those of the English, Welsh, Irish, Scottish, French, German, Italian, Spanish, and
others, exhibit the same pitch-traits and have been described in the same way and with the same ending-
note percentages as I found in The Celtic Lyre. The various languages represented by the names of
shepherds’ trumpets listed above testify to their widespread use throughout Europe.
So, consider Figure 15, above. If played on a natural instrument, tunes must end on one of the notes in
that figure. Generally, tunes tend to end in the lower range of an instrument at the end of the final phrase.
I believe that this is due to the natural intonation patterns of people when they are speaking. 39 Most
people, most often, begin a sentence at a low pitch, ascend through the middle of the exhalation and then
lower the pitch toward the end. This is natural and makes physiological/physics sense. A person’s
airstream speed increases to the middle of the exhalation and then decreases to the end (the diaphragm is
much like the range of skeletal muscle power; when performing an arm curl with weights, the onset is
weak and gets stronger toward the centre of the motion and then gets weaker at the end of the arm
movement). Bernoulli’s equation/theory explains this rather well with the range of motion of the
diaphragm. Frequency is a function of air speed (other variables held constant). So, the likelihood of
ending a tune on a particular pitch decreases as the pitch increases (more tunes end on low pitches than
high pitches). Referring to Figure 15, from high probability to low probability, a tune played on the
natural scale should have a greater probability of ending on a low pitch such as C4 (the 4th partial; I have
never seen a tune end on the 3rd partial, G3 which generally takes a good amount of air and effort).
Diatonically trained musicians would label this ionian/major. Ascending the natural scale, if the tune
ended on E4 (5th partial), it would be named phrygian/aeolian (relative minor of G-this occurs when the
11th partial is thought to be F♯5 and there is a good deal of action around G4, which often happens). If the
tune ended on G4 (6th partial), it would be considered mixolydian or, again, with an F♯5, ionian. This last
example should not be undervalued, as there seems to be a great deal of focus on tunes in G major in

38
Instruments that played the natural scale also had a strong effect on the history of art music concerning harmonies
and tunings. With Pythagorean tuning that was used for the diatonic scale and ecclesiastical modes, major thirds
were 22 cents sharp. Major thirds on instruments that produce the natural scale are exactly in-tune, as are fifths.
Church musicians were forbidden to play triads since they were terribly out-of-tune, but they knew triads could be
played in-tune since they heard shepherds’ trumpets that played thirds and triads in-tune. So they tried to temper the
diatonic scale to make thirds as in-tune as on shepherds’ trumpets (called just intonation). In essence, we have major
and minor modes and harmonic progressions of triads because of natural instruments that existed in Medieval (and
Antiquity) Europe, not because of what was imported from Greece.
I have found it helpful to think in terms of two warring “camps” in order to organize things in my mind. In one camp
is the music of the Christian Church; the Church was trying to convert the uncouth pagans. The Church brought in
new music not only to direct the emotions of the congregations, but also to be different from what currently existed;
they associated this music to dancing and drunkenness (partying). So the Church introduced the diatonic scale, the
diatonic modes (that is supposed to direct the congregations’ emotions, but they actually altered the modes by one
step when they brought them in from Greece, which effectively refuted the theory that listening to the modes
resulted in a particular emotion), the diatonic scale, octave equivalency, in-tune fifths, but out-of-tune thirds. In the
other camp, the heathen had the natural scale, in-tune thirds and fifths, but only a gamut of notes. They fought and
plundered from each other.
39
Here is a more detail approach: Shanahan, Daniel and Huron, David 2011 Interval Size and Phrase Position: A
Comparison between German and Chinese Folksongs, Empirical Musicology Review Vol. 6, No. 4, 187-97: 187.

26
Gaelic nations, particularly Ireland.40 The leading tone of tunes thought to end on G5 is often called F-flat
and might be associated with the 11th partial which is halfway between F♯5 and F♮5. The Irish call the

leading note in this condition “F-flat” (F♭) not because it is lower than F♮5, but because it is a flat F♯5 in
what most people are told is G major. If the tune ends on A4 (7th partial), diatonically trained musicians
would label this aeolian (relative minor of C major). If the tune ends on C5 (8th partial), diatonically
trained musicians would label this ionian/major. If the tune ends on D5 (9th partial), they would label this
dorian. If the tune ends on E5 (10th partial), they would label this phrygian, etc. Therefore, if you summed
all of this, and if natural instruments were the creators of folk music tunes, you would expect diatonically
trained musicians to label folk music tunes as, in order of prevalence: ionian, aeolian, mixolydian, dorian,
and phrygian (perhaps a few lydian).
Comparing the application of the ecclesiastical mode names to the natural scale and the application of the
ecclesiastical modes to folk music yields a staggering coincidence. Moreover, the completely theoretical
postulate that folk tunes would be named according to the pitches of the natural scale according to the
order of low pitches to high pitches (ionian, aeolian, mixolydian, dorian, and phrygian) almost matched
the analysis of actual tunes (ionian, mixolydian, aeolian, and dorian). Note the low incidence of lydian
and locrian modes in folk music as termed by past researchers. Although locrian is inherently unstable,
the low incidence of the lydian mode does not make sense if the ecclesiastical modes (using the diatonic
scale) define folk music.
The hierarchy of what would be the most dominant ending pitch is significant. The early Christian Church
banned the playing of the ionian (major) and aeolian (Minor) modes for hundreds of years; only the
dorian, Phrygian, lydian, and mixolydian modes were allowed (and then later the plagal variations). As
Cazden states of the policy of using the ecclesiastical modes to describe folk music:
[It] shamefacedly called for the invention of two hitherto unused or obscure Greek mode names, Ionian and
Aeolian, in order to account for the obvious prominence of major and minor in music now governed by
harmonic tonality, so as to bring these scale forms also under the protective color of seemingly ancient
authority. The earlier church rules had rigorously excluded both the use of such constructions, save
surreptitiously under the illuminating excuse "musica ficta", or their recognition as theoretical possibilities,
for all their seeming logical inevitability in a complete scheme. Let the lesson not be lost on theorists
tempted to devise Bronson-type, Hauer-type, Hindemith-type, Kayser-type or Schenker-type diagrams[.]41
The ionian mode was dubbed modus lascivus (lustful mode) and was played by the folk. As even Bronson
says, “[T]he Ionian scale has been taken as the starting-point because it has been from time immemorial
designated as the mode of popular song [...] and because, in bulk, it is by far the predominating mode in
the extant folksong record-at least in British-American tradition.”42
That would make sense if “folk music” was played on natural instruments which displayed the tonic
tendency as described above. You wouldn’t want the rough nature of shepherds and merry music-making
intruding on the “serious business” of religion. More to the point, church musicians would want to have a
special musical language all their own that was apart from that played by the common people. Just as the
professional poets of Ireland, the filidh, had special complicated poetic structures and only composed in
those forms, so too, Christian Church musicians had their own special musical formulae. To compose

40
See Bunting and a host of other sources. Bunting is probably the best reference.
41
Cazden A Simplified Mode Classification for Traditional Anglo-American Song Tunes 51-52.
42
Bronson Folksong and the Modes 43.

27
outside such forms would be professional suicide. Therefore, only the structures of ecclesiastical music
were expounded in writing. The just, righteous, correct music of educated people found its way onto
parchment. Over time, “[T]he archaic song of the common people has ever been drawn by instinctive
tropism towards the musical forms and formulas taught over the centuries by a benevolent Church.” 43 In
the end, the modi lascivi were ignored or forbidden. Therefore, we have no obvious written record of it.
Still, “The devil has all of the best tunes” and folk tunes weeded their way into Church music regardless.
If indeed wooden shepherds’ trumpets were the foundation of “folk music,” then a good deal of
speculation concerning Middle Age chordophone (lyres, harps, etc.) tuning might be re-examined. If you
have no reference to the diatonic scale in your personal life and experience as a common shepherd, tuning
to a circle of fifth/octaves as in a cloister would be asynchronous. If you were accustomed to the
intonation of the natural scale, it would be logical to have tune-able instruments match that of the un-tune-
able natural instruments if the two groups were playing together. Eivind Groven noted this. He had grown
up surrounded by the sound of folk instruments in his native Norway. When he first heard the intonation
of an orchestra, he was astounded. He then attempted to show that the intonation of Norwegian folk music
was bound or tied to the intonation of the willow flute (seljefløyte-sallow/willow flute); a willow flute is a
natural instrument made from the bark of a willow branch which is removed in one piece, making a tube
that plays two superimposed natural scales (one scale with the tube open; one scale with the tube stopped
at the end with a finger). He believed that the hardingfele (hardanger fiddle) and other tune-able folk
instruments were tuned to the willow flute. If you can’t change the tuning of one instrument, the chances
are that tune-able instruments will match the un-tune-able instrument’s intonation. Here are the pitches of
the willow flute (Figure 18). Note that there are two scales superimposed, one series as in Figure 15,

above, with no finger inserted, the other with a finger inserted, closing the end of the tube.
Figure 18: Approximate Location of the Willow Flute's Pitches

If Western European folk music is built on the natural scale, it answers a great many other questions
concerning chordophone tuning. For example, what was the intonation/tuning of the crotte (crowd, crwth,
cruit, rotte, chorus, etc.) in the Early Middle (Dark) Ages? The instrument had approximately six strings.
One might speculate that it probably matched the pitches available on a shepherd’s trumpet (G3, C4, E4,
G4, A4, C5, D5, etc.). Another question might be, why did the eleven-stringed harp suddenly become a
thirty-stringed harp, especially in the British Isles? The early harp had roughly eleven strings. This would
make sense if a harp was tuned to match a natural instrument, as typically, an average trumpeter can play
from the 3rd to the 12th/14th partial.44 The harp could be tuned to match the pitches that the shepherd’s
trumpet could produce. There was then a development around the twelfth century or earlier in Ireland
where the number of strings shot up to about thirty strings. This would imply that the technological

43
Cazden A Simplified Mode Classification for Traditional Anglo-American Song Tunes 45.
44
Typically, early trumpeters were known to play to the 13 th partial, but most competent trumpeters played to the
16th partial. Some very good ones could play to the 24 th partial (Brian Shaw and Civiletti can play the Franz Xaver
Richter's “Concerto à 5 voc. per clarino principale” and have recorded it and similar works which rise to that
extreme height.

28
advantage provided by the Pythagorean tuning system entering Europe through the urging of the Christian
Church45 would then allow more strings to be added to the harp. In other words, the early instrument was
probably limited to matching the natural scale. When a new technology appeared that allowed for more
strings to be added, more strings were added.
One shortcoming of the theory presented in this paper is that the eleventh partial is problematic. Folk
tunes often leave this pitch (F5) out. This gives the music a glamour that it is octave-equivalent and
pentatonic (missing F4, B4, F5). There are two possible solutions for explaining this anomaly. The first is
that since pipes (pitched in G at the time and tuned using the just intonation method), the harp (tuned to a
type of Pythagorean method called the Natural Key or High Bass which centred around G), and natural
instruments (pitched probably in C with the 12th partial falling on G5 with the “leading tone” being the
11th partial) all had different frequencies for F5, it was probably avoided.46 The second possible solution is
that the 11th partial when performed melodically is disagreeable when there is harmony around it. This
tendency has been noted by scholars observing throat singers who sing in harmony (with themselves) who
then avoid the eleventh partial when singing the melody. This might have a connection to Scottish Gaelic
music which has been described as sitting higher on the notational staff, with a penchant for omitting B4
and F5 while Irish Gaelic music has been said to sit lower with missing F4 and B4. The implication then is
that Scottish Gaelic music possesses perhaps originally more higher, triadic harmony (not referring to a
good deal of Scottish Gaelic choral music produced at the turn of the last century) than Irish Gaelic
music. This triadic harmony does not imply modern harmonic progressions. I noticed this to be true when
I listen to older Irish Gaelic music. Irish Gaelic musicians experiment with the music by adding and
subtracting voices, not by having any chordal, progression-based harmony; however, there is low-pitched
droning on the pipes. This implies that Scottish Gaelic music might have had more affinity for higher
pitched shifting triads not necessarily based on non-shifting drone harmony.

An Example of Transcribed Lur Music

In order to see the natural scale in folk/pastoral music, it might be interesting to observe the way that
trained musicians have transcribed instruments playing the natural scale. Here is an example of a tune
played on a lur from the article “Norway” in the Groves Dictionary of Music and Musicians. In the
article, the example is presented after stating, “[...] the longest [lur] (150 to 200 cm) were generally
played in a very high register, their melodies resembling those played on the large alphorns in other parts
of Europe.”47

45
Variations of the diatonic scale were said to facilitate a sympathetic emotional response in the congregation. An
ecclesiastical mode could be selected to affect the appropriate congregational emotional response. Unfortunately,
when transferring the modes from Greece to Rome, the modes became disjoined by one step, yet the wrong response
in the congregation was not observed. In other words, creating an emotion by using the ecclesiastical modes did not
work.
46
An example of this can be seen in Cape Breton fiddle music where the fiddle is accompanied by the piano. The
piano is equally tempered while the fiddle uses a different intonation system. When there would be a conflict of
tuning with the melodic fiddle, the piano avoids the conflict by not playing the note.
47
Huldt-Nystrøm, Hampus and Sevåg, Reidar, "Norway," in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians,
ed. Stanley. Ed. Sadie (London: MacMillan Press Limited, 1980), 325.

29
The article uses information previously published by the co-author Reidar Sevåg from “Det gjallar og det
laet“ (Oslo, 1973). Below is Sevåg’s transcription of a tune as played on a lur48 (see Figure 19). The hash
mark before the B♮5, indicates that the sounded pitch is approximately a ¼ tone below the annotated note.

Figure 19: A Reproduction of “Det gjallar og det laet”

Because of the way it is presented, it looks as though the transcriber placed the notes on the staff as if
sounded on a piano with A4=440 Hz. The B♮5 with the preceding hash mark would tend to suggest that
that pitch is the 11th partial. So the first step is to try to transpose the music down as low as possible while
keeping the notes within those delineated in Figure 15. Since the lower end of the Natural Sale becomes
increasingly gapped compared to the diatonic scale, it becomes more difficult to fit the natural scale on
the musical staff at lower pitches. Therefore, since lower pitches are easier to play, the basic procedure is
to lower the melody until just before the trumpeter cannot play the notes. In the case with the above
figure, that transposition is down a perfect fourth.
If the tune is transposed down a perfect fourth, the following results (see Figure 20, below):

48
Ibid., 324.

30
 Figure 20: “Det gjallar og det laet“ Transposed to See the Natural Scale

This matches the natural scale as shown above in Figure 14. As is the custom, when transposing a melody
to fit into the pattern of the natural scale for the trumpeter to read (as in Figure 14 and Figure 15), the
pitch of the instrument is placed in the upper left hand corner of the music; here, that is “F Trumpet.” So
the lur in this example probably was about 2 metres long. Since this is a transcription of an instrument
that actually plays the natural scale, I have done nothing but annotate the music for an instrument as if it
is pitched in F; that is, the tune was probably played by an F trumpet. I have not done anything to the
music but am simply going through the steps necessary to place the music as it normally appears for a
natural trumpeter to read and play.
The F♯5 and original hash mark can be interpreted as the half-flat symbol F 5. If this is done, the music
appears as follows (Figure 21, below):

Figure 21: “Det gjallar og det laet“ 11th Partial Adjustment

31
Note the presence of B♭4 in the above figure. The tune ends on C5. B♭4 is not in the key of C major. The
note is between A4 and B♭4 (closer to B♭4) but B♭ is not in the key of C major and is not an option for the
typical transcriber. The 7th partial is between A4 and B♮4. It is closer to A4. The typical transcriber would
write an A4. The above authors are trying to be precise in what they hear and not force the music to match
art music strictures. This was not done in the past but is becoming more commonplace.

In the case of the 11th partial, F♯5 is not in the key of C major. The note is between F♮5 and F♯5, but F♯5 is
not in the key of C major and is not an option for the typical transcriber. The typical transcriber would
write an F♮5.

Therefore, one can expect the overwhelming majority of trained musicians to transcribe Figure 21 when

listening to the music as is shown below (Figure 22):

Figure 22: “Det gjallar og det laet“ 7th and 11th Partial Adjustment

A trained musician would also declare that the above tune is hexatonic since it lacks B♮4. Since there is no
doubt that the instrument that played this tune was a natural instrument and natural instruments do not
possess octave-equivalency and cannot play the diatonic scale, labelling this tune as hexatonic would be
an error.
A note should be made of the tessitura of the tune; the tune ascends to concert D6. Since ability to play
high pitches is generally linked to skill, this would put the lur performer’s ability on a par with J.S.
Bach’s best trumpeters, Reiche and Ruhe (although Bach occasionally wrote higher pitches, most works
mainly ascended to C6 for a D trumpet, albeit with A4=415 Hz.; the above example was probably
transcribed with A4=440 Hz. which is higher/more difficult than A4=415 Hz.). The pitch height is also
equal to Girolamo Fantini (1600-1675) who was the leading trumpeter at the court of Ferdinando II,
Grand Duke of Tuscany. It also surpasses the ability of Cesare Bendinelli (1542-1617) foremost trumpet
player at the Viennese court (1567-1580) and the court of Munich (1580 until his death). That is, a

32
Norwegian shepherd in the above example is showing equal or more skill than some of the leading
trumpeters throughout history.
The above analysis can be applied to folk/pastoral tunes in order to see the natural scale as the possible
genesis of the tunes. This is shown below.

Examples of Converting Folk Songs/Tunes to the Natural Scale:

Here are a few examples of how to remove diatonic elements from a transcribed folk tune so as to see its
natural scalar base, if it has one. The process is not difficult to perform, but it is not intuitive. I had always
suspected that the natural scale was the foundation of the natural scale, but could not understand how to
take the notes that were present in a transcribed tune and fit it exactly to the natural scale. As mentioned
above, I was asked to re-set The Celtic Lyre by the publisher of Sìol Cultural Enterprises; this occurred in
the summer of 2011. I thought that it would be a simple and quick project. I took a total of sixty-eight
songs under four separate editions of The Celtic Lyre (ed. Henry Whyte) and began to re-set the songs.
Unfortunately, after about two months I realized that the rhythms were not correct; they had been written
to match the English translations (the original words were in Scottish Gaelic). Since the edition was solely
in Scottish Gaelic, I then had to research the songs and find the correct rhythms. Later, three-quarters of
the way through the work, I saw the natural scale in the music and had to re-set the entire book, again.
What follows is the process that I developed to find the lowest starting pitch that a natural instrument can
start in order to play the entire tune. The best way to do this is through using some examples of this
conversion from The Celtic Lyre (2012) (note, since this is a working paper and is not published, I have
begun to include tunes from outside The Celtic Lyre).
I would like to strongly stress that the analysis below happens to be focused on Gaelic song tunes. This
same type of analysis can be done on English, French, German, Italian, etc. folk songs with the same
result. The prevalence of shepherds’ trumpets was consistent and dense throughout Eastern and Western
Europe in the Middle Ages and earlier.
Example 1: “Mo nighean donn bhòidheach.” This tune was chosen because the 11th partial is
prominent. The first step is to transcribe the tune directly into a computer application such as Finale® or
Sibelius®. You can do this by hand, but if you need to transpose a tune three or four times, it can be
laborious; a computer application is much faster. For a computer application, I used Sibelius® because
sol-fa notation was required for the new edition of The Celtic Lyre and Sibelius® had an automatic plug-in
sol-fa generator. Whether you choose to use Sibelius®, Finale®, LilyPond® or another application, the first
step in the process is to locate the music that you want to convert to the natural scale; normally, this music
has been identified as being pentatonic or hexatonic. In the example below example, I used selection #27
from The Celtic Lyre entitled “Mo nighean donn bhòidheach.” This is a rather well known song. This
version is slightly different from that as sung in Nova Scotia, Canada, but if this version (below) were
performed, Nova Scotians would recognize it. The music from the original The Celtic Lyre looks
something like that shown below (Figure 23).

33
 Figure 23: “Mo nighean donn bhòidheach” from The Celtic Lyre c. 1885

The first step is to take the tune, above, and put it into the Sibelius® or Finale® software computer
application (ignore this step if doing this process by hand). The result can be seen below (Figure 24):

Figure 24: “Mo nighean donn bhòidheach” Placed into a Computer Application

The next step is to remove the accidentals by transposing the key into C major (actually, the key is not
important; you just have to remove the accidentals while keeping the tune’s melody unchanged-this is
important if the tune is displayed as heptatonic mixolydian, dorian, phrygian, lydian, etc.-the ending pitch
might be G, D, etc. with no accidentals; this is fine). Changing the key to C major takes approximately 30
seconds and is the fastest way of removing the accidentals from the key signature. This step is important
because it removes a great deal of initial confusion. Figure 15 displays a certain series of notes. If you
cannot place the tune into a form that matches Figure 15, it will be difficult to see the natural scale, if it
exists. It is also important to move accidentals in the corpus of the tune to the key signature before
transposing. Often transcribers will leave accidentals on the staff so that the tune will have a final note
which is in synchronous with the key signature. Transcribers will also add accidentals to the key signature
even though those notes do not appear in the tune; for example, transcribers may add F♯ to the key
signature although F♯ does not appear in the tune. They do this often when the tune ends on G; this forces
the tune to appear to be ionian/major instead of mixolydian. This was a common practice.

34
As mentioned above, most transcribers of folk tunes believe that the tunes are pentatonic or hexatonic, but
might be unaware that pentatonic tunes lack half-steps.49 Without half-steps being present, the system of
keys breaks down. In this case, the result is that you can take a pentatonic tune (not just any pentatonic
tune, but one missing half-steps) and transpose the tune up (or down) a perfect fourth or a perfect fifth.
This moves the tune on the notational staff, but does not add accidentals to the tune nor does it change the
melody. So there are a number of transpositions to try, in order, to see the natural scale (harmonic series)
if it exists:
1. Move the tune down/up by an octave.
2. Move the tune up by a perfect fourth. If this is the proper placement, the stressed beats of the tune will
match the natural scale. The examples presented below do not happen to require this transposition.
3. Move the tune up by a perfect fifth. If this is the proper placement, the stressed beats of the tune will
match the natural scale.
4. Move the tune up a major third or sixth. This rarely is needed, but is a part of the process to see if the
tune is based on the natural scale.
5. Once the natural scale is seen, it is often appropriate to lower the tune by an octave. This is because,
although it is possible to play the tune on a natural instrument, if it can be played in the lower octave, it
shows a more organic base (it is physically easier for a trumpeter to play lower pitches). That is, if the
tune can be played at the lower range of the instrument, it shows that the tune may be very old and date
from the time when pastoral instruments were more prevalent.
6. If the tune appears to be hexatonic, convert the piece to C major and then attempt to place the
“missing” note at B4. More often than not, if you perform this transposition and then look at the music,
you will see that F5 is present, but F4 is absent. D4 will be absent as well.
In the example before us, once the tune is transposed to C major, the following results (Figure 25):

Figure 25: “Mo nighean donn bhòidheach” in C Major

Voilà. There is the natural scale. The third note, circled in blue, is not in the natural scale, but is a passing
note; it is the only note in the entire tune that is not in the harmonic series. Transcribers often write a note
in between two stressed notes that is in the diatonic scale, but not in the natural scale when transcribing
tunes. They subconsciously hear it, yet the performers never knew that such a note was in existence. The
singers were merely sliding a bit to the next pitch and did not realize that a listener possessed knowledge
of another note in between the two stressed pitches. The onus is on the transcriber to understand how the

49
Importantly, Western European folk tunes are not merely often described as being pentatonic, but are missing half
steps. This is extremely important and has been generally ignored by musicologists. There are many other cultures
which have pentatonic music but which include half steps. The absence of half steps in music described as
pentatonic points squarely toward the natural scale.

35
performer thinks. It is not the performer’s function to educate the stray listener about the musical
structure. Moreover, the performer is probably unaware of the musical structure.
Once the note in question is adjusted (generally, this moves the diatonic pitch up to a higher pitched note
when the melody falls, and a lower pitch when the melody ascends) the following results (Figure 26):

Figure 26: “Mo nighean donn bhòidheach” Notation for a Natural Instrument

On a B♭, natural (9’/3 m. long) trumpet, this tune is very easy to play. This tune is sung like this in Nova
Scotia (below, Figure 27):

Figure 27: “Mo nighean donn bhòidheach” as Sung in Nova Scotia

The tune sits slightly high in the natural scale (it possibly originated an octave lower: the G3- C4 interval
is very distinctive of natural instruments), so the F5/F#5 (you can use the half-sharp symbol F 5 here if
you wish) 11th partial sounds very odd when heard. Transcribers, when hearing this pitch, heard the odd
nature of it (with respect to the diatonic tuning system and made notes concerning this50). If the tune
ended on C4 or C5, then transcribers annotated the 11th partial as F♮5 since F#5 was not in the key of C
major. Occasionally, they annotated it as F#5 if it ended in C5, and then stated that the tune was
mixolydian. Significantly, transcribers annotated it as F#5 if the final pitch was G4 or G5. In such a case, it
would be very flat compared to equal temperament’s F#5 or certainly Pythagorean tuning’s F#5.
Example 2: “Amazing Grace” from “Gallaher.” The tune for “Amazing Grace” came from a number
of pre-existing tunes. The one most closely matching is a tune named “Gallaher.”51 It seems to have been
named after Rev. James Gallaher who wrote it down (either he composed it or simply wrote it down from
memory) and named it “Cheviot.” That is the name of a type of sheep, which originated from the Cheviot
Hills between England and Scotland. The word looks to be French at first blush, but seems to have come
from Old English chiuiet which in the 12th century referred to a gap in the hills (gate). By the fact that it
exactly matches the natural scale, one would assume that it came from the transhumance culture, but it is
not certain. Below is the tune as it appears using shape-note notation (below, Figure 28):

50
I find Vincent The Diatonic Modes in Modern Music very useful in that he discusses intonation issues that art
musicians had with folk singers.
51
Shaw, Benjamin and Spilman, Charles H. 1829 Columbian Harmony, Cincinnati: Lodge, L'Hommedieu and
Hammond, Printers.

36
 Figure 28: "Gallaher"

Notice the range of the tune is very similar to “Mo nighean donn bhòidheach,” ranging from G4 to G5.
Example 3: “Fear a’ bhàta.” This tune was chosen because the 7th partial is prominent. This treatment is
perhaps the least satisfactory of all of the examples in this paper, as I was forced to adjust the pitch on a
note that fell on a stressed beat. If I had transposed this up any higher to remove this anomaly, it would
place the range of the tune too high for an average trumpeter. As it is, the converted tune would be very
agreeable to an older person from the Gaeltachd.
Here is the tune (#11) as it appears in the first book of The Celtic Lyre (see Figure 29, below):

Figure 29: “Fear a’ bhàta” from The Celtic Lyre c. 1885

As before, the first step is to place the tune into a computer application program (see Figure 30, below). I
altered the tune to compound time to match how it is sung. I did not change the pitches.

37
 Figure 30: “Fear a’ bhàta” in Sibelius®

Placing this in A Minor (again, the keys/modes are not important, only modulating the tune so that the
accidentals disappear while keeping the melody intact) results in the following (see Figure 31, below):

Figure 31: “Fear a’ bhàta” in A Minor (No Sharps or Flats in the Tune or the Key Signature)

If you look carefully, you can see that the natural scale is displayed on all of the stressed beats except for
two. These two notes can be moved up or down without significantly impacting the melody. In fact, I
have heard the melody sung in just such a manner in recordings in archives. You can see this below with
notes on stressed beats being circled in red if in the natural scale and circled in blue when the stressed
beats fall outside the natural scale (see Figure 32, below)

38
 Figure 32: “Fear a’ bhàta” with Stressed Beats Circled

If the two stressed notes and two passing notes that fall outside the natural scale are adjusted to fall within
the scale, the following results (Figure 33):

Figure 33: “Fear a’ bhàta” Adjusted for the Natural Scale

For those accustomed to the equally tempered diatonic scale, this tune is somewhat difficult to listen to as
the root/final of the song is on the very pitch which is so much out-of-tune with respect to the diatonic
scale. If played on a piano, it would be immediately recognised.
Example 4: “Eilean an Fhraoich.” This is another of many examples that display almost no notes
outside the natural scale. The notes that are outside the natural scale are only passing or neighbouring
notes. Here is the tune (#52) as it appears in The Celtic Lyre (Figure 34):

39
 Figure 34: “Eilean an Fhraoich” from The Celtic Lyre c. 1885

Below is this song transposed to C major with diatonic notes not in the natural scale circled in blue
(Figure 35). I changed the metre of the song, but this has no effect on the pitches.

Figure 35: “Eilean an Fhraoich” from The Celtic Lyre c. 1885 in Sibelius®

These two passing tones can easily have been mis-heard by the transcriber. If they were made to be C5,
the listener probably wouldn’t notice; however, the 7th partial would stand out to the equally-tempered-
accustomed listener.
Example 5: “Henenfeld.” A great deal of information is beginning to emerge from Europe concerning
the playing of shepherds’ trumpets. As an example, here is a transcription of a tune as played on a
shepherd’s trumpet (below, Figure 36):

40
 Figure 36: “Henfenfeld”

Information of this tune and copious quantities of material can now be found at a site called “Hirtenmusik
in Europa” (shepherds’ music in Europe): http://www.schwaben-kultur.de/hirtenmusik/en/index.html.
Notice that the pitches are not at deviance with the natural scale. However, German transcribers often
have difficulty in annotating the 7th partial. I have seen it represented as A4, B♭4, or even B♮5. The 11th
partial is always represented as F♮6.
Example 6: “Am fleasgach donn.” This tune was chosen because the tune, after going through the
above processes, ends up being an octave above where it probably should lie; transposing it down by an
octave places it so low that any novice trumpet player can play it easily. Placing the tune this low is
possible for many of the tunes in The Celtic Lyre; I avoided doing this as the casual observer might think
that I was using a heavy hand. This is actually far from the case. All of the stressed beats would be
playable by a natural instrument, and easily so. This proclivity, more than any other, convinced me that
Gaelic music (and by extension, European folk music in general) was created on wooden shepherds’
trumpets. The example below is significant since any school child could play this tune, and it would be
immediately recognizable to every member of the Gaelic community.
If you look at the song “Am fleasgach donn” (“Faill ill ó, agus hó ró éile”) which was #30 in the second
book of the original, you will see the following (Figure 37, below):

41
 Figure 37: Original “Am fleasgach donn”

As before, the first step is to place the tune into a computer application program (see Figure 38, below):

Figure 38: “Am fleasgach donn” in Sibelius®

I should note that I changed the rhythm. This has no bearing on this exercise; it simply did not fit the
stresses as it is normally sung. The tune above is in F major. I transposed it up to C major with the
following result (Figure 39):

42
 Figure 39: “Am fleasgach donn” Adjusted to C Major

This can be played on a natural instrument, but is rather high which makes it difficult for the average
trumpeter. If you look at the stressed beats, you can see that the stressed beats are comprised of pitches
E5, C5, C5, E5, G5, C5 respectively, which is indicative of the lower octave pattern of the natural scale E4,
C4, C4, E4, G4, C4 (Figure 40):

Figure 40: “Am fleasgach donn” Some Stressed Notes Highlighted

So I then transposed the music down by an octave and see if the natural scale fits. This has been done in
Figure 41, below:

Figure 41: “Am fleasgach donn” Brought Down an Octave

There is the natural scale again. It does not quite look like it, but it’s present. This is difficult to see
because, firstly, transcribers often become confused when they hear pitches on unstressed beats (sung on
unstressed syllables) and don’t know exactly where to place them. So the transcriber will put most of the

43
pitches of unstressed beats between the pitches of the stressed beats. If I circle the stressed notes that are
in the natural scale, you can see the pattern (see Figure 42, below):

Figure 42: “Am fleasgach donn” Natural Scale stressed Beats Highlighted

Secondly, I had the benefit of hearing this song sung in the Gaelic community. I knew that the note of the
12th measure was incorrect (F4,). Additionally, the F4 pitches beginning measures 19 and 21 are normally
sung as E4 and G4 respectively. One might speculate that the original musical editor was deliberately
trying to give the song a bit more diatonic complexity, but that cannot be proven. However, the pitches
are clearly wrong in the original version of The Celtic Lyre. If I write the song as it is normally sung, and
highlight the stressed beats that include the natural scale (stressed natural scale in red, stressed diatonic
scale in blue), the following results (Figure 43, below):

Figure 43: “Am fleasgach donn” Natural Stressed Notes in Red, Diatonic in Blue

With the exception of the second-to-last note and its parallel in the phrase above it, every stressed beat in
this song is contained in the natural scale. Placing the second-to-last note one step above the final is

44
something that musical editors often did to make the music sound more in-line with mainland European
standards. However, it is not that simple. The Gaelic community itself has embraced those tendencies,
and often sings this song with a D4 at the end today.
If I adjust the pitches of the unstressed beats and the last two phrasal endings, the following results
(Figure 44):

Figure 44: “Am fleasgach donn” Corrected to the Natural Scale

It may appear that I radically changed the music to force it to match the natural scale. This is not true at
all. Only two stressed notes were changed. Those two notes fit a pattern of falling to the tonic that the
original musical editor followed with several sequential tunes in the original publication. The unstressed
notes that were not in the natural scale in Figure 43 all fell between two stressed notes of the natural scale;
for example, the first three notes’ original pitches are E4, F4, and G4 with E4 and G4 being the pitches on
stressed beats. It is quite common for a diatonically-trained musician to transcribe an unstressed note with
a pitch between the two stressed pitches; this occurs even though the performer did not perform it that
way.52 In essence, since diatonically-trained musicians are accustomed to seven notes per octave, they use
those notes even if the music that they hear does not have them. This is particularly true with pitches that
fall on unstressed beats (or unstressed syllables).
If I played this on a natural trumpet, you would immediately recognize the tune because all of the stressed
beats, except those mentioned above, would be correct. I up-loaded a demonstration of this which can be
viewed here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3scougnTfA.
As mentioned above, what is so remarkable about this tune is that it sits very low in the natural scale. Any
youngster who just started learning how to play the trumpet could play this tune (this can be demonstrated
on a modern, valved B♭ trumpet. Just remember that the player would need to pull out all of the tuning
slides and push down all of the valves to do it).

52
This is quite common. I am reminded of a time when I sang in a Gaelic choir. The fellow to the right of me was
from the Carolinas in the United States. The women in front of me and to my left were from Cape Breton Island in
Nova Scotia. If we were to sing a song that had a pattern as in the first measure of Figure 43, he would sing E4, F4,
G4; she would sing E4, E4, G4. This happened in every song where we sang the melody in unison.

