We present in its entirety the recent scholarly article “Enquête d’Anches” (Reed Investigation) by musician and archaeologist Nolwenn Zaour, which we translated from the French. This is a fascinating work regarding Breton musical culture and reed making for bombards and binous over time.  Because it is a scholarly work we have kept the translations as dryly accurate as possible. Yes, one of us did participate in the musician survey connected to this project!

 

Reed Investigation

 

I. The reed as an object of investigation

 

Because I like to make things, understand materials, and experiment, I learned in 2020 from Simon Froger how to make bombard reeds out of cane. I continued with biniou reeds for the chanter and the drone and I now experiment with the use of other materials such as boxwood, elderberry or bramble. This is why, as part of this project, I chose to work on bombard reeds, and by extension those of the biniou. If the reed is an object producing sound and music, it can also be a legitimate object of study to capture our musical history. Its study can indeed make it possible to reconstruct the evolution of the soundscape.

 

1. Origin of the investigation

 

At the start of the investigation, this work aimed to better understand the development of production techniques for bombard reeds. My training and my profession as a technical archaeologist initially pushed me in this direction, and I therefore began by developing a database allowing me to make a technical inventory of reeds.

 

For this part of the investigation, the properties and shapes of the reeds, the modalities of use and their variation over time, the networks of exchanges and trade, the tools, the gestures and the know-how were therefore explored and questioned. But in the end, the other objective, which was, in the same way as we collected musicians, to collect people who make and have made reeds as well as those who use them, took precedence over the technical investigation. It was through this activity that I began to track the development  of this know-how and also and above all the history of these people: how did they come to make reeds, how did they learn, does making reeds change the way they sound? It was also important to me, if not to understand, to see how the profession or the activity of making reeds had evolved and how these skills pass, disappear but also reappear.

 

2. Conduct of the investigation

 

I started by talking with most of the professional reed makers still active or not, in Brittany but also outside of Brittany. Then I continued with interviews, at home, by telephone, emails, or during cultural gatherings, with resource people who knew the history of traditional music, with people who, without being professional in the invoice of reeds, make their reeds, with musicians who spoke to me about their practice, with the children and grandchildren of musicians; and people have also contacted me directly to give me information, show me, lend me or give me reeds. I also went to the Musée de Bretagne in Rennes (35) and the Bigouden museum in Pont-L'Abbé (29) to inventory and study their collections but also to the Musée des Instruments à Vents in La Couture-Boussey (27) in order to better understand the history of oboes. I also spent a lot of time at the Dastum premises in Rennes to explore the entire collection of the 1980s survey concerning traditional musicians.

 

These meetings were a source of extremely rich moments and a lot of emotion. Through them, through the history of these people, it has been possible to follow the evolution of instrument making, reed making, and our musical practices; and also to perceive how the evolution of one interacts with the other.

 

3. Framework of the survey 

 

In order to carry out this survey, it was necessary to first know and specify the framework in which it would be situated. To do this, and in order to take stock of the state of the art of research on reeds, I examined numerous works as well as a large part of the magazines Ar Soner and Musique Bretonne. Other magazines were also examined, such as Armor Magazine, L’Avenir de la Bretagne, Le Sonneur de Bretagne, Le Pays Breton, Le Télégramme, Ouest-France, L’Anneau Celtique, and Le Petit Breton. I also consulted video reports, radio broadcasts, interviews and the question of reed making is sometimes surreptitiously and quickly raised. At the end of this work, it appeared that three surveys on sonneurs and their instruments had been conducted in the past and that, even if we did not have access to all the responses they generated, they could serve as a coherent framework for this work. The first was conducted in 1949 by Bodadeg ar Sonerion, the second in 1979 under the direction of Georges Épinette and Patrick Malrieu; and the last, in the 1980s: the survey of biniou-bombard sonneurs which led to the publication in 1996 of the book Musique Bretonne; Histoire des sonneurs de tradition under the direction of the journal ArMen (ArMen dir., 1996).

