The Bagpipe and the Sc’kantillo, the floor to masters

The video you can see hereafter is focused on a single instrument for the first time in this progect. It may be considered a work dedicated to professionals in the field but I selected the images and the language using irony in order to involve everybody. The editing is the result of filming done on several occasions during this period of travel between the area of Pollino, Calabria, Basilicata and Campania. Here the bagpipe is very common. It is an instrument that has different characteristics according to the area in which it is built. The interview is focused on the "key" bagpipe characterized by a particular metal mechanism (the key) inserted at the bottom of the longer barrel, which is necessary to close the last hole otherwise unreachable by the finger of the hand. The shortest of the four pipes is called "Sc'kantillo" (in the Pollino area) and the note it emits (the most high-pitch of the four) is useful as intonation for a type of song called "a Sc'kantillo ", which you can listen in the first part of the video.

Sandro Brunacci is a manufacturer of this type of bagpipe and worthy successor of the Master Lanza. He explains that in theory the singing should be developped on the same height of the Sc'kantillo and thus be executed in falsetto. What I recorded at Alexandria Carretto (CS) is vocally performed by Alessandro Adduci (see www.idimenticati.splinder.com), Sandro Brunacci on the bagpipe and Vincenzo De Palmisano on the tambourine, inside the damp walls of "The Tavern of the priest", a fantastic wine cellar which carries on the wine business for only three days, staged during the festival of traditional cultures “Radicazioni” (see: Live from Alessandria del Carretto). Alessandro Adduci confesses to me that during the execution he was very excited because his grandfather used to sing this serenade and he had never sang it in front of a public so far and least of all under the unsympathetic eye of a camera. Thanks to the presence of his friends and to the atmosphere of the little tavern, the a Sc'kantillo song has attracted the approval of all the lucky customers. In the text of the serenade, the singer thanks the family members and relatives of the beloved before uttering words of love to the woman. It seems that the tradition of playing this song at weddings is now disused, but in Alexandria the Carretto there are people ready to swear that soon teams of musicians and singers will flood again the courtyard below the balcony, from which will overlook lucky brides.

Thanks to: Sandro Brunacci, Alessandro Adduci, Prof. Vincenzo La Vena, Antonio Arvia and boys who play with him of which I do not remember the name but I'll find out, Paolo Napoli.