45
It may appear that because I have used tunes from the Scottish Gaelic tradition, that there is something
particular to that culture that is most analogous to music produced by shepherds’ trumpets. That is not the
case. I am simply more familiar with Gaelic music. The type of analysis performed above may be done on
the music of any culture that once practiced transhumance. This is true whether shepherds’ trumpets are
extant in the community or not (shepherds’ trumpets are no longer used in Irish or Scottish Gaelic
culture).
Example 7: “Frère Jacques.” To further support this, consider music from French culture. The few
remaining areas in France where transhumance is practiced no longer use shepherds’ trumpets. That does
not mean that the music does not reflect the presence of shepherds’ trumpets. The same type of analysis
performed above on “Am fleasgach donn” may be performed on French, German, Spanish, Italian, et al.,
tunes as well. Here is an example of a well-known French tune “Frère Jacques.” Below is an example
from an 1811 publication (see Figure 45):53

Figure 45: “Frère Jacques”

Putting this music notation in a computer application programme and transposing up to C major results in
this (altered to 4/4 time, as it is normally sung–strongest stresses placed on beat one, Figure 46, below):

Figure 46: “Frère Jacques” in C Major

As above in “Am fleasgach donn,” the low G and preceding/following C is indicative of the natural scale
with a trumpet’s G3 to C4. To see this, here is the above example transposed down an octave with
unstressed notes adjusted to match the natural scale (see Figure 47, below):

Figure 47: "Frère Jacques" Transposed Down an Octave for Shepherds’ Trumpet

53
Capelle, Pierre Adolphe 1811 La Clé Du Caveau, À L'usage De Tous Les Chansonniers Français, Des Amateurs,
Auteurs, Acteurs Du Vaudeville & De Tous Les Amis De La Chanson, Paris: Capelle et Renard, de l'Impr. de
Richomme , 309.

46
The unstressed second beats of each measure remaining on the lower tone (in the first measure, D 4 is
replace by C4, et al.) might seem odd to the reader, but that is only because the reader is accustomed to the
diatonic scale/piano keyboard. If this music (Figure 47) is played on a piano, the tune is clearly
recognizable and identifiable as “Frère Jacques.” One might scoff at this, but there is a deep-rooted
structure in the tune that is based upon the natural scale that is quite different from the diatonic scale. It is
not coincidence that the tune is recognizable.
This process can be applied to folk song that was transported from Europe to the Appalachians. Although
many of the tunes as captured by Campbell and Sharp a hundred years ago which had many variations
(“Barbara Allen”: "O Teannaibh dlùth is togaibh fonn”), many, such as songs describing animals (such as
“The Old Grey Mare” and “The Bird Song, A”), had not. Here is an example from Campbell and Sharp’s
English Folk Songs from the Southern Appalachians54 (below, Figure 48):

Figure 48: "Had Me a Cat" Transcribed by Cecil Sharp

If this is transposed into C major, the following results (Figure 49):

Figure 49: "Had Me a Cat" in C Major

If the pitches of notes that fall on unstressed pitches are adjusted as was done above, the following results
(Figure 50):

Figure 50: "Had Me a Cat" Down an Octave

Transcribers often adjusted the key signatures to apparently confuse the reader (adding accidentals to the
music but keeping the key signature “correct”) by making the music appear to be more complex than it
was. For example: The Bird Song B” (Figure 51, below):

54
Sharp English Folk Songs from the Southern Appalachians

47
 Figure 51: "The Bird Song B" As Transcribed by Cecil Sharp

Notice that the E natural is in the music, but the key is deliberately not reflective of it. This makes the
music appear (as it is placed on the staff) to be in the locrian mode. Here is the same music with the
superfluous note removed from the key signature (Figure 52):

Figure 52 "The Bird Song B" With Superfluous E♭ Removed in Key Signature

In this configuration, it appears to be simply aeolian. Why Sharp wished to manoeuvre this is an
anathema. Since it is hexatonic, there is only one half step (pentatonic tunes with no half step intervals)
make it very easy to manoeuvre on the notational staff. Notice that E (only one instance) and A are both
missing? So the first step is to try to move the “missing” note(s) to either F or B. Transposing down a
minor 3rd results in a tune ending on B natural with one C#. It does not particularly reveal anything.
However, if the tune is transposed so that the missing A is in the missing B position (up a major second),
the natural scale is revealed (Figure 53):

Figure 53: "The Bird Song B" Transposed to C Major

48
So there is a harmonic series, again. Generally, songs about domestic animals (cats, birds, sheep, cows,
etc.) seem to exhibit tendencies of the natural scale more than love songs. It could be that the behaviour of
transhumance of other animals with associated trumpets preserved a musical bond for longer than with
other types of music.

Considering the example above (Figure 53), the F♯ in the second measure looks quite odd. Cecil Sharp
mentions a number of times how the music must be precise. His mathematical approach would tend to
make one believe that he would deliberately annotate an F♯ in the second measure where the singer would
not intend such precision.
The intonation of the natural trumpet takes some getting used to; the 7th partial in particular will sound
very odd. So, perform this exercise to check if the theory presented in this paper is correct: transcribe the
recording of me playing the tune (here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3scougnTfA). If you are a
trained European art musician, you will assume that it is in a major or minor key, but when you hear it,
you will know that it is in the major mode. You will hear the last note of the tune. If you have a piano
present, you will just write down the notes as they match the keyboard. If there is no piano present and if
you do not have relative or perfect pitch, you will assume the key is C major. When you hear the 7th
partial, you will be confused. Is the pitch A4, B♭4, or B♮4? The song is probably in the key of C major (the
only other option is C Minor and it does not match the tune at all), so the note of the 7th partial cannot be
B♭4 since B♭4 is not in the key of C major. The pitch is closer to A4 than B♮4, so you must write down A4.
Therefore, the natural scale/harmonic series will be written with the 7th partial as A4 and not as B♭4.

It should be remembered that this process does not work on all “folk” tunes: it does not work when the
tune was composed on a diatonic instrument (harp, bagpipe, fiddle, etc.).55 It also does not work on
modern songs that were created in imitation of older songs. The reason for this is that composers trying to
make a song that sounds old are diatonically trained and believe that traditional songs are merely
pentatonic; they don’t think to make it gaped in the lower octave only. I have had a few problems when
setting what I thought to be old songs to the natural scale only to find the tunes were modern
compositions (“O Iosa,” and “Bha sneachda na chuibhrig”). There is another example that might be of
interest. I heard a song in the movie Brave produced by Walt Disney Studios. It was sung by Julie Fowlis
and entitled “Tha mo ghaol air àird a' chuain” (My Love is on the High Seas). The lyrics seemed
interesting and the tune enjoyable. I attempted to set it to the natural scale and failed; there were too many
diatonic notes (D4) in the lower octave which were not passing or neighbouring notes, but important ones.
I found out that the author of the words was Henry Whyte, the same person who had arranged to have The
Celtic Lyre (all four volumes) published. It seems he had taken the tune from another song called,
“Jamie’s on the Stormy Sea” with English poetry set to music by Bernard Covert in 1847. Bernard Covert
composed the piece on the piano.

Interrelations with other Instruments:

One of the motivating factors that suggested that shepherds’ trumpets were the originators of the
European folk music scale was in the documentation of tuning practices of other instruments that might

55
The natural scale seems particularly evident in the song tradition and less present in the instrumental tradition.

49
have to play in ensemble with trumpets. In particular, two instruments acted as a fulcrum in Gaelic
medieval musical society that implied a certain pitch placement of natural trumpets: the harp and the
bagpipe. With the understanding of the typical instrumentarium that existed at a typical Gaelic Chieftain’s
court56 and the documentation of other instruments’ tuning practices, the notes played by trumpets known
to exist can be rather confidently predicted. In short, you can check my theory by predicting the length of
the natural instruments that were used by looking at the notes that other instruments played. Here is a
brief sketch of that reasoning:
The Harp:
Edward Bunting witnessed the 1792 Belfast Harpers’ festival and made copious notes concerning
traditional harping practices. He ignored most of the truth of what he had gathered in order to sell music
books to the “classically” trained public; however, he did publish some authentic observations, and we
also have his unpublished notes.57 Some of his published information concerns two main “keys” for
tuning the medieval Irish harp. The most important is the “Natural Key” termed “Leath Gleas” (lit. Half-
note); there is also the “High Bass Key.” The “Natural Key” is a type of Pythagorean tuning which begins
and ends on G. It employs tuning the strings to fifths and octaves with one fourth. This creates the G
major scale (with F♯). The second tuning convention also begins and ends on G. It employs tuning the
strings to fifths and octaves but with the addition of two fourths, which creates the G mixolydian scale (C
major, but starting and ending on G instead of C). Here is the order in which a harper tuned the harp
strings in the “Natural Key” (Figure 54, below):58

56
12th-century Book of Leinster and the 14th-century Yellow Book of Lecan delineate a possible seating
arrangement in the court at Tara under the rule of King Cormac Mac Airt using the seating arrangements that existed
when the books were being written. Musicians were placed according to their social position. There were (in no
particular order): harpers, horn (shorter than trumpets) players, trumpet players, pipers, and fiddlers (missing from
the Book of Leinster). It should be noted that there is a history, a development, of the fiddle from plucked lyre to
bowed lyre. The lyres began to be bowed with the introduction of the technique of bowing brought in from Moorish
Spain around 950 A.D. The bridges were flat and the melody was fingered on one string, shifting from string to
string as the melody required. The other, non-fingered strings sounded as drones.
57
Through a personal meeting with the harper Simon Chadwick, I was able to see some copies of these fascinating
notes. These included some of Bunting’s untouched first impression transcriptions of harp music.
58
Most theorists who support the idea that six-stringed lyres in Europe were tuned to the diatonic scale have never
tuned a lyre. The diatonic scale is easy to reproduce on a 30-struinged harp because the intervals of an octave and
fifth are easy to create (put your finger 1/3 or ½ down the string you are tuning and pluck it to get the rough pitch of
the next note). You cannot do this with only six strings. It is unreasonable to expect people to just “know” the major
scale. Just as today, people have radio and pianos as references, so too in the past there must have been a reference.
Since 30-stringed harps (which were portable, versus the organ) did not exist until about 1000 AD or so, there was
not a ready diatonic reference available. Since shepherds’ trumpets were widespread, by default, they must have
been the scale reference. This is proven by the fact that the natural scale appears to be the foundation of folk songs,
as demonstrated above.

50
 Figure 54: The Natural Key Tuning for Harp

This results in the creation of the following diatonic scale on a harp of thirty strings (Figure 55):

Figure 55: The Scale Resulting from Natural Key Tuning

It’s difficult to see from the above figure, but the tuning is roughly centred from G3 to G4; the rest of the
notes are obtained by tuning to those notes by octaves.
Here is the second-most important tuning of “High Bass” where the harp is still centred from G3 to G4,
but the leading tone of F♯ is lowered to F♮ (Figure 56, below):

Figure 56: The High Bass Tuning for Harp

This results in the following scale (Figure 57, below), which appears to be C major, but is actually G-
mixolydian:

Figure 57: The Scale Resulting from High Bass Key Tuning

The first tuning creates a scale that we today would call G major (Figure 55). The second tuning creates a
scale that perhaps we would call C major (Figure 57). This is not exactly true; the second tuning would be
more accurately referred to as G mixolydian since it starts and ends on G. This actually makes a
difference as these tunings are not equally tempered; that is, the G major of the “Natural Key” and the C
major of the “High Bass” have a different “colour” and impart a different feeling to the listener which
doesn’t occur today with precise equal temperament. It is also interesting to note that the two groups of
strings meet at two strings called caomhluighe which means “lying together” (or the lovers/couplers)

51
which were both tuned to the same pitch. The harper’s right (strong/masculine) hand plays the bass notes
until this point, and the left (weaker/feminine) hand then plays the treble notes above; the right hand plays
notes that men would sing and the left hand plays notes women would sing. The harp rests on the player’s
left shoulder. The difference between the two scales is the tead a’ leith ghleas (lit. string of the half note:
the F♯/F♮ string(s) which would be string numbers 10, 18, and 25). It should be noted that Bunting also
mentions a seldom-used tuning which employs not just the F♯ in the Natural Key but also adds a C♯. In
modern thought, this would be the key of D major.59 As Ó Boyle mentioned, “Though their preference in
pitch was in G, they nevertheless did not think in keys. Their thinking was modal and the pitch of their
modes altered from G Doh to C Doh and D Doh. Bunting, being a man of his time, must be forgiven for
not understanding it.”60

This focus on G is important because it shows that the first accidental in Gaeldom was F♯ and not B♭ as it
was on the European mainland. Both accidentals served the same purpose, and that is to allow the facility
of shifting the ecclesiastical modes offered by Pythagorean tuning by half an octave. Before the advent of
B♭ on the continent, there was only a gamut of pitches. For example, the mixolydian mode comprised all
of the notes of the dorian mode albeit with the half-steps in different places, but the entire pitch spectrum
was up a perfect fourth. So with B♭ as an accidental, C ionian (major) becomes F ionian (major) and all of
the other modes shift as well (D dorian becomes G dorian, E phrygian becomes A phrygian, etc.). As a
singer, the dorian mode might be easy to sing, but if the following chant is in the mixolydian mode, it
might place the range too high to sing. There was a gamut, a rigid set of pitches that existed, and our
current method of transposition didn’t exist. Adding one accidental gave singers much needed flexibility.
This limitation of available notes is an additional reason to suggest that before the advent of Pythagorean
tuning in the early Christian Church, the available notes were that of the natural scale and not that of the
diatonic scale since diatonic scale tuning incorporated the concept of octave equivalency and hence
limitless pitches which didn’t exist in the early Christian Church. In essence, the special notes of B♭ (and

F♯ in Gaeldom) allowed singers to sing all of the modes comfortably. On the mainland, B♭ was such an
important note that it was considered to be musica vera and not musica ficta although it was actually false
since it wasn’t a part of the diatonic scale.