 

a) The Ar Soner survey of 1949 

In 1949, in issue 3 of the magazine Ar Soner, the then-young association Bodadeg ar Sonerion decided to launch a major survey on the subject of sonneurs and their instruments (Parades de, 1949). There was no result of this survey subsequently in the columns of the magazine. However, with regard to the instruments and in particular the reeds, one of the questions asked concerned the techniques used in  making the staples (ed. note: oboe staples are called ‘tubes’ in French) and the materials used for the manufacture of the reeds, and a list of materials was proposed (Fig. 1). It is interesting to note the diversity of possible materials, whether for the reed of the bombard or the biniou.

 

b) The 1979 survey 

In 1979, the results of a survey entitled “Couple sonneur, qui es-tu?” conducted in particular by Georges Épinette and Patrick Malrieu were published in the Armor magazine (Épinette, 1979; Malrieu, 1979a). This questionnaire was sent to couple-sonneurs, and of the 300 sonneurs counted at the time, 86 responded. The authors asked a number of questions already present in the 1949 survey and, even if there is no question on the materials used in the manufacture of the reeds, it was asked whether the origin of the reeds used was of a personal manufacture or of a commercial nature. In 1979, 32 of the people responding to the survey, or 37%, said that they used reeds of their own manufacture. 

 

Fig. 1: Part of this database is also devoted to materials, for which I was able to identify around forty. Finally, my bibliographic database contains more than a hundred references to reed making, the oldest textual source of which dates back to the 4th century BCE. Throughout this study, I was able to meet or discuss with more than 70 people on the subject of the reed, which also helped to feed this database and greatly advance this study. At the same time, I also launched a Reed Survey questionnaire among bombard and biniou players in order to question them about their reeds, their instrumental practice and the instruments used, by integrating the questions from previous surveys. The aim would therefore also be to be able to compare the evolution of our practices. For this questionnaire, at the time of formatting this work, I had received 268 validated responses.

 

c) The biniou-bombard sonneurs survey 

Still in 1979, in issue 0 of the Musique Bretonne magazine, Patrick Malrieu announced the launch of a “Survey on old instruments and old sonneurs” with a multidisciplinary team, in order to cover the entire territory and questions (Malrieu, 1979b). The biniou-bombard sonneurs survey is therefore several files and binders containing interview transcripts, articles on Breton culture and music, numerous photos and iconographies and more than 500 biographical files of traditional sonneurs who lived between the second half of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th century. This documentation was collected in the 1980s under the direction of Jean-Yves Coléou, Patrick Malrieu and Michel Colleu and can be consulted at the premises of the Dastum association in Rennes (Coléou et al., 1980). I was able to consult this entire collection and in particular I read all the biographical files of the players in order to identify the slightest allusion to reeds. I then integrated all this documentation into a database.

 

d) Choice of chronology 

To successfully conduct the investigation, it was also necessary to determine the chronological limits of the subject. Initially, two dates were essential to me: one linked to the publication in 1996 of the collective work written under the aegis of ArMen magazine, Musique bretonne. Histoire des sonneurs de tradition; and the other was 2016: the date of the retirement of Daniel Le Noan, a reed maker who was undoubtedly the main actor in the professionalization of this profession. In the pages of the 1996 work, there is talk of instrument and reed making and some of the elements given allow us to go back to the end of the 19th century and into the first half of the 20th century. I therefore chose to set myself this first chronological marker. As for Daniel Le Noan, he was officially a reed maker from 1976 to 2016, which is another important chronological milestone. And then, there are the periods that we could call "Pre Le Noan" and "Post Le Noan" to explore. 

The work of collecting all this data, coming from very diverse sources and which sometimes border on the anecdotal, has made it possible to feed a database that includes, at the time of writing, 173 names of people linked to reed making or instrument making, who lived between 1829 and today. 

 

II. The reed as an object of study 

 

I approached this file in the same way that I would have conducted a scientific investigation on archaeological furniture. This is why, in this context, I chose to consider them first as objects of study, notwithstanding the emotional content that I may have for these instruments, this music and this culture.

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1. The instruments 

 

The reeds of the instruments that will be discussed here, the bombard and the biniou, belong to the aerophone family. These are reed instruments whose sound is emitted when a source of air is impelled through them. For the bombard, the air comes directly from the player's lungs while for the biniou, the air is impelled indirectly via an air sac. The air passes via a reed into a melodic pipe and the vibration of the latter then excites the air column. The melodic pipe is pierced with several holes and the blocking of these modifies the length of the pipe and therefore the pitch of the note emitted. 

