News (Updated 14 May 2009);
International Pipe and Tabor Festival 2009
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Location: Lichfield, Staffordshire
Festival Dates: 10-12 July
- Registration, Symposium and Social - Friday, 10th July
- Georgian and Beginners' Workshops, Processions, Morris Dancing, Big Dub, Feast and Concert - Saturday 11th July
- Morris and Catalan Music Workshops and More - Sunday 12th July
Download the Festival Flyer (14 May 2009) (550KB Acrobat Reader required)
More about the Festival >>
The Pipe and Tabor is a musical instrument combination of a fipple flute and drum played by one person. This clip from Gloucester Tourism features the Pipe and Tabor (new window will open).
The Taborers Society is dedicated to the promotion of this instrument and to this end organises an Annual International Festival. In addition to outdoor and concert performances, the festival provides workshops to help beginners and more experienced players learn more about the instrument. More about how to get started with the Pipe and Tabor is here and to buy an instrument go here. For answers to specific questions contact the Chairman and Festival director Stephen Rowley +44 (0)1453 763181 (steve@artension.com)
Played for over 1000 years, the Pipe (a three holed, one handed whistle) and the Tabor (small drum) are the original one-man band. This combination of one-handed fipple flute and percussion was common around Europe in Medieval times but gradually lost favour. It survived in a few pockets however and in those areas has undergone a significant revival in recent years. In particular the traditions of the Tabor Pipe (England), Galoubet (Provence), Flabiol (Catalunya and Mallorca) and Txistu (Pays de Basque) are quite strong today. The Iberian Peninsula has many smaller traditions that exist in rural areas. Each of these traditions has its own peculiarities; the pipes themselves having quite distinctive fingering systems.
The International Pipe and Tabor Festival, which has been running since 1999, is the only regular international gathering of taborers and is the only gathering of English tabor pipe players.