Editing Border pipes (section)

=== Sources ===
Most notably, the [[William Dixon manuscript]], dated 1733, from Stamfordham in Northumberland, was identified as Border pipe music by Matt Seattle in 1995, and published by him with extensive notes.<ref>''The Master Piper – Nine Notes That Shook the World'', William Dixon (1733),  3rd edition, edited Matt Seattle 2011, {{ISBN|978-1-872277-33-2}}.</ref>

The book contains forty tunes, almost all with extensive variation sets. Some of these are limited to a single octave, and many of this group correspond closely to tunes for Northumbrian smallpipes known from early 19th-century sources – "Apprentice Lads of Alnwick" is one of these; others are melodically and harmonically richer – using the full nine-note compass and the G major subtonic chord – a fine example of this group is ''Dorrington''. Another very early, though limited, source is George Skene's manuscript fiddle book of 1715, from Aberdeenshire. Besides settings for fiddle, some playable on the pipes, it contains four pieces explicitly stated to be in bagpipe style, all variation sets on Lowland tunes.

Another limited early 18th-century source, is Thomas Marsden's 1705 collection of Lancashire Hornpipes, for fiddle;<ref>''John of the Green, the Cheshire Way'', 2nd edition, John Offord 2008, {{ISBN|978-0-9556324-0-2}}</ref> one clear example of a pipe tune here is "Mr Preston's Hornpipe", with a characteristic nine-note compass. Significantly, this tune is in the Dorian mode on A, with C natural throughout, rather than the Mixolydian mode of the Dixon tunes.

Several Border pipe tunes, including "The English Black and the Grey", "Bold Wilkinson" and "Galloping over the Cowhill", were copied in the 19th century by John Stokoe from the mid-18th century John Smith MS, from Northumberland, dated 1753. This manuscript was, from 1881, the property of [[Lewis Proudlock]], who showed it to Stokoe, but it has since been lost. Some tunes in James Oswald's ''Caledonian Pocket Companion'', also from the mid-18th century, ostensibly for flute or violin, are identifiable as Border pipe tunes. Another important source is the [[William Vickers manuscript|Vickers fiddle manuscript]] from Northumberland – many tunes in this have the characteristic nine-note compass of pipe tunes.

A later Scottish source, from the early 19th century, is Robert Riddell's ''Collection of Scotch, Galwegian and Border Tunes'' – besides some tunes for fiddle and some for smallpipes, others, such as "Torphichen's Rant", clearly have the range and the idiom of Border pipe tunes. The smallpipe manuscript of Robert Bewick of Gateshead, besides many smallpipe tunes and transcribed fiddle tunes, contains several nine-note tunes, now identified as Border pipe music. Some of the smallpipe tunes in Peacock's book, from the early 19th century, are in the Lydian mode, with a tonic of c, but with one sharp in the key signature; these – "Bobby Shaftoe" is one – make more musical sense in the major mode with an f natural, viewed as adaptations from originals for Border pipes. The Peacock, John Smith and some of the Bewick tunes are reproduced in the FARNE archive.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.asaplive.com/archive/index.asp#FARNE |title=FARNE archive |access-date=2009-06-13 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070928015011/http://www.asaplive.com/archive/index.asp#FARNE |archive-date=2007-09-28 |url-status=usurped }}</ref>