the Pipe and Tabor compendium

the Pipe and Tabor compendium

essays on the three-hole pipe

England: history of the pipe and tabor

'Regency' players (1790-1829)

1787 satire1789  
17911791Oxford Journal - Saturday 25 June 1791  

1793 story

“…At Charing Cross, a drunken fellow with. a pipe and tabor, had called together the idle and the vagabonds,
and a pretty smart mob was collected: these are the times when thieves and pickpockets watch their opportunity…”

‘Life; or, the adventures of William Ramble, Esq. With three frontispieces, designed by Ibbetson, ... and two new and beautiful songs, with the music by Pleyel and Sterkel. by the author of Modern times; or, the adventures of Gabriel Outcast. In three volumes. ... 1793: Vol 2’ by Trusler, John

 
1796 advertisement 1796Oxford Journal - Saturday 30 July 1796
 
1799Nottinghamshire Guardian - Friday 12 February 1886  
18001800Northampton Mercury - Saturday 19 April 1800  
18001800Hereford Journal - Wednesday 01 October 1800  

1801 engraving
'The Peasants Flock'd to Hear the Minstrel Play'1801

1801  
1801 copy of a medieval player by Strutt 1801
   
1801 The Queen visited Weeks Mechanical Museum in Tichbourne Street, London1801Morning Chronicle - Tuesday 10 November 1801  
18041804the Green brothers busking

1804 song accompanied by pipe and tabor in the orchestra
:‘Now set the bells a ringing’ : last chorus

Chorus and trio for mixed voices accompanied by chamber orchestra (triangle, piccolo, violins (2), oboes (2), horns, viola, bassoons,
pipe and tabor, timpani, bass). by James Hook

1807 at Sadlers Wells Theatre: 1807J Wyber at Drury Lane Theatre:

‘A biographical dictionary of actors, actresses, musicians, dancers, managers & other stage personnel in London, 1660-1800,’ 
by Philip H. Highfill, Jr., Kalman A. Burnim, and Edward A. Langhans. v.16

 
1812 satire 1812picture on wall in book illustration 18131813 engraving 1812 - 18271812-1827 cartoon
by Rowlandson
18201820 pandean pipes player  
1807 Martin Platts - "...may have been the "Platt" paid at Drury Lane Theatre on 6 June 1807 £5 15s. 6d
. for playing "tabor & pipe." There was a Platts listed at Drury Lane as a band member, instrument
unspecified, on a salary of £2 per week in 1812-13 and 1813-14, and £2 55. in 1815-16 and 1816-17.
..his son, also Martin, … it is perhaps likely that the subject of this entry was the Platts ... at the King's
Theatre as a drummer in 1818. "

‘A biographical dictionary of actors, actresses, musicians, dancers, managers & other stage personnel in London, 1660-1800,’
by Philip H. Highfill, Jr., Kalman A. Burnim, and Edward A. Langhans. v.7

 

“On January 15, 1814, the river Tyne at Newcastle was completely frozen over. For several days, the ice
was covered with crowds of people, and the scenes exhibited resembled a country fair or race-ground.
Booths were erected for the sale of liquors, and fires were kindled. Many races, for various kinds of prizes,
took place, both with and without skaits; while fruit and cake sellers, fidlers, pipers, razor-grinders,
recruiting parties, &c. were perambulating in all directions….”

Historical Account of Newcastle-Upon-Tyne Including the Borough of Gateshead.
Originally published by Mackenzie and Dent, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 1827.

 

“A pipe and tabor player named Hilton entertained the households of the Dorking area in the early 19th century”

‘A Surrey Garland : customs, traditions and folk songs from the Surrey of yesteryear’, 2004

 

1816 essay on Ball Room Musicians:
“...musicians are in general treated by their Employers and by the Company, ... in a contemptuous manner.
Their being considered as obliged to play for hire for their Employer's Amusement, they are frequently treated
worse than their servants, and never, or seldom spoken too, but in an imperious haughty manner, by the names
of fiddlers, endeavouring thereby to shew a superior consequence in themselves, and the dependance of the
Musicians: or otherwise, adopt the other extreme, and become very familiar, and ply them with Liquor, in order
to make them drunk, being with those persons a common opinion and saying, that nothing is so amusing as a
drunken fiddler, the whole of the Musicians coming under this title whatever instrument they play.
This is a base and pitiful advantage, and reflects no credit on those who practice it.

Another thing that requires remark, is, that Musicians are seldom payed for their playing, without their Employers
complaining of the high price of their Labour; yet these employers never think, that the musicians cannot find
employment for more than five or six months in the Year, and that generally in the winter Season, when the
weather is bad, and their employment being principally at night, from leaving warm rooms, and being exposed
afterwards to the bad effects of night air, and consequently severe colds, together with the want of rest, in a few
years their constitutions, are destroyed or ruined, and they rendered totally unfit for business.”

Thomas Wilson 1816 Companion to the Ball Room

 

"Early in the nineteenth century the Corporation of Northampton had a band of musicians called the Corporation Waits,
who used to meet the Judges at the entrance into the town at the time of the Assizes. They were four in number,
attired in long black gowns, two playing on violins, one on a hautboy, and the other on a “whip and dub”
or tabor and pipe.

'THE WAITS' by F. A. HADLAND
Musical News, July-September 1915

 

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