at beautiful but extinct
instrument the _recorder_ {103b} which is only a wooden whistle. The
recorder has a low, hollow, but most effective tone, and I shall never
forget the ravishing effect of a quartet of recorders as played at a
concert given by Mr. Galpin, the well-known authority on old English
instruments. The taborer's pipe has none of the sweetness of the
recorder; it is essentially a shrill instrument; indeed, I am told by a
philologist that its old German name _Schwegel_ contains a root implying
shrillness. Another old German name is _Stamentien Pfeiffe_, which my
philological friend tells me does not occur in the best German
dictionary, and is of unknown origin.

As I have said, the pipe has but three holes (stopped by the index,
middle finger and thumb); these give four fundamental tones, which
however do not occur in the working scale of the instrument. In the
penny whistle, and most wood-wind instruments, the octave or first
harmonic gives the means of extending the scale. But in the taborer's
pipe the whole of the workable scale consists of harmonics; what
corresponds to the lower octave in the penny whistle--the non-harmonic or
fundamental part of the register--can only be faintly sounded. It is the
first harmonic or octave of the lowest of these faint notes that forms
the bottom note of the scale of the three-holed pipe. {104a} This note
is approximately D of the modern flat pitch. By successively raising the
middle and index fingers and then the thumb, E, F, and G are sounded.
Then all the finger holes are again closed, and by a little extra impulse
given to the breath A is sounded, being the harmonic 5th of the lower D.
Then follow B and C as harmonic 5ths of E and F, and the final D as the
octave of the lowest tone. Above this a variable number of notes--about
four--are producible by cross-fingerings. The ordinary work-a-day scale
of the taborer's pipe corresponds to the 12 or 13 uppermost notes of a
seven octave P-F., or to the upper notes of a piccolo. The galoubet's
scale begins on a B flat one-third below the taborer's pipe. There was
also a bass galoubet. This instrument is known from the figures in
Praetorius {104b} (1618), and also from one solitary pipe which has
escaped destruction. Mr. Galpin has a copy of it in his wonderful
collection, and has allowed me to play on it. {105a}

Mersenne, {105b} in speaking of the performance of an Englishman, John
Price, may give to some u