Maintaining Respect

PETER URPETH talks musical integrity and West Coast cultural traditions with clarsach player and pianist Ingrid Henderson in Lochaber

FOR ALL FAMILIAR with Ingrid Henderson’s work to date, her first solo CD, ‘The Little Beauty’ (OLP 001), will come as something of a surprise.

Having established a reputation as an accompanist – principally on the piano – of immense energy, subtly, originality and versatility in such stellar outfits as Gaelic song group Cliar and with Skye-based singer Anne Martin, the good money would have been on the CD being in equal measures a driven, effervescent, pianistic romp and an assured soliloquy played on the heart strings.

But no, the piano has all but gone from the limelight on the new CD in favour of the clarsach, and features on only one of the eleven tracks. And for the richly syncopated, collar-tugging rhythms of her work as an accompanist, read a more beguiling ease, introspection and understatement in the new music.

Ironically, the piano was Ingrid’s first instrument. She started learning under the guidance of her grandmother at the tender age of 6, and then, a year later, took up the clarsach.

“Quite a few folk are quite surprised how it’s worked out,” comments Ingrid as we discuss the new CD in her office – she’s a development worker for Feisean nan Gaidheal in Lochaber – overlooked by the rugged mass of Ben Nevis.

“I think that over the last few years people would perhaps think of me and the piano before the harp, but that’s because they didn’t know me when I was younger! When I played piano then it was mostly grades and classical music and most of the time I played the piano was as an accompaniment.
“The piano is a great grounding instrument for starting off on, and for me, for many years, the piano and clarsach ran side-by-side and my music comes from them both, but I feel that the harp’s more a part of me than the piano.”

Certainly, considers Ingrid, being one of a family of seven musical siblings ensures that you get used to taking a back seat, and maybe that gift for accompaniment started in the music of that crowded house.

It’s about being respectful of the material and I’ve got that in a big way and it upsets me when people don’t respect the material

Such was Ingrid and her siblings’ engagement with music that a time came when the extra-curricula music activity, centred on Lochaber High School and the teaching and support of renowned fiddler Angus Grant Snr., along with the endless travel, required a permanent move from Mallaig to Fort William.

Later, as her music developed, she took lessons from the clarsach player Siobhan Stevenson, whose diverse and eclectic music, cut with jazz (as Ingrid describes it: “the off-beats and kicking it before the beat”), had a great effect on Ingrid’s playing.

With all the talk of close and extended family, it is apparent that Ingrid’s musical path in life probably started before she was born in Mallaig, on the west coast of Scotland.

Ingrid was born into a musical family, and as one of seven children, there was a ready-made band in the living room, ensuring that there was always music in the house. On her father’s side Ingrid is of the same Henderson stock as the great piping clan of Moidart.

Her closeness to the Gaelic language and culture was also there in the family, insofar as her grandparents were Gaelic speakers, and whilst they did not pass the Gaelic onto Ingrid’s parents, it was not a huge step for Ingrid to learn the language and music at school under the “inspirational” guidance of teacher Alistair Grant, from Skye, and then at Sabhal Mor Ostaig, the Gaelic college in Skye, and Glasgow University.

“I was very lucky,” explains Ingrid, “because our Gaelic teacher at school did a lot of extra musical activity with us, such as choir and folk groups for the Mod, and if it wasn’t for the music and the song he did then I’m not sure if I would have just seen Gaelic as a language, although I was aware of it with my grandparents.

“I think that’s what made the difference for me is that awareness of the whole culture, and I think that’s true for a lot of people whether they come from a Gaelic speaking area or not. They come into the language through the music and music is their first experience of the language.

“I think that’s why it is really important when you’re doing gigs to know that although the audience can enjoy the songs for how they sound or are arranged, you have to talk about a song and to put it in a context: what it’s about, where it comes from and why it was written, and to talk about the work songs and open it out from there.”

For this writer, it was Ingrid’s work with Gaelic singer Anne Martin that brought her prominence on the CD ‘Nighean nan Geug’ (WWAVECD002, 2000), a partnership that still plays regularly around Europe and has some plans for a new recording.

“Anne’s great to work with, she makes it very easy for me because she comes with the material and she knows it, inside out, and that’s the same as with Cliar, as well. I won’t really play anything until I really get it inside my head.

“I notice in rehearsals sometimes, particularly if I’m doing a Gaelic TV thing with a singer, that many accompanists just jump in and I think, well you don’t really know this and I think that you should at least be able to sing a chorus of a song in your head and get a feel for it before playing it and if you haven’t got Gaelic, talk to the singer about the song’s meaning and what they’re feeling on it, and not just rush in.

“I know that Anne feels that, and the other singers in Cliar feel that very strongly. It’s about being respectful of the material and I’ve got that in a big way and it upsets me when people don’t respect the material enough to just sit back and wait but just jump in and do something with it.
“I feel this particularly on the up-beat Gaelic songs and the dance songs, where the words are very specific to the rhythm. I’m quite hard on youngsters – if they’re learning a tune from a Gaelic song I’ll take in the words so that they can see how the rhythms are supposed to go, especially on Strathspeys and stuff like that where there’s a very clear reason why the rhythm is a certain way.”

Listening to the new CD it is clear that this is the music of Ingrid’s home (both instrument and geography) – Lochaber, Mallaig and the mid-West coast; the friends and family, the tradition that comes from that place outside the window, and those places and people Ingrid knows and has always known, all the factors that form instinct and understanding.

As Ingrid puts it: “for me the music’s really totally part of where you’re from, its very grounded and there’s nothing kind of fancy about it. You’re lucky that you have the talent to play it and you’re not disrespectful of that, but the music’s just totally a part of where you are from and who you are.”
Striking, too, is the distinctiveness of the music on the CD, raising the idea that Lochaber has its own clear take on the tradition.

“There’s definitely a West Coast sound,” Ingrid agreed, “and in terms of song it is very clear because it’s to do with dialect and even ornamentation, and there’s a strong connection with this area – Lochaber, Ardnamurchen, Moidart and Uist – and there’s definite similarities between the song traditions.

“But with music it’s funny because people from outside seem to be able to spot it very quickly! On the faster tunes it is really a rhythmical thing, it’s very dancey, and you notice that in the step dances and in the swing and pace of the reels and Strathspeys and there’s a definite ‘feel’ to the music.

“All the musicians from this area are very outward looking and will play music from Ireland and Cape Breton, but I know that when myself and my brothers and other musicians from the area get together there’s a right mix with a lot of west coast and west Highland stuff in it, most of which is connected to Gaelic song and Gaelic music in some way, but there’s a lot of stuff from elsewhere and you’re not afraid to kind of put in a Galician tune here or there.

“Maybe it’s a Highland thing, you’re used to being open to other influences and you’re always travelling away and you’re always, perhaps, more outward looking.”

(A version of this article appeared in The Living Tradition magazine)

© Peter Urpeth, 2006