Steve, Not a thin root, but the stem cetainly narrowed down rather drastically in the 60's. The remarkable thing is that the plant is now in a much healthier state than for many years, (not just many more pipers, but more good ones than there have been at any time since the war? Depends who you count!) and the link to the roots of the tradition seems much more secure now since the Clough MSS, Bewick etc have been published. I wholly agree that the difficulty (and the aim) in a wholly-closed style is maintaining the rhythmic flow, and letting the tunes sing. Tom Clough and Chris Ormston have proved it can be done. For us mortals it is harder. Perhaps I should practise... John
-- To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
