13 September—Something over three decades ago as I was driving home from a Rumsey whatever-it-was with a friend, I blurted out, “I’m in love!” “Gee, thanks,” she retorted, “but you’re on the rebound and I’m married.” “Give me a little credit,” I riposted, “and turn on the tape player.” A tape cassette player was all cars had back then. (Grown-ups may remember actual record players in some Chrysler Corporation cars of the fifties and sixties. They didn’t work too well or last very long.)

So my passenger listened. And she understood why I was in love. What I played on the tape deck was Northumbrian smallpipe music. She and I both played Great Highland bagpipes with what then was the Litchfield Hills Pipes and Drums—she well, I poorly—but neither of us knew much about other bagpipes. Until I found a bargain tape containing music of an instrument I had never heard of. (For the record, many cultures and subcultures have their own distinctive bagpipes.)

As with the Irish Uilleann pipe, the Northumbrian smallpipe bag is inflated by pumping a bellows that fits under your armpit, rather than by blowing into it; the bag fits under your other arm. The Northumbrian pipes have four drones, only three of which are normally played together. And the double-reed chanter usually will be keyed. And that’s all the technical stuff I’ll bore you with.

Northumbria was an early mediæval Anglo-Saxon kingdom in what is now Northern England and south-east Scotland. The name means “north of the Humber,” which is a river and was a car marque (but not a mediæval one). Part of Northumbria is what’s now Northumberland, England’s northernmost county—across the border from Scotland. Many of the top Northumbrian smallpipers have been the official pipers of the Dukes of Northumberland for over two centuries.

It’s the mellow, staccato sound of the Northumbrian smallpipes that’s sure to captivate you, so here are three melodious, mellifluous sets—and some spectacular counterpoint: