loo THE PIPE AND TABOR 



The two instruments have been generally 

 associated with dancing. Tans 'ur^, writing in 1772, 

 speaks of this. "The Tabor and Pipe are two 

 musical Instruments that always accompany each 

 other, and are mostly used at Wakes by Country 

 People, and at their Dancings and innocent Diver- 

 sions, and often with Morris Dancers." He speaks 

 of the pipe as played with the left hand, "on which 

 Wrist hangs a small drum, braced in Tune to the 

 Pipe, and beat by the Right Hand as a Bass in 

 Time to it : both of which being well managed make 

 pretty Harmony." 



In the Wallace Collection there is a picture by 

 N. Laiicret (1690-1743) of a celebrated dancer, 

 Mme. Camargo, who is accompanied by a small 

 orchestra of two recorders, a bassoon and one or 

 more viols ; these are partly hidden at the back 

 of the scene, while a boy with pipe and tabor* 

 stands close to the dancer, giving the impression 

 that she depends on him rather than on the more 

 formal musicians in the background. It may 

 remind us of the Duke of Plaza Toro, who sings a 

 song accompanied and supported by his own 

 particular private drum as well as by the orchestra. 

 The same quasi independence of the tabor and pipe 

 is still to be found in the folk musicof theCatalans, the 

 inhabitants of the north-east of Spain. The dance 



1 The Elements of Mustek Display'd, etc., by William Tans'ur, 

 Senior Musico Theorico, London, 1772, p. 103. 



' It is a pleasure to express my indebtedness to Mr. Cockerell, 

 Director of the Fitzwilliam Museum at Cambridge, for his kindness 

 in searching, in my interest, for old illustrations of the pipe and 

 tabor. I have given some account of them in an appendix to this 

 essay. 