 

a) The bombard... 

The bombard is an aerophone of the oboe family. It has a conical bore open at both ends. At its widest end, a flared bell is fixed. On the other side, placed in a socket, is a double reed of more or less triangular shape and mounted on a tube (staple) that is also conical. Although it is not possible to date the creation of these instruments precisely, it seems that the discovery of the first remains depicting or mentioning them, in Western Europe, would be at the beginning of the second Middle Ages, in the 12th - 13th century. The word hautbois was not used at that time and only appeared in the 15th century amongst a slew of other names, such as chalémie, schalmey, chemina, xeremia, calemelle, canemelle, already in use to designate these instruments (Charles-Dominique, 2002, p. 12-13). As for the bombard, the oldest mention that we currently have is in the dictionary of Jean Lagadeuc written in 1464 and published in 1499 (Lagadeuc, 1867 (1464-1499)). the word bombart is also associated with that of chalami, which we also find later with chalemel and calama. On the other hand, the word hautbois is not found there. As for knowing the sound that these instruments produced, that remains imprecise. The oldest sound that we can hear from this Breton bombard dates back to 1900. It was made by Alain-Pierre Gueguen, known as Penn Ar Pont (1845-1909), a bombard player from Pont-L’Abbé (29), recorded in Paris during the Universal Exhibition, on wax rolls, by a Doctor Azoulay. 

 

Media: recording - Alain Pierre Guéguen, gavotte, 1900

 

b) ... and the biniou 

The biniou is a form of bagpipe, a family of instruments that can currently be said to have existed at least since the end of the 1st century BCE (Van Hees, 2014, p. 89-90). As for the biniou of Brittany, if like the word bombart it appears in the dictionary of Jehan de Lagadeuc in the form of benny, it is not at all certain that it is the same as the one we encounter today. Indeed, until the end of the 18th century, iconography rather showed large melodic pipes for all types of bagpipes. As for Brittany, while we cannot be completely sure of an accurate representation of the instrument, the biniou appears, it seems, in the drawings of Olivier Perrin, at the beginning of the 19th century, with this small melodic pipe that we know today (Bouët, Perrin, 1970, p. 279; Bigot, 1994a, p. 33). Thanks to this, the biniou sounds an octave above the bombard: this is where the uniqueness of the Breton biniou lies compared to other bagpipes. 

 

The biniou is composed of a bag, on which three pipes are mounted: a pipe called a sutell (blow pipe), a drone, and a melodic pipe called a levriad (the chanter). The bore of this instrument is conical, like the bombard. Two reeds are needed to make the instrument sound: a single beating reed for the drone which plays a single note continuously, and a double reed for the levriad which plays the melody. The sutell allows the instrumentalist to blow air into the bag which then serves as a reservoir to supply the reeds located in the drone and in the levriad. 

 

c) From the bombard & biniou couple to the "trouple" 

In Brittany, these two instruments are almost inseparable, forming almost a single instrument. This is why the term "couple" of sonneuse and sonneur is used today rather than that of duo. The bombard & biniou couple was a very present element in Breton society accompanying the events of peasant life, weddings from start to finish, fairs, all kinds of festivities (fairs, races, carnival, etc.) and pardons. The known playing area for this bombard & biniou pair is located south of a line from Brest to Redon passing near Morlaix, Saint-Brieuc and Ploërmel (Bigot, 1994a; 1994b; ArMen dir., 1996, p. 153). 

 

As for the origin of this practice (of a bagpipe sounding with an instrument from the oboe family), if no precise date can be affirmed, it has been possible to go back in the iconography to the 14th century to attest to it (Durand, 1984). However, as for the bombard & biniou pair, as we know it today, this is not really assured before the end of the 18th century (ArMen dir., 1996, p. 82) with a form of predominance in the 19th century, until the beginning of the 20th century (ArMen dir., 1996, p. 153-161). The bombard & biniou couple also plays in a trio with the drum or with the hurdy-gurdy or only the bombard or the biniou in a duo with one of these instruments.

