1 08 THE PIPE AND TABOR 



The pipe and tabor have probably come down 

 to us less changed than any other wood-wind 

 instrument, with the possible exception of the pan- 

 pipes ; both flutes and flageolets have become 

 covered with keys, while the pipe still has no more 

 than three aboriginal holes, one for the thumb 

 behind and two for the fingers in front. I have 

 wasted some time in trying to make out how the 

 early taborers held their pipes, but musical instru- 

 ments are generally drawn with hopeless in- 

 accuracy. I have been rewarded by finding that 

 a boy in Luca della Robbia's bas-relief (Fig. 5) 

 at Florence holds the pipe just as I do,^ between 

 the ring and Httle fingers, which keep the instru- 

 ment steady even when all three holes are un- 

 covered. There is an interesting point connected 

 with the true or French flageolet. This instrument 

 has six holes arranged in two triads, a thumb and 

 two fingers of the right hand, and the same for the 

 left, so that if all holes are open there would seem 

 to be nothing to steady the pipe. But in Mr. 

 Welch's book (p. 50) is a figure from Greeting's 

 Pleasant Companion^ showing how the flageolet 



^ Mr. Galpin, however, uses another grip ; he crooks the httle 

 finger and presses against the lower end of the pipe, of course with - 

 out occluding the bore at all. In the early drawings reproduced by 

 Strutt (see ante p. 102) the taborers show as a rule three fingers only. 

 This is practically Luca della Robbia's grip, since the little finger 

 could hardly show in these small illustrations. In Welch's book on 

 the Recorder (p. 195) is a figure (reproduced from Mahillon) of a 

 Basque holding his 3-holed pipe in a different way, viz., with the 

 ring finger underneath and the Uttle finger unemployed. I find it 

 impossible to hold the pipe in this manner. 



* Various editions appeared from i66r to 1683. See Welch, 

 loc. cit., p. 61. 