In insular Britain, the functionality of shifting a tune by a half-octave was supplied by F♯. So with F♯ as
an accidental, C ionian (major) becomes G ionian (major), and all of the other modes shift as well (D
dorian becomes A dorian, F lydian becomes C lydian, etc.). There were three substantial benefits to using
F♯. Firstly, the F♯/F♮ shift allowed singers to shift melodies by half an octave so that a baritone could
easily sing a song performed by a soprano, as mentioned above with B♭. Secondly, it allowed for that
strange tuning of the F♯/F♮ string to be positioned where the 11th partial falls on the natural scale. Thirdly,
it more closely matched the tuning of the bagpipes.

59
Bunting, Edward 1969 The Ancient Music of Ireland: An Edition Comprising the Three Collections by Edward
Bunting Originally Published in 1796, 1809 and 1840, Dublin: Waltons' Piano and Musical Instrument Galleries.
60
Ó Boyle The Irish Song Tradition 12.

52
The Bagpipes:
The origin of the Scottish Great Highland Bagpipes has been hotly contested over the years. Most early
theories suggest that the instrument was imported from India. This seems doubtful. Most instruments
develop over time due to technological advancements. Instrumentalists are always searching for easier or
better ways of playing or tuning. For example, the early medieval harp in Ireland is documented as having
eleven strings or so before at least the tenth century. When Pythagorean tuning was introduced, this new
technology allowed for a way of arranging/tuning strings in a methodical manner. More strings could be
added; the number of strings on the harp then shot up to about thirty. This also implies that the harp had a
pre-Pythagorean tuning system that limited it to eleven strings. Natural scale tuning springs to mind.
As another example, the technology of bowing was introduced in Moorish Spain around 950 A.D. with
the rebec. This was a new technology that allowed a chordophone to sound more like the human voice;
that is, have a longer sustain than the normally plucked gut string of the lyre. The technology was the
bowing of the strings, not the bow and rebec combination, so the technique of bowing was subsumed into
the tradition of the plucked lyre (crotte, rotte, crowd, chorus, crwth, etc.). The lyre (as in Sutton Hoo,
Prittlewell, Trossingen, Snape, etc.) was multi-stringed, with a flat bridge; so when the European
medieval lyre was bowed, the non-fingered strings would vibrate causing droning on those open strings.
The lyres also became “waisted” so the curves of the viol and subsequent violin came from the tradition
of the plucked lyre.
The Great Highland Bagpipe may have also come from a similar development. It possibly began as a lip-
vibrated aerophone on a cane with an animal horn inserted at the end (literally, a hornpipe). Holes were
probably drilled in it in order to match the intonation of other instruments of the same type. With the
addition of holes, there was no need for a mouthpiece; a double reed would work as well. With other
instruments incorporating drones playing alongside of it, the bagpipe probably added a drone as a separate
pipe, much like the aulos. In time, having two pipes in the player’s mouth becomes irksome, and a
wooden manifold was probably added so that the player might have only one pipe inserted into the mouth
(the modern hornpipe looks something similar to this). Wooden manifolds leak, and an animal’s stomach
as a bladder would work better. With this bladder, more drones could be added. This type of slow
progression and development is the general process by which our modern instruments evolved. Most
instruments in a European Orchestra came from folk origins.
It is generally supposed that the bagpipe chanter (or section which is fingered to produce the melody) is
tuned using the “just intonation” method. The holes are cut larger with a knife or reduced through the
addition of tree sap or tape so that the nodal points of the chanter “lock in” to the nodal points of the
drones’ overtones. So in a medieval chieftain’s court with the trumpet, bagpipe, and harp, there are three
intonation systems: natural scale,61 just intonation, and Pythagorean all working at once.
Just as the ecclesiastical system perhaps should not be applied to the folk music tunes, so too I am
beginning to wonder if the application of the term of “just intonation” is also inappropriate when directed
at the tuning system employed by a bagpipe chanter. The term of just intonation is applied to the
machinations that were made to Pythagorean tuning to make out-of-tune thirds (23 cents sharp for major
thirds and 23 cents flat for minor thirds) more tolerable. The intonation of the bagpipe chanter is not
determined through this method. The pipe chanter tuning system is independent of the Pythagorean
61
As Cristiano Forster rightly suggested to me in personal correspondence, one should never say, “natural tuning”
since the natural scale is not obtained through tuning at all.

53
method as described above. Therefore, since just intonation is a type of manipulation of Pythagorean
tuning, and bagpipe tuning is independent of the Pythagorean method, just intonation is not related to
bagpipe chanter tuning. To show how independent bagpipe tuning is to Pythagorean (and hence just
intonation), it might be wise to take a quick look at how the bagpipe chanter is tuned.
Highland Bagpipe chanters (the part of the instrument that creates the melody) are tuned to the drones.
There are two drones that are an octave lower than the low A on the chanter. Another drone is set at an
octave lower than that. The pitch of each individual pitch that the chanter produces is altered by carving
out the drilled hole of the chanter if it needs to be altered. In the past, sap or pitch was added to the top or
bottom of the hole oppose to the carving. Today, often a piece of strong tape is used. The determination of
exactly where each hole should be placed on the chanter is made according to its relationship to the
drones. The pitch is adjusted up or down until the chanter’s pitch “locks in” to the pitches of the drones.
In essence, the wavelength of each pitch of the chanter is lengthened or shortened to match the nodal
points of the overtones of one of the two drones (A2 or A3).62 A nodal point is the starting point and the
ending point of each wave. A pictograph might be useful here (Figure 58, below):

Figure 58: Aligning Nodal Points on a Chanter

To most who are familiar with intonation systems, this method of tuning a bagpipe chanter might seem
in-line with just intonation. However, the intent is different;63 therefore, since tempering out-of-tune
thirds is not the impetus for the tuning method for bagpipe chanters and bagpipe chanter thirds are not

62
When tuning to fifths or fourths (say, on a violin or guitar), the tension of one string is increased or decreased so
that beating stops. It is not widely known that the beating is not caused by the interference between the principal
frequency of one wave to the other; beating is caused by the interference between an overtone of the lower pitch
with the second string.
63
The intent of the tuning system is more important than the physical similarities. Consider the way we differentiate
between the terms “fewer” and “less than.” Whether a noun can be counted or not (a so-called non-count noun) is
irrelevant. What is important is the intent of the speaker to count the noun or not; for example, the sign over the
express cashier as a grocer of “Ten items or less” is inappropriate since you are counting each item. It must be “Ten
items or fewer.” However, if you say that you will meet someone in “Ten minutes of fewer” is not correct even
though it is possible to count the minutes. Your intent is to indicate a hunk of time and to carve off a portion of the
time. The resulting amount of time is inexact; therefore, “Ten minutes or less” is correct in this case. In a like
manner, using just intonation to describe chanter tuning is incorrect because the intent of just tuning is to temper
Pythagorean thirds, regardless of how similar the results are between just intonation of Pythagorean-tuned
instruments and a bagpipe chanter.

54
tempered to have their thirds sound consonant in triads, bagpipe chanters cannot be said to be tuned using
a just intonation method. In short, bagpipe chanter tuning has nothing to do with Pythagorean tuning.
There are no progressions of fifths and octaves in the tuning system at all, nor is there any tempering of
thirds.
Like many instruments, the Highland Bagpipe, which is said to be pitched in A, has gone through pitch
inflation (the so-called Vienna Effect, named for the very high pitch of the Vienna Philharmnic).
However, this inflation does not seem to have occurred until the 1960s. Although the original pitch
probably may have been closer to G than A, it seems to have been relatively stable for the Highland
bagpipe, at about A=450 Hz.64

However, many other types of bagpipes are in G.65 Additionally, iconography of bagpipes seems to
suggest that the Highland Bagpipes were in G. Today, the Great Highland Bagpipes are pitched slightly
above B♭. That means that the drones are in B♭, and when a bagpiper plays its mixolydian scale,66 its root
pitch is equal to B♭ or higher when played on a concert instrument such as a piano (where A=440 Hz.).
Many pipers now have two chanters: one is pitched high for pipe and drum competitions and another is
pitched in concert A so as to play with other concert-pitched instruments. The notational system seems to
have gotten stuck at annotating the pipes when the pipes were placed in A, so the key signature has not
moved from this point and has two sharps. This might seem rather odd for the casual observer since the
drones are in A, the pipes are said to be in A, yet the key signature reads D major, and the actual pitch is
B♭. A diagram might make this less confusing (Figure 59, below):

Figure 59: A Comparison of the Concert Pitches of the Highland Bagpipes

If the key signature was changed to reflect the pitch gamut and drone placement, the result might look
somewhat odd (Figure 60, below):

Figure 60: Bagpipes Written in both D Major and A Major

64
Brown, Barnaby 2009 The Iain Dall Chanter: Material Evidence for Intonation and Pitch in Gaelic Scotland,
1650-1800, The Highland Bagpipe: Music, History, Tradition, edited by Joshua Dickson, Burlington, VT: Ashgate
Publishing Company 25-46: 35, rough summary of Table 2.1.
65
Note the "keys" in Shields, Hugh 1998 Tunes of the Munster Pipers: Irish Traditional Music from the James
Goodman Manuscripts, Dublin: Irish Traditional Music Archive, as well as the pitch of the Uillean (Union) pipes.
66
As mentioned above, if the tuning system of the bagpipe is not just intonation since it is not related to the
Pythagorean-tuned diatonic scale, then the ecclesiastical modes do not apply as well. They are in fact slightly
different on every pitch except the two Gs. I am using the appellation of mixolydian because it is convenient.

55
This can cause a great deal of confusion. For example, “Amazing Grace”67 is often played by an A-
mixolydian bagpipe; the piece must be placed in the key of D major (in the key signature) if being
accompanied by other instruments since the ending pitch is D, not A. Add to that the fact that the
Highland Bagpipes are now in B♭; so “Amazing Grace” is actually in E♭ for other instruments unless the
piper has an A Chanter, but regardless, the music you give the piper (if you are going to do this) will be in
D major in the key signature. Orchestrating the A-mixolydian Highland Bagpipe to other instruments is
not for the faint-of-heart.
If you attempt to fit a natural trumpet in with this scale, a natural trumpet pitched in G will not have as
many congruous notes as if it is placed in C. If a C natural trumpet and G Bagpipe attempt to play the
same scale, only B4 is missing in the trumpet’s range (Figure 61):

Figure 61: Natural Trumpet in C and G-Mixolydian Bagpipes

As mentioned above, Bunting mentioned that there was a key that was seldom used that had both F♯ and
C♯ in the key signature. As Bradley and Breathnach said, “When using these modes, traditional
instrumentalists confine themselves almost wholly to keys requiring only one or two sharps.”68 This
second option produces an intriguing possibility. If the Highland Bagpipes were in A (perhaps at A=415
Hz.) and had not gone through pitch inflation, the harp would need to raise its tuning by a full step,
placing its tuning into a key that appears to be D major. If a natural trumpet was to play along, it would
have to be in D major (about a foot shorter than if in C) and the trumpet and bagpipe scales would look
something like this (Figure 62):

Figure 62: Natural Trumpet in D and A-Mixolydian Bagpipes

This may have important ramifications in the “classical” music world, as it is well known that most
natural trumpets in the Baroque era were pitched in D (or E♭ with “crooks” to lower the pitch). When
playing with other instruments or singers, music with two sharps was called the “choral key” ostensibly to
match the standard length of the natural trumpet. In light of the above information, “choral” might refer
not to the addition of singers, but rather the fact that it was the key that could accommodate all

67
Most people are familiar with the song “Amazing Grace,” the words of which were first published in 1779.
Eventually, it was set to the tune “New Britain;” that tune was supposedly formed from the merging of the tunes
“Gallaher” and “St. Mary.” Interestingly, “Amazing Grace” was once in a hymnbook “The Sacred Harp” which was
reprinted in 1991. Many of the hymns in that book such as “Love Devine” and “Prospect” were set in C major and
clearly demonstrate the natural scale.
68
Bradley Ireland 318.