 

Media: recording - François Bidard & Michel Colleu, Dérobée, 1983

 

In 1960, during the 6th Championship of the Best Sonneurs of Brittany in Gourin, a bombard biniou drum trio, composed of Christian Le Tallec, Jean-Pierre Henry and J. Le Provost, had competed. Polig Monjarret notes on this subject in the comments that "for once here is the real traditional trio (because tradition has not consecrated "couples" but trios) [...]" (Monjarret, 1960a, p. 12). Polig Monjarret also wrote a long article in 1968 describing this usage, on the occasion of the release of a record by the trio consisting of Pierre-Yves Moign, Michel Bozec and Roger Losanlen in which he evokes the memories of some musicians accompanying themselves with the drum (Monjarret, 1968). 

 

Media: recording - Michel Bozec, Roger Lostanlen & Pierre-Yves Moign, Jabadao 

Media: recording - Pierre Crépillon, Laurent Bigot &Yves Chotard, Ton bale Julian Kadoudal

 

Before the 20th century, there are mentions of this type of formation (ArMen dir., 1996, p. 96-106). For example, in the publication in 1798 of his Voyage dans le Finistère, Jacques Cambry mentions this trio "of the Beniou, tambourins, and bombards" during festivities (Cambry, 1798, p. 65). Alexandre Bouët also describes this trio several times as being the "Breton orchestra" (Bouët, Perrin, 1970, p. 228, 229, 244, 410, 418) and the illustrations by Olivier Perrin show these three friends very often at work (Bouët, Perrin, 1970, p. 245, 412, 421). Boucher de Pertes in 1831, specifies in his description of the dances of the western Bretons that "The orchestra is a bignou or bigniou (bagpipe), a bombard (a kind of oboe), and a tambourine; sometimes a hurdy-gurdy is added" (Boucher de Perthes, 1831, p. 187). 

 

The trio of bombard, biniou and hurdy-gurdy also exists. It is found in the Mené and Collinée regions, in the Loudéac region, Uzel and of course Saint-Brieuc and Penthièvre. According to Bernard Kerboeuf, some of the hurdy-gurdys used at the time, probably at the request of the players, had high ribs and a larger sound box, allowing for a little more power. In the Ar Soner magazine, in 1953, a brief mention is made of the encounter with a bombard player, perhaps Louis Latouche (1880-1946) from Hénon (22), who says he plays in a duo with hurdy-gurdys and that to do this he was “forced to take reeds made of green rye straw, which play higher than the others and which went better with the vielle” (Ar Soner, 1953, p. 12). It should also be noted that in the files of the biniou-bombard musicians survey kept by the Dastum association, there are some relating to hurdy-gurdy players, but also drummers, who accompanied the musicians.

 

d) The bagad 

The bagad, whose name was truly adopted in the 1950s (Le Gonidec, 2013, p. 99), is a musical group bringing together three sections: bombard, bagpipes and percussion. However, the first groups of this type appear, it seems, at the beginning of the 20th century; and the most famous of them is undoubtedly the one formed during the First World War, in 1915, at the initiative of Colonel Aymar de Quengo de Tonquédec. The latter had brought together, within a clique made up of bugles and drums, biniou and bombards. It appears in the research carried out in particular by Laurent Bigot, Gilles Kermarc, Erwan Le Gall, Marie-Barbara Le Gonidec and Kristian Morvan that funds were raised to equip the troops with these instruments and that they were also delivered to the troops according to the testimonies of certain beneficiaries (Kermarc, Le Gonidec, 2015, p. 28-29).  

 

The bagad, as we know it more or less today, appeared in 1932 in Paris with the formation of the Kenvreuriez ar Viniouerien (KAV), founded by Robert Audic, Hervé Le Menn and Dorig Le Voyer. At the beginning, it seems that about ten pipers with “large bagpipes and drummers” were involved in the KAV, then a few bombard pipers using bagpipe levriadoù  (chanters, see Fig. 2) came, later, to complete the ensemble (Monjarret, Ar Soner, 1987, p. 16; Le Gonidec, 2013, p. 97). This association, which still exists, was led, after Hervé Le Menn, from the 1950s by Charles Pletsier, with a biniou and not Scottish bagpipes. 

