Name Tom Clough | ||
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Tom Clough (1881–1964), known as 'The Prince of Pipers', was an English player of the Northumbrian pipes, or Northumbrian smallpipes. He was also a pipemaker, and the pipes he made with Fred Picknell include several important innovations, and have a distinctive tone. He had studied the instrument with the noted piper Thomas Todd, and from his own father Henry Clough. His three surviving recordings, among the earliest recordings made of the instrument, and his considerable body of music manuscripts, including his own compositions, give considerable insight into the traditional playing technique and style of the instrument. This is particularly so because at least four previous generations of the family had been pipers, as was his son 'Young Tom' (1912–1987) – they thus form a continuous link between earliest players of the modern instrument, and contemporary players. In contrast to the widely accepted notion of traditional folk music as an essentially rural activity, he and his family lived in the mining community of Newsham in south-east Northumberland, and were miners themselves. At the end of his life, 'Young Tom' recalled piping sessions at the 'Willow Tree' in Newsham, with his father Tom, grandfather Henry Clough, and Richard Mowat all playing – Henry's and Richard Mowat's playing would get more furious and inaccurate as the evening progressed; Tom was teetotal. Young Tom had the job of carrying his grandfather's pipes afterwards. There is a composite photograph of the Clough family at. Here Tom himself is on the left, his pipemaking collaborator Fred Picknell standing behind him, his father Henry Clough and son 'Young Tom' standing towards the right, while an older image of Tom's grandfather 'Old Tom', seated piping in the foreground, has been added subsequently. Old Tom died in 1887, and the main photograph was taken in 1924. The other figure, seated on the far right, is believed to be Captain Nicholson of Haydon Bridge, a traditional fiddler. In 1929, as well as making three recordings for HMV, he also travelled to The Hague and Cologne with a group of singers; the trip was organised by the International Society for Contemporary Music, the Nederland-England Society and the Folk-song Society. The group also made a radio broadcast from Cologne.
Contents
Nancy Clough
The recordings, and playing style
In 1929, HMV issued a recording of him playing three pieces – Elsey Marley, The Keel Row and Holey Ha'penny. The first is a simple song tune in jig time, the latter two are elaborate variation sets. This recording is currently available on The Northumbrian Smallpipes (Topic TSCD487), and The Keel Row may be listened to online at the website of the Morpeth Chantry Bagpipe Museum. The pieces, especially the variation sets, are played in a highly ornate style, and what is significant about the technique, apart from his great skill, is the total lack of open-fingered or slurred notes. The chanter is closed, and hence silent briefly, between any pair of notes. This forms a great contrast with the style of Billy Pigg, which was distinguished by his use of open-fingered ornamentation. Tom felt, on the other hand, that open fingering was 'a grievous error in smallpipe playing'. This 'error' persists: Young Tom once commented 'Nowadays they play with half their hand off the chanter'. Chris Ormston, who knew 'Young Tom' for a few months before his death, is a respected modern piper who consistently uses and advocates the 'Clough' style. One other recording is known to have been made, late in his life, when his deafness was severe. This was made by Colin Ross and Forster Charlton, of Tom playing his variations on Nae Guid luck; while this recording was used to transcribe the piece for the Pipers' Society Tunebook, it was apparently not kept, as it was felt that it would not be fair on Tom to retain it.
His teaching
Tom Clough was an influential teacher of the pipes, though at an advanced level: his pupil Tommy Breckons recalled learning first from G.G. Armstrong, and then from Tom Clough: Now as to the difference between Tom and George. Tom wouldn't have been much use to a novice piper.... But George had a gift for teaching a novice. He could show you how to do things. I don't quite know how he did it!. He described Tom Clough's set of exercises, which he said were similar to G.G. Armstrong's – Armstrong had learned from the Clough family. These exercises consisted of scales and arpeggios – the pupil would have to start slowly, and increase speed till mistakes happened. Another group of exercises, based on variation sets, are all found in the four tunes Fenwick of Bywell, Jacky Layton, Felton Lonnen and Oh dear, what can the matter be. He also gave a description of Tom Clough's meticulous teaching technique: He made you break a tune down and play it bar by bar. If there was a bar bothering you, you played that bar until you got it right. Then you put the bars together, then put the measure together, and then eventually the tune together. Finally you could start at the beginning and go through it.