56
instruments so that they might play in “chorus.” That would be the “Natural Key” with an additional C♯
for the harp, D natural trumpets, and bagpipes in A.
If we combine the ranges of the natural trumpet in D, the A-mixolydian bagpipe, and the Pythagorean G-
Natural Key tuning of the harp with the additional sharp (making a total of two) as stated by Bunting, the
total gamut of pitches produced might be as follows (Figure 63):

Figure 63: Natural Trumpet in D, A-Mixolydian Bagpipes and Harp Pitch Spectrum

If we combine the ranges of the natural trumpet in C, the G-mixolydian bagpipe, and the Pythagorean G-
mixolydian/ionian tuning of the harp, the total gamut of pitches produced might be as follows (Figure 64):

Figure 64: Natural Trumpet in C, G-Mixolydian Bagpipes and Harp Pitch Spectrum

While it should be acknowledged that there is a great deal of fluctuation in intonation from one intonation
system to another (natural scale in C, just intonation of pipes, Pythagorean on G for the harp),
instrumentalists often adjust how they intone depending upon the instruments with which they are
playing. This is becoming more and more apparent as scholars are beginning to question the importance
of fixed-pitched instrument limitations, especially in Baroque and early music.
If you look at Figure 63 and Figure 64, above, and observe the notes encompassed by the over-arching
bracket, you can see that all three instruments can play each of those notes with the exception of B4 which
is absent in the trumpet. This implies that a tune consisting of this spectrum is indicative of trumpets
playing with bagpipes since the trumpet has a greater range in the lower end of its compass; to omit those
notes might seem unusual although it did occur with the lur in the Figure 19 example above. This would
tend to suggest that tunes such as Figure 26, “Mo nighean donn bhòidheach” was “composed” in the
presence of a bagpipe. As Barnaby Brown notes of Lhuyd who notes in the MS Carte 269 in the Bodleian
Library c. 1699, “The Greatest Music is Harp, Pipe, Viol, and Trump.”69
An additional “nail in the coffin” that supports this scalar relationship between harp, pipe, and trumpet
came after researching references to Barnaby Brown’s “The Iain Dall Chanter: Material Evidence for
Intonation and Pitch in Gaelic Scotland, 1650-1800.”70 He uses a quotation from Joseph MacDonald’s
Compeat Theory of the Scots[’] Highland Bagpipe (c. 1760) “The Key for Laments excludes C altogether

69
Kirkwood, Rev James 1975 A Collection of Highland Rites and Cusomes Copied by Edward Lhuyd from the
Manuscript of the Rev James Kirkwood (1650-1709) and Annotated by Him with the Aid of the Rev John Beaton,
John Lorne Campbell, Cambridge: D.S. Brewer Ltd. and Rowman and Littlefield 49.
70
Brown 2009 The Iain Dall Chanter: Material Evidence for Intonation and Pitch in Gaelic Scotland, 1650-1800,

57
because it is sharp.”71 Investigation into this reference72 produces some exceptional results. What is
startling is that, starting on page 23 and following until page 25, MacDonald states that there are “rural”
modes. In all, the author gives seven examples of specific modes for the bagpipes that avoid concert C.
This is on an A-mixolydian (I contest using ecclesiastical modes, but the reader is probably more familiar
with this terminology) bagpipe. If matched to a D shepherds’ trumpet, this means that the “rural” modes
all avoid the one of two notes that the shepherds’ trumpet could not play (the trumpet cannot also play the
low concert G). Moreover, MacDonald gives examples where the pipe does not play both the low concert
G4 and C5 (for a D shepherd’s trumpet, that would be between the 5th and 6th partial (G4), and between the
7th and 8th partial (C5); for a C trumpet, between the 5th and 6th partial (F4), and between the 7th and 8th
partial (B4)).
This is a bit hard on one’s head to imagine if not accustomed to transposing music at sight. A few musical
examples should help. Here is “Another Key for Rural Pieces & Laments”73 which shows that the A-
mixolydian pipe does not play both the low G4 and C5 (Figure 65):

Figure 65: “Another Key for Rural Pieces & Laments”

If this is transposed down one step (to match a C trumpet versus a D trumpet) to match the harmonic
series/natural scale (Figure 15: The Natural Scale as Transcribers Have Used It), the affinity for the
harmonic series is clear (Figure 66):

Figure 66: “Another Key for Rural Pieces & Laments” for G Bagpipe/C Trumpet (Ends on “A4”)

This clearly shows that this tune in a “rural mode” for bagpipe exactly matches the harmonic series and
the pitches available to a shepherd’s trumpet. So the F4 and B4 of a G bagpipe scale (G4 and C5 of an A
bagpipe scale) are deliberately avoided. This continues for the next examples, “Another Key or Taste for
Laments and Rural Pieces”74 The ornaments have been removed as they obscure the melodic structure and
do not consist of any non-harmonic series pitches. Additionally, to save space, I have only included the
transposed versions to match the harmonic series (Figure 67):

Figure 67: “Another Key or Taste for Laments and Rural Pieces” for G Bagpipe/C Trumpet (Ends on “G4”)

71
Ibid., 37.
72
MacDonald, Joseph 1927 reprint, 1803 Compleat Theory of the Scots Highland Bagpipe (C.1760), Glasgow:
Alexander MacDonald
73
Ibid., 24.
74
Ibid.

58
It occurs again in “Another Style or Taste for Laments”75 shown below (Figure 68):

Figure 68: “Another Style or Taste for Laments” for G Bagpipe/C Trumpet (Ends on “E5”)

It also occurs in the following example of “G. Sharp, Another Species, A Style or Taste for Rural
Pieces”76 However, the example is given with an understanding that the added embellishments are
“grounded” on concert G4. (F4 on a G bagpipe, which is outside the range of a C shepherd’s trumpet).
Below (Figure 69), is this example transposed down one full step:

Figure 69: “G. Sharp, Another Species, A Style or Taste for Rural Pieces” for G Bagpipe/C Trumpet (Ends on “F5”)

It should be noted that in this example, E5 is also missing. The absence of both B4 and E5 implies that the
music could be further transposed down a perfect fourth. This would result in the following (below,
Figure 70):

Figure 70: “G Sharp another Species, 5th Style or Taste for Rural Pieces” Down a 4th for G Trumpet (Ends on “C5”)

This matches the harmonic series excepting the eighth measure (which would need to be a C4 to match the
harmonic series, a concert G4). It is possible that the author altered this measure because he was trying to
show that the “grounding” on concert G4 (F4 in Figure 69 and C4 in Figure 70) was only in the
embellishments and not the principal notes. This implies that bagpipes not only played to accompany
shepherd’s trumpets (and other natural instruments: sallow flute and juice/Jews’ harp) pitched in D, but
also shorter ones pitches in G. Excepting the second-to-last measure, both a D and a G trumpet could play
this tune together (albeit in an intonationally-odd manner) in unison.
In an attempt to verify this hypothesis, I met with Francis “Can’t Be” Beaton (trained by Sandy Boyd,
who is famous in Nova Scotia) who owns and plays a concert A (A=440 Hz.) bagpipe chanter with
normal-sized drones. The reeds are quite a bit larger in order to lower the instrument by a little more than
a half step (see Figure 71, below):

75
Ibid.
76
Ibid., 25.

59
 Figure 71: Bagpipe Reeds for “Concert A” Bagpipe (A=440 Hz.)

I had brought a brass natural trumpet with me and tuned the 6th partial to his A, making my instrument
about seven feet long. We played “Ho ro, mo nighean donn bhòidheach” (Figure 27) together with Brian
MacDonald playing fiddle. The intonation of a few notes’ were at odds between the trumpet and bagpipe.
I mentioned this to well-known bagpiper Barry Shears. He pointed out that there is a tradition (at least in
Nova Scotia) of using a different fingering system when playing in the rural mode. I will attempt to meet
with him and record the intonational shift and see if it is a better fit for the natural trumpet (brass and
wood).
In short, when a bagpipe plays in a pastoral manner, the bagpipe only plays music that a shepherd’s
trumpet could play. This is rather significant. What is also significant is that the absence of C (B on a C
shepherd’s trumpet) has not been explained by any other hypothesis. It is simply a curiosity that no one
understands but is dutifully noted by Western European trained musicians observing Gaelic musical
performance. The fact that these “modes” only contain notes that can be played by a D shepherds’
trumpet should not and cannot be dismissed or ignored.
Additionally, in considering the concert of harp, pipe, and trumpet, it should also be noted that although
triadic harmony was clearly precent due to the presence of natural trumpets, one should not jump to the
conclusion that the harmony at a chieftain’s court contained the harmonic progressions that exist today.
Trumpet triad motifs are extremely old,77 but harmonic progressions are not necessarily old. Triadic
harmony probably existed mainly in drone harmony, although that harmony may have shifted at key
points.

Conclusions:
The theory presented in this paper seems to answer all of the anomalies that previous theories on
European folk music did not address. The intonation of natural instruments, like shepherds’ trumpets,
does sound odd to an ear accustomed to equal temperament. Yet, according to written accounts of
witnesses hearing such music for the first time, this was precisely the case.78 The present theory explains
why pastoral instruments and pastoral music were banned from the Christian Church, why the ionian and
aeolian modes were proscribed, why folk music has a flat leading tone, why the intonation of folk music

77
I recall (imperfectly, no doubt) that the first time that natural trumpet music was written down for performance
was by Monteverdi. Before that time, trumpet music was the venue of the trumpet guilds and brotherhoods that
existed. They zealously guarded their craft and music. Music was passed on through aural/oral techniques.
78
Again, I find Vincent The Diatonic Modes in Modern Music extremely illuminating in this regard.