 

Media: recording -  Gwir binioù de la KAV, Sur la route de Loudéac , 1960

 

The ensemble played in a non-tempered scale. Charles Pletsier also developed a reed for the KAV, the “Pletsier” type reed manufactured by Glotin (Pletsier, 1978). This reed, quite long and with a deep V-shaped scraping, was to ensure the agreement of the bombards with the biniou . (Fig. 3)

 

In addition, Charles Pletsier had written a notice for the KAV players and showed them how to make their reeds from these Glotin “Pletsier” type blades. It was in the 1940s, with the emergence of the Bodadeg Ar Sonerion (BAS) in 1943 and the emergence of the first bagadoù in Dinan in the 71st Infantry Battalion in 1946 and in Carhaix with the Kevrenn SNCF Karaez and the Kevrenn Rostren in 1947, that the history of the bagad began in full force. The first bagadoù competition then took place very quickly: in 1949 in Quimper. That year, the Kevrenn SNCF Karaez measured up to the Kevrenn Rostren and at least sixteen couples of players competed (Le Gonidec, nd). As for playing in bagad and the use of reeds, this regularly comes up in the columns of the BAS magazine, Ar Soner. Thus in 1956, Gaston Mesnard, in an article devoted to L’entraînement d’un bagad, wrote that “in bagad, a very hard reed is needed, with voice, and it is not generally the best reeds as they are adjusted to give a nuanced and warm interpretation in a couple, that give the best results in a group setting” (Mesnard, 1956, p. 5). Another time, in 1960, it was Polig Monjarret who wrote, after a presentation on the usefulness of a hard reed in the service of Dorig Le Voyer-made biniou bras in bagad that "today everyone agrees on this point: couple playing and bagad playing are two different things; their needs are opposed. It is therefore necessary to satisfy both [...]" (Monjarret, 1960, p. 3).

 

Media: recording -  Clique des cheminots de Carhaix, Bale Paotred an hent-houarn, 1949

 

2. Reeds 

These instruments require the insertion of one or more reeds to function. Without this part, the instrument cannot really sound and Daniel Le Noan said of the reed that it was "the vocal cord of the instrument" (Le Noan, nd). 

 

a) Origin and evolution of the vocabulary 

The online Larousse Dictionary defines the reed as "a strip of reed, wood or metal, whose vibrations produce sound in wind instruments" (Éditions Larousse, consulted in 2024). In the Dictionnaire des Musiques published by Universalis (Lucas, 2009), as in other works dealing with musical instruments, Pierre-Paul Lucas proposes to distinguish among the reeds, two types of reeds: "free reeds (which vibrate inside or outside an opening: harmonica, accordion, harmonium, certain organ stops) and beating reeds (which strike a solid body); The latter are single (clarinet, saxophone, ordinary organ reeds) or double (chalumeau, musette, bagpipe, oboe, English horn, bassoon, etc.)". It is the beating reeds and in particular the double reed that interest us more particularly in the context of this file. It is also possible to make a further distinction in these double reeds: those which, placed in the mouth, can be directly controlled by the entire phonatory apparatus (larynx, tongue, mouth) as is the case for the bombard, and those, which, enclosed in a jar or a foot, vibrate freely, and which are found with the biniou. 

 

If we dwell a little on the term "reed", in the 9th edition of the Dictionnaire de l'académie française, it is indicated that this word is currently attested at least in the 16th century and that it comes from the old Low Franconian ankja which means "bone channel" (Académie française, consulted in 2024). This term, which is also seen in sources from the 14th century, which can mean neck or pipe, is a technical term designating the part of a set allowing a product to flow (Ortolang CNRTL, consulted in 2024). In Breton language dictionaries, we find words revolving around Korzenn, to designate various pipes, conduits, the esophagus, the throat, the syringat, the reed and in particular the word corsenn, in the 1464 dictionary of Jehan Lagadeuc, to designate the reed cane (Lagadeuc, 1867 (1464-1499)). The word hipñ is later mentioned by Grégroire de Rostrenen in 1732 to designate the “small tongue by which the wind is given to the oboes” (Rostrenen, 1732). Much later, in 1949, the author Ar Vuoc’h noted a multitude of words, in the correspondence of the members of the Bodadeg Ar Sonerion, to name the reeds (Ar Vuoc’h, 1949, p. 7). We then found the angel, the lange, the hip, the lanchenn, the tongues and languettes. In the second Breton lesson proposed by the Ar Soner review in 1949, a whole vocabulary associated with the instrumentarium was declined, and for the reed it was then proposed: al lañchenn (pl. - where) and an teodenn (pl. -where) (Trevidic, Monjarret, 1949, p. 19). These words of langue and languette are also found, in their Greek and Latin translation, glotta and ligula to designate the reeds of the auloi and tibiae. And otherwise in 2024, the inappropriate use of "the hip" still persists! 

