THE PIPE AND TABOR 103 



has immortalised the jocund rebecks. But Milton 

 was a player of the bass viol, and does not show any- 

 especial feeling for wind instruments, so at least I 

 gather from Welch's interesting book.^ 



The taborer's pipe is a whistle ; it happens to be 

 made of wood, but its musical structure is precisely 

 that of the penny whistle, except in one important 

 particular, that it has but three holes in place of 

 six. The pipe is therefore a poor relation of that 

 beautiful but extinct instrument the recorder'^ 

 which is only a wooden whistle. The recorder 

 has a low, hollow, but most effective tone, and I 

 shall never forget the ravishing effect of a quartet 

 of recorders as plaj-ed at a concert given by Mr. 

 Galpin, the well-known authority on old English 

 instruments. The taborer's pipe has none of the 

 sweetness of the recorder ; it is essentially a shrill 

 instrument ; indeed, I am told by a philologist that 

 its old German name Schwegel contains a root 

 implying shrillness. Another old German name is 

 Stamentien Pfeiffe, which my philological friend 

 tells me does not occur in the best German diction- 

 ary, and is of unknown origin. 



As I have said, the pipe has but three holes 

 (stopped by the index, middle finger and thumb) ; 

 these give four fundamental tones, which however 

 do not occur in the working scale of the instrument. 



^ Welch, Christopher. Six Lectures on the Recorder and other 

 flutes in relation to Literature, 191 1, p. 255. 



* Recorders used to be known as flutes, while what we call 

 flutes were described as German or transverse flutes. Purists desire 

 to revive this nomenclature, and would call the taborer's pipe a 

 flute or fipple-flute. 