60
is often different from “art” music, and why the music is “gapped,” and why the music has been described
as being tetratonic, pentatonic, or hexatonic. It also explains why folk music is known to be cyclical; that
is, it is not like art music with patterns of tension and release, but rolls over and over as Seán Ó Ríada
said, like “the serpent with its tail in its mouth.”79 Figure 13: Natural Scale: Notes Available vs.
Frequency (Cycles per Second) demonstrates this. In short, the present theory seems to address all of the
elements of how scholars, musical dilettantes, and casual observers have used to describe early folk
music.
There are a number of implications if this hypothesis is assumed to be correct:
1. Since it suggests that pastoral music was based on shepherds’ trumpets which utilized the natural scale,
then early Medieval European folk music probably was also based on the natural scale.
2. The definition of “folk music” that we have today does not address the intonation of shepherds’
trumpets. Therefore, the dividing line between art music and folk music can perhaps be made sharper with
a distinction of intonation and available pitches. This is not a prescription, but a viewpoint of a spectrum.
At one time, the difference between folk music and art music was probably delineated by the intonation
system each used. The natural scale and its intonational properties were utilized by the folk; the diatonic
scale and its properties were utilized by the Church. The courts were probably open to whatever was
agreeable and where the two systems melded.
3. The connection between field and court was probably closer in the past than we imagine today. There is
no reason to believe that only metal trumpets were played in a petty king/chieftain’s court in Western
Europe. Indeed, because of the vestige of bosses on metal trumpets, wooden trumpets were probably seen
as the ideal. Most research on the history of the trumpet suggests that the modern trumpet evolved from
its use on the battlefield. This does not seem probable. The pitches played in the field were lower in the
natural scale than those played at court; court music played on trumpets often made use of the upper
partials. This would require longer instruments and the skill to play them in the clarin register. That skill
would have been developed by shepherds, not soldiers. Examples of a corps of trumpeters playing
difficult music in the field is the result of a noble bringing his retinue into the military encampment with
him, not using existing trumpeters drawn from the military ranks.
4. The “choral key” may represent the key that was used so that all instruments could play together. This
would be strings tuned to D major (A strings on viols), D natural trumpets, and A-mixolydian bagpipes.
5. The early music notation that we do have might not reflect the diatonic scale but that of the natural
scale; that is, the musical staff may not necessarily represent the diatonic scale in Early Music. Altenburg
explained this to a small degree in his treatise.80 Early Christian Church singers had only the range of a
gamut of approximately nine notes. This implies that the gamut of pitches available to the early Christian
Church came originally from the natural scale and not from the diatonic scale. Guido d'Arezzo spent a
good deal of time on hexatonic scales, so there may be a connection. It also suggests that all music or
instrumental range that at any time showed a limited gamut of pitches should be analysed to see if the
natural scale may have been present.

79
Ó Riada, Seán 1982 Our Musical Heritage, Mountrath, Ireland: The Dolmen Press
80
Altenberg, Johann Ernst 1974 (repr. 1795 ed.). Versuch Einer Anleitung Zur Heroisch-Musikalischen Trompeter
Und Pauker-Kunst. (Trumpeters' and Kettledrummers' Art). Trans. Edward H. TarrNashville: The Brass Press.

61
6. Very early European music research has been approached entirely from a diatonic scale viewpoint.
Although the influence of the natural scale is not known, it was in existence. This has been completely
ignored by early music scholars. For example, the aulos might also have used the just intonation
principal, as does the Scottish Highland Bagpipes today. Yet, these suggestions are most probably of little
interest to the typical modern musicologist trained in diatonic theology. I am reminded of the reaction of
musicologists to the suggestion by Eivind Groven that Norwegian folk music is based on the willow flute.
The response has been often severely derisive. People become accustomed to what is around them. If
natural scale intonation is around them, they will become accustomed to it and think that it is right and
just. The diatonic scale would then seem alien. Each system (diatonic and natural) is complete and natural
to whomever uses it.
7. Organum perhaps came from the practice of shepherds playing together. The harmonics produced by
shepherds’ trumpets are remarkably sonorous. It is traditional for trumpeters to play in ensemble. This
pre-dates four-part choral composition and can still be heard today in renditions of alphorn choirs.
8. One of the reasons for the difference between Scottish Gaelic music and Irish Gaelic music may be
explained by shepherds’ trumpets. Scottish Gaelic music seems to avoid F/F♯ in many tunes while Irish
Gaelic music does not. If this equates to the 11th partial, this makes sense in a harmonic (that is, when
there is accompanying harmony) condition. Theoretical consonance is defined as the confluence of nodal
points between two waves. So, if two different sound waves are imagined crossing the x-axis
(period/cycle vs. time), then where they cross together per length of the instrument (where they have two
nodes in common–at the ends) defines consonance. The greater the number of common nodes, the greater
the harmony. Partials with a lower number have, what I term, greater nodal density, since when they have
consonance with other waves, it is in relative proportion to their length. Simply put, as one ascends the
harmonic series, there is less chance of nodal confluence per length of the wave. Now consider that
partials with prime numbers only have nodal confluence at the ends (encompassed by the length of the
instrument). No other overtones will match then except for a multiple of two or three (5 th partial–10th and
15th; 7th partial–14th, 11th–22nd) which rarely occur. If these two thoughts are combined, then one would
expect that harmony would have less chance of occurring on the partials 3, 5, 7, 11, and 13, and there
would be less chance of nodal convergence as the partial number increases. So, although harmony
certainly occurs at the lower partial numbers of 1, 3, and 5 (due to nodal density), it would be less likely
to happen on the 7th and 11th partials. In simple terms, the absence of F/F♯ (11th partial) may be due to the
fact that Scottish Gaelic music employed more ensemble harmony at one time. This seems to match my
perception of the two musical forms; i.e., traditional Irish Gaelic music eschews guitars and seems to be a
tapestry of instrumental timbres with drone harmony. Scottish Gaelic music in Nova Scotia employs
fiddle music with piano accompaniment where older audio examples indicate a simplistic, I, IV, V
harmonic base. Moreover, Scottish MÒD choral singing (unfortunately infused with western European
chordal progressions) does not seem as odd to Scottish Gaels as it does to Irish Gaels.
9. Current compositional practices might find some new stimulus in this. While dissatisfaction of equal
temperament has produced investigative efforts such as the now-defunct “Just Intonation Network” and
other organizations, the natural scale is quite a bit different than Equal Temperament and has different
strengths. The most important is that it is not a simple combination of ratios. Instruments playing the
natural scale often ascend to the eleventh to sixteenth partial. Most composers and fixed-pitched
instrumentalists think in harmonies composed from combinations of the lower partials. The upper partials

62
display harmonic consonances not often investigated. For example, if you look at a waveform of a pitch
produced by a natural instrument, you will see that it is comprised of a combination of all of the partials
the instrument can play. That is why a Baroque trumpet sounds “fatter” than a piccolo trumpet playing the
same note. The partials of the longer tube are present in the waveform of the higher pitch being played;
they are absent in the shorter piccolo trumpet. Also, all of the partials are being produced at once as the
trumpeter plays a “note”; you are just hearing the loudest partial. Since the instrument is in harmony with
itself, if you add other like instruments that are emphasising different partials, the sound will be
harmonious. For example, if you had three natural trumpets in C playing the sixth, seventh, and eighth
partials at once (G4, sharp A4, C5), the sound will have a kind of harmonious sound; however, it will be a
different type of simple harmony to which we are accustomed. This will not happen if you play the same
three notes on a piano, no matter how you tune the strings.

As this is a theory and not a dictum, the purpose of putting this hypothesis forward is not to proscribe,
prescribe, or set forth rules and regulations. The purpose of offering this hypothesis to the musical
community is a healthy and positive one: to encourage discourse and discussion so that our knowledge of
the past might enhance our approach to our lives and our music today.
As Cazden proposed:
[O]nce we free ourselves from the arbitrary and limited categories, the erroneous and cumbersome archaic
terminology, the misread historical settings and the rigid schematics embedded in the system of modes now
infesting so many fine field collections of traditional song, often as their sole and unwittingly empty gesture
towards study of their melodies, the way will lie open to more meaningful and positive approaches. At first
it would be inevitable that analysis, to avoid the theorist's penchant for preconceptions, proceed along
deductive lines, deriving generalizations from the observed data. Yet as a background to understanding
which is not in fact divorced from real history, the music analyst ought surely to offer tentative hypotheses
derived from the wider field of study of musical systems and suggesting at least some initial criteria of
probable relevance to the marshalled facts. The most marked departure from the current mode classification
would thus be the statement of such hypotheses as subject to testing, particularization and modification in
accordance with the findings, rather than treating the real data merely as phenomenal evidence of the
infallible truths already revealed as to a mystically immanent hierarchy ordained by assertive authority. 81
I may have failed, but this paper is the result of such a challenge.

81
Cazden A Simplified Mode Classification for Traditional Anglo-American Song Tunes 62-63.

63
 Audio Links

Significant Examples of Wooden Shepherds’ Trumpets:

1. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1yRLeCxgKE. Svetozár Stračina a trombita z Púchovskej doliny.
You can find this song in the album “Svetozár Stračina-Reč pastierska” by Svetozár Stračina; Samo
Smetana, Bratislava ,Vydavateľstvo Slovenského rozhlasu, 1996.
2. Here are five important audio files: http://www.theapricity.com/forum/showthread.php?t=13183. They
are individually here:
A. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MzrXd8CUCg&feature=player_embedded.
B. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-MJyYBOtMXY&feature=player_embedded
C. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7fjKcT2sos&feature=player_embedded
D. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3IZEIBQotzo&feature=player_embedded
E. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DN6f7XfoLc0&feature=player_embedded
3. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gItzU9xvUkA. Trembita beskidzka + śpiew - Józef Broda. This is a
very good player and singer
4. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTyC7DfWeSo. Die letzten Alphornmacher im Emmental (The
Last Alphorn Maker in Emmental)
5. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kebanxFZRyo. GOLEC uORKIESTRA –TRĄBITY
6. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YuRXA4OWZOM&feature=related: Hutsul funeral with trembitas.
Гуцульський похорон з трембітами.
7. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5EJ5e1de81k&feature=related. Hutsul ceremony
8. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aQR4Af96Bdc. Trembita huculska - Ostap Kostiuk
9. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FpviSW-QNwM: Actual shepherd calling to sheep to gather them.
10. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJbNMhVpeiw. Koncovka + śpiew - Michal Smetanka: Konkovka
and voice

Less Significant:
1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fqf7rgN5DlM: Lithuanian folk instrumental festival. Wooden
trumpets (ragai).
2. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6HVNpeLwNLI
3. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_63Z_R3epfA&feature=related: Ukrainian Trembity Calling during
Christmas
4. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8veNYhP-E8&feature=endscreen&NR=1: A Hutsul Carol, Part I
(time index 3:21)
5. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6qy8RVo4v4: Alphorn band
6. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wpvHlfXZU_o: Lisa Stoll playing an alphorn

64
7. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIbATZHZE44: Lisa Stoll playing an alphorn
8. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SuCXZqFJ3Y: Trombitáši Bratia Štefánikovci, Pavol Štefánik -
fujara trombita - Reč Pastierska Spomienka na Svetozára Stračinu a Jožka Peška.
9. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXJA8qgDu3Q: Głos Siemiatycz TV, Ligawki w Ciechanowcu
10. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vF3PSN6mLu8&NR=1&feature=endscreen: Numai cant si dor de
Bucovina (time index 1:03)
11. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zwV4pb28Mpo. Dźwięki trembit na Kopcu Kościuszki.MP4
12. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zPd3x_Hgb40
13. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MiT32Y2EBGg. An alphorn song
14. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bG7cT2lW5W8. An example of a birch bark lur
15. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1yKTBEXXPA4. Midwinterhoorn blazen op lemeleberg. An
example of a Midwinterhoorn
16. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AXJggy_0AKY Midwinterhoorn playing in Ruurlo, 2011
17. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9heSIew7hcQ. Trembitas playing in chorus
18. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wTnNVfju4_Y&NR=1&feature=endscreen. A trembita player
19. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-IQDg1-HnI: Another trembita player
20. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v9gl_v0pizQ: Trombita - Krościenko n/D

Willow Flute:
1. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJbNMhVpeiw. Koncovka + śpiew - Michal Smetanka: Konkovka
and voice
2. http://wn.com/ukraine_mykhajlo_mykolajevych_tafijchuk_plays_the_volynka: Mykhajlo
Mykolajevych Tafijchuk playing a telynka.
3. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVmKKKWGxSI&list=PLBA2457A45C86A702: Modern song
played on two willow flutes

65
 Illustrations Cited

Figure 1: Various Shapes of the Trombita: http://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trombita