 

b) The double reed In this file, it is mainly a question of double reeds. 

Double reeds, and in particular those currently used for the bombards and levriadoù of the biniou, are an assembly of different materials. Thus, the double reed is generally made up of two strips made of various materials, more or less triangular in shape, positioned one opposite the other, and ligatured together, on the narrowest part, around a metal tube. A truncated cone joint made of cork or wire is added on the thinnest part in order to be able to position the reed in the well of the bombard or levriad of the biniou (Appendix I). The oldest instruments currently known that would have had a double reed are the aulos with a cylindrical bore for the Greek world, and conical among the Etruscans as well as in the Roman world where we speak rather of tibia. In this Aegean world from the 3rd millennium BC, iconographic representations reveal the use of the aulos (Pinto, 2019), and the discovery of a marble statuette from Paros in a burial dated between 2800 and 2300 BC on the island of Keros in Greece shows what could be the oldest aulos player. 

 

c) The single beating reed 

Among the simple reeds, those that interest us here, and that are found in the drone of the biniou, are the simple beating reed that allows a sustained note. It is formed of a hollow cylindrical tube plugged at one of its ends, using wax or cork, and from which a thin tab is detached that opens towards this end and on which a scraper made of tow or elastic is added to adjust it. (see Appendix I). This simple reed is generally made in one piece in a single material. Today there are simple reeds, for drones, made of several composite materials. In this case the reed is then called "idioglot". But it is also possible to add a lay or table. The table thus formed comes to beat against the opening thus made in the body, the same principle that we find for clarinets. The oldest known representations of these reeds currently come from Egypt, and date from the 3rd millennium BC (Denova, 2014). They are a type of double clarinet called memet.

 

3. Materials 

Various materials are used in the making of a reed, whether single or double. 

 

a) The reed plates of double reeds 

Generally, the reed is made with cane: arundo donax. On this subject, for oboe reeds, Jean-François Garnier wrote in 1802 (Garnier, 1802, p. 5) that "the reed that will be used must be taken from southern countries; and, from these countries, the best is the one that has grown in a ventilated place; it must be cut in the fall, a little before the frosts. The barrel must be healthy and lively, about the size of an ordinary little finger". In the research that I was able to conduct on double reeds in Brittany, the origin of the reed used for the manufacture of the reed plates could be quite diverse. This could have come from flower delivery boxes or reed baskets from Nice for Étienne Rivoallan (1931-1961), bombard player and reed maker from Bourbriac (22) (Philippe, 1991, p. 4; Cadoudal in BAS Penn Ar Bed dir. 2011), from fishing rods for Louis Dupuis (1931-2016), also bombard player and biniou player, carpenter, instrument and reed maker from Plélauff (22), (Dupuis, Le Moign, 2008, p. 23) and Hervé Le Menn (1899-1973) (Le Beuz in BAS Penn Ar Bed dir. 2011), or from reed screens. This is the material that Bernard Kerboeuf used when he was a young player in the early 1970s, in the Saint-Brieuc region (22), to make reeds that he then consumed in large quantities. The first reeds he bought were from the maker Dorig Le Voyer, but he needed three a day, because the young Bernard Kerboeuf placed his bombard on a bale of straw and it quickly ended up on the ground, the reed stuck in the soil! This is how he got hold of pieces of Provençal reed in a DIY store, used to make garden fences, that he transformed into bombard reeds (interview with B. Kerboeuf 07-03-2023). Despite everything, the preferred reed generally comes from the south of France and in particular from the Var. In 1988, Marcel Audic (1906-1988), a bagpipe player from Pontivy (56), explained that he believed "that precisely, to make good reeds, you first need what is called the cane of Provence or the reed of Fréjus. This is what, I believe, the English horn oboe players use" (Audic et al., 1988). However, the granddaughter of Jean-Marie Caignard (1855-1937), a bagpipe player from Locqmariaquer (56), remembers that her grandfather picked reed on the banks of the Gulf of Morbihan, to make reeds and that he put it to dry in the attic (interview with R. Becker 12-19-2023; Becker, 2008, p. 31). 