Tommy Breckons also recalled his friend Billy Pigg's recollection of playing at a regular session at Tom Clough's: When he lived at Blagdon, he used to bike down to Clough's. There were fourteen or fifteen pipers all living in that area, and they took turns to play at each other's houses, including Billy's. Billy told me that when he first went to one of these sessions there were fourteen pipers in the house, ..., and everyone was better than me! By God..., there were some good pipers. But all I had to dee was practice and get up alongside them.
The manuscripts
A book on the family and their music, was published by the Northumbrian Pipers' Society in 2000. This has become a significant source for players of the instrument. It contains a short biography, selections from Tom Clough's writings, a description of his playing style, transcriptions of the three recordings, and selections from his music manuscripts. These include his extensive collection of variation sets. Of these, some are distinctive versions of traditional variation sets, such as I saw my love come passing by me, other sets are his own compositions such as the variations on The tailors are aal gyen styen blind. Others are his adaptations, to Northumbrian pipes, of sets composed for other instruments such as the fiddle. Some of the versions are very old – for instance, the triple-time hornpipe Lads of Alnwick, here with 5 strains, is almost identical to William Dixon's version from the 1730s, while the commonly played 19th century version omits the final strain.
Comparison of the recordings of The Keel Row and Holey Ha'penny with his manuscripts of the same pieces, and his notes on how to play them, suggests that most of the pieces in his huge repertoire were played much more floridly than he notated them.
Unfortunately, by the time portable recording equipment became available in the 1950s, he had largely given up playing owing to severe deafness. However, the three surviving HMV recordings are a testament both to his virtuosity and to the expressive power of the traditional close-fingered style.
Pipemaking
From about 1911 until 1943, Clough was, both alone and in collaboration with others, particularly Fred Picknell, a prolific maker of Northumbrian pipes. The earliest dateable reference to anybody buying a Clough chanter is from 1911, while Clough generally played a chanter by Picknell, which he used playing for King Edward in 1906. Picknell died in 1943, and Clough's house was bombed in the same year and his lathe stolen – as pieces of pipes he was working on were also stolen, he must still have been an active pipemaker until this time. Clough also made reeds - there is a tradition that he made drone reeds from pieces of a bead curtain from the home of his wife Nancy's parents. This is corroborated by many of his surviving drone reeds having been previously painted black, including some in a set belonging to 'Young Tom', now in the possession of Chris Ormston.
While those pipes Clough made on his own have been described as rough in their workmanship, those he made in collaboration with Picknell, a colliery blacksmith, are relatively fine and delicate. In 1933, William Cocks wrote that F. Picknell's pipes and chanters are unmarked, and of very good clean workmanship. As there is no evidence Picknell played the pipes himself, it would make sense for him to collaborate with Clough, considered the best piper of his age.
The piper and pipemaker Andy May, who has studied many of their surviving complete sets and chanters, has written, that they were the most prolific makers of extended-range chanters between James Reid who died in 1874, and Bill Hedworth who began making them in the 1950s. In particular, they extended the range further, down to low A, and in at least one case low G. The latter chanter has the keys for low G, B and A mounted from left to right in a single block, and May believes this is the first chanter made with a range down to low G, and the first use of such a triple key block. Young Tom Clough believed much of the work developing such chanters was done during the General Strike of 1926. Other innovations in the extended Clough/Picknell chanters are that the pairing of keys is different from that of the Reids' chanters, and that the lower holes are sited significantly lower down the chanter than on comparable Reid instruments, improving the intonation for these notes, and making the instrument easier to reed. There is a newspaper photograph of Tom playing on pipes with an extended chanter at.