Figure 2: A Romanian Shepherd and his Trumpet. Photograph: Hielscher, Kurt 1938 Rumänien:
Landschaft-Bauten-Volksleben, Leipzig: F.A. Brockhaus.
Figure 3: For example, a recent interview of a trombita maker and player (the episode “Predchodcovia
telefónov? Trombity” on the show “Nehaňte ľud môj”) can be found here:
http://tv.sme.sk/v/23365/predchodcovia-telefonov-trombity.html.
Figure 4: Author Debarking a Tree with a Drawknife. Photo: Author
Figure 5: Two Sections with Bark Removed. Photo: Author
Figure 6: Two Trumpets Finished on Outside. Photo: Author
Figure 7: Two Trumpets Ripped. Photo: Author
Figure 8: Detail of Checking. Photo: Author
Figure 9: Detail of Twisting. Photo: Author
Figure 10: Twisting along the length. Photo: Author
Figure 11: Pictorial representation of the Billingsgate Trumpet c.1300: Museum of London; found in
Billingsgate (City of London) in 1984. Date 1360 AD - 1400 AD. Image Number 000193:
http://www.museumoflondon.org.uk/London-Wall/Whats-
on/Galleries/medieval/objects/record.htm?type=object&id=330249. I used a graphics application to
attach the separate sections together
Figure 12: The Diatonic Equally Tempered Scale, Notes Number vs. Frequency: I created this myself
Figure 13: Natural Scale: Notes Available vs. Frequency (Cycles per Second): I created this myself
Figure 14: The Natural Scale as it is Often Presented: I created this myself
Figure 15: The Natural Scale as Transcribers Have Used It: I created this myself
Figure 16: Relative Importance of the diatonic scale and the natural scale: I created this myself
Figure 17: A Lituus: http://realize.be/ancient/legere.html
Figure 18: Approximate Location of the Willow Flute's Pitches: I created this myself
Figure 19: A Reproduction of “Det gjallar og det laet“ from Huldt-Nystrøm, Hampus and Sevåg, Reidar,
"“Norway”," in The New Grove Dictionary of Musical Instruments, ed. Stanley. Ed. Sadie (London:
MacMillan Press Limited, 1984), 324. I created this copy myself
Figure 20: “Det gjallar og det laet“ Transposed to See the natural scale: I created this transposition myself
Figure 21: “Det gjallar og det laet” 11th Partial Adjustment: I created this transposition myself
Figure 22: “Det gjallar og det laet” 7th and 11th Partial Adjustment: I created this transposition myself
Figure 23: “Mo nighean donn bhòidheach” from The Celtic Lyre c. 1885: from http://archive.org/
Figure 24: “Mo nighean donn bhòidheach” Placed into a Computer Application: I created this myself

66
Figure 25: “Mo nighean donn bhòidheach” in C major: I created this myself
Figure 26: “Mo nighean donn bhòidheach” Notation for a Natural Instrument: I created this myself
Figure 27: “Mo nighean donn bhòidheach” as it is sung in Nova Scotia: I created this myself
Figure 28: “Gallaher” from Shaw and Spilman’s “Columbian Harmony” 1829: I created this myself
Figure 29: “Fear a’ bhàta” from The Celtic Lyre c. 1885: from http://archive.org/
Figure 30: “Fear a’ bhàta” in Sibelius®: I created this myself
Figure 31: “Fear a’ bhàta” in A Minor (no sharps or flats in the tune or the key signature): I created this
myself
Figure 32: “Fear a’ bhàta” Stressed Beats Circled: I created this myself
Figure 33: “Fear a’ bhàta” Adjusted for the natural scale: I created this myself
Figure 34: “Eilean an Fhraoich” from The Celtic Lyre c. 1885: from http://archive.org/
Figure 35: “Eilean an Fhraoich” from The Celtic Lyre c. 1885 in Sibelius®: I created this myself
Figure 36: “Henfenfeld” in Sibelius®: I created this myself
Figure 37: Original “Am fleasgach donn”: from http://archive.org/
Figure 38: “Am fleasgach donn” in Sibelius®: I created this myself
Figure 39: “Am fleasgach donn” Adjusted to C major: I created this myself
Figure 40: “Am fleasgach donn” Some Stressed Notes Highlighted: I created this myself
Figure 41: “Am fleasgach donn” Brought Down an Octave: I created this myself
Figure 42: “Am fleasgach donn” Natural Scale Stressed Beats Highlighted: I created this myself
Figure 43: “Am fleasgach donn” Natural Stressed Notes in Red, Diatonic in Blue: I created this myself
Figure 44: “Am fleasgach donn” Corrected to the natural scale: I created this myself
Figure 45: “Frère Jacques” from Capelle, Pierre Adolphe 1811 La Clé Du Caveau, À L'usage De Tous Les
Chansonniers Français, Des Amateurs, Auteurs, Acteurs Du Vaudeville & De Tous Les Amis De La
Chanson, Paris: Capelle et Renard, de l'Impr. de Richomme, 309.
Figure 46: “Frère Jacques” in Sibelius®. Adjusted to C major: I created this myself
Figure 47: “Frère Jacques” Brought Down an Octave: I created this myself
Figure 48: "Had Me a Cat" Transcribed by Cecil Sharp
Figure 49: "Had Me a Cat" in C Major. I created this myself
Figure 50: "Had Me a Cat" up an octave.
Figure 51: "The Bird Song B" As Transcribed by Cecil Sharp
Figure 52: "The Bird Song B" With Superfluous E♭ Removed in Key Signature
Figure 53: "The Bird Song B" Transposed to C major

67
Figure 54: The Natural Key Tuning for Harp: I created this myself
Figure 55: The Scale Resulting from Natural Key Tuning: I created this myself
Figure 56: The High Bass Tuning for Harp: I created this myself
Figure 57: The Scale Resulting from High Bass Key Tuning: I created this myself
Figure 58: Aligning Nodal Points on a Chanter: I created this myself
Figure 59: A Comparison of the Concert Pitches of the Highland Bagpipes: I created this myself
Figure 60: Bagpipes Written in both D major and A major: I created this myself
Figure 61: Natural Trumpet in C and G-mixolydian Bagpipes: I created this myself
Figure 62: Natural Trumpet in D and A-mixolydian Bagpipes: I created this myself
Figure 63: Natural Trumpet in C, G-mixolydian Bagpipes and Harp Pitch Spectrum: I created this myself
Figure 64: Natural Trumpet in D, A-Mixolydian Bagpipes and Harp Pitch Spectrum: I created this myself
Figure 65: Another Key for Rural Pieces and Laments. Ex;: I created this myself from Joseph
MacDonald’s Compeat Theory of the Scots[’] Highland Bagpipe (c. 1760), p. 70
Figure 66: Another Key for Rural Pieces and Laments for G Bagpipe/C Trumpet: I created this myself
from Joseph MacDonald’s Compeat Theory of the Scots[’] Highland Bagpipe (c. 1760), p. 70
Figure 67: Another Key or Taste for Laments and Rural Pieces for G Bagpipe/C Trumpet: I created this
myself from Joseph MacDonald’s Compeat Theory of the Scots[’] Highland Bagpipe (c. 1760), p. 70
Figure 68: Another style or Taste for Laments for G Bagpipe/C Trumpet: I created this myself from
Joseph MacDonald’s Compeat Theory of the Scots[’] Highland Bagpipe (c. 1760), p. 71
Figure 69: G Sharp another Species, 5th Style or Taste for Rural Pieces for G Bagpipe/C Trumpet: I
created this myself from Joseph MacDonald’s Compeat Theory of the Scots[’] Highland Bagpipe (c.
1760), p. 71
Figure 70: G Sharp another Species, 5th Style or Taste for Rural Pieces Down a 4th (for G Trumpet): I
created this myself from Joseph MacDonald’s Compeat Theory of the Scots[’] Highland Bagpipe (c.
1760), p. 71
Figure 71: Detail of reeds for concert A bagpipes of Frank beaton. Made by John Walsh (of John Walsh
Bagpipes). Photo: Author

68
 Limited Bibliography

Altenberg, Johann Ernst. Versuch einer Anleitung zur heroisch-musikalischen Trompeter und Pauker-
Kunst. (Trumpeters' and Kettledrummers' Art). Trans. Edward H. Tarr. Nashville: The Brass Press,
1974 (repr. 1795 ed.).
Barclay, Robert. The Art of the Trumpet Maker. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992.
Benade, Arthur. Fundamentals of Musical Acoustics. New York: Oxford University Press, 1976.
Benade, Arthur. “The Physics of Brasses” Scientific American, July, 1973.
Benade, Arthur. Horns, Strings and Harmony. New York: Anchor Books, 1960.
Bendinelli, Cesare. Tutta l'arte della Trombetta (The Entire Art of Trumpet Playing). Trans. Edward H.
Tarr. Nashville: The Brass Press, 1975 (repr. 1614 ed.).
Boswell, J. Boswell's Life of Johnson: Together with Boswell's Journal of a Tour of the Hebrides and
Johnson's Diary of a Journey into North Wales. Edited by ed. Boswell’s Life of Johnson vol. III.
Westminster: Archibald Constable & Co. Birrell, 1896. The Clarendon Press, 1896.
Bradley, Seóirse and Breathnach, Breandán. “Ireland.” In The New Grove Dictionary of Music and
Musicians, edited by Stanley. Ed. Sadie. London: MacMillan Publishers, 1980.
Breathnach, Breandán. Folk Music and Dances of Ireland. Cork: Ossian Publications, Ltd., 1996.
Bronson, Bertrand H. “Are the Modes Outmoded?” Yearbook of the International Folk Music Council 4
(1972): 23-31.
Bronson, Bertrand H. “Folksong and the Modes.” The Musical Quarterly 32, no. 1 (1946): 37-49.
Bunting, Edward. The Ancient Music of Ireland: An Edition Comprising the Three Collections by Edward
Bunting Originally Published in 1796, 1809 and 1840. Dublin: Waltons' Piano and Musical
Instrument Galleries, 1969.
Cazden, Norman. "A Simplified Mode Classification for Traditional Anglo-American Song Tunes."
Yearbook of the International Folk Music Council 3 (1971): 45-78.
Collinson, Francis. The Traditional and National Music of Scotland. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul,
1966.
Culwick, J.C. Distintive Charictaristics of Ancient Irish Melody: The Scales. Vol. 31897.
Dauney, W., and F. Dun. Ancient Scotish Melodies: From a Manuscript of the Reign of King James Vi:
With an Introductory Enquiry Illustrative of the History of the Music of Scotland: Edinburgh Printing
and Pub. Co., 1838.
Fantini, Girolamo. Modo per Imparare a Sonare di Tromba. Trans, E. H. Tarr. Nashville: The Brass
Press, 1978 (repr. 1638 ed.). Make sure you get the full book and not the small, separate introduction.
Foss, George. "A Methodology for the Description and Classification of Anglo-American Traditional
Tunes." Journal of the Folklore Institute 4, no. 1 (1967): 102-26.
Gilchrist, Annie G. "Note on the Modal System of Gaelic Tunes." Journal of the Folk-Song Society 4, no.
16 (1911): 150-53.
Grattan-Flood, William H. . A History of Irish Music, Book. Dublin: Browne and Nolan Limited, 1905.
Groven, Eivind. Naturskalaen; Tonale Lover I Norsk Folkemusikk Bundne Til Seljefløyta. Skien: Norsk
folkekulturs forlag, 1927. See:
https://archive.org/details/NaturskalaenTonaleLoverINorskFolkemusikkBundneTilSeljefloyta

69
Hielscher, Kurt. Rumänien: Landschaft-Bauten-Volksleben. Leipzig: F.A. Brockhaus, 1938.
Hirt, Aindrias. “The Connection Between Fenian Lays, Liturgical Chant, Recitative, and Dán Díreach: a
Pre-Medieval Narrative Song Tradition.” Language and Power in the Celtic World: Papers from the
Seventh Australian Conference of Celtic Studies (Anders Ahlqvist & Pamela O’Neill, Ed.). Sydney,
Australia. 2010. See:
http://www.academia.edu/715967/The_Connection_Between_Fenian_Lays_Liturgical_Chant_Recitat
ive_and_Dan_Direach_a_Pre-Medieval_Narrative_Song_Tradition
Huldt-Nystrøm, Hampus, and Reidar Sevåg. "Norway." In The New Grove Dictionary of Music and
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See: http://www.academia.edu/1536150/The_Celtic_Lyre-Preface

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