 

The most frequently used material, after cane, in Brittany is undoubtedly boxwood. This is a material that is mentioned by Bernard de Parades in the list for the 1949 survey (Parades de, 1949) and it is also the material that, according to the conversation between an apprentice musician and old musicians reported by Polig Monjarret in 1949, makes the best reed for the levriad of biniou (Monjarret, 1949, p. 14). An assertion that he reiterates in 1977 during an interview with Jean-Pierre Pichard (Monjarret, Pichard, 1977). In the database of this work Enquête d’anches, I recorded 22 people who have made or are still making boxwood reeds. One of the oldest is Matao Gall de Gouarec (22), a bombard player born in 1879. According to the description of Louis Dupuis, from whom he had learned, Matao Gall made "reeds often in boxwood, sometimes in cane, wide and short, but as deep as those of today". Louis Dupuis added that even if he "found their sound more beautiful, the problem was that we had to keep them moist, otherwise they would deform. We put them in alcohol, in brandy, or else in a cloth, in duplicate" (Dupuis, Le Moign, 2008, p. 23). This is a subject that seems to be quite recurrent on boxwood reeds that Alan Letenneur, a musician and reed maker, who is one of the few people still making them in 2024 in his workshop in Loyat (56) (interview with A. Letenneur 07-20-2023) notes. To avoid this, the musicians put a rye straw in the reed so that it would not close when drying. Roland Becker, from Auray (56), a musician, among others, of bombard, who collected the daughter of Jean Magadur (1908-1985), a musician from Carnac (56) who emigrated to Moulin-sur-Orne (61) in 1945, was able to see boxwood reeds from Jean Magadur  in which this straw was preserved (Fig. 4).

 

Media: recording - Jean & François Magadur, en dro

 

So while reed and boxwood have been used to make reeds for a long time, these materials are not the only ones used. In 1936, André Schaeffner indicated that "old, rather enigmatic texts tell us about bone reeds" and he added, referring to the use of bone forming the sternal crest in birds, that "a recent exhibition of popular instruments from France gave us the opportunity to see a Vendée oboe whose reed was made from a fragment of wishbone folded in two" (Schaeffner, 1936, p. 278). Dorig Le Voyer also said in 1977, in an interview conducted by Jean-Pierre Pichard that "boxwood reeds were quite common, cane reeds too. There were horn reeds and bone reeds. So bone reeds, I even have one at home, an old one. It was made from a rib bone. Because it already has the shape. That is to say, a little rounded. So it had to be very thin obviously and it hurt the tongue. When you lick your tongue, you can hurt yourself with it" (Le Voyer, Pichard, 1977). If the bone seems quite anecdotal, horn was more frequently used. In 1977, Polig Monjarret recounts that in the 1930s-1940s "the bombard reeds were sometimes and even very often made from cow horn". Then he lists the way to prepare it: "we boiled a cow's horn and removed the different thicknesses to get out strips that we tinkered with, that we used on a grindstone, that we refined with a file, and that we mounted on a tube that we had taken from a sardine can or any tin" (Monjarret, Pichard, 1977). Still on the horn, in 1949, in the  8 readers’ letters received by the Ar Soner magazine, Ar Vuoc’h provides this information, which was initially there to illustrate the way of naming the reed: “... I saw an old soner on Sunday in Gilligomarc’h, he had a bombard as old as he was, as for the reed (which he also calls a mouthpiece) it is made of horn, and he has been using it since around 1920...” (Ar Vuoc’h, 1949b). Also in this magazine, in 1960, Polig Monjarret mentions that “Noël le Mouillour, bombard soner in Languidic makes horn reeds” (Monjarret, 1960c, p. 4). Roland Becker remembers seeing a reed of this material in the reed box of Xavier Burguin (1905-1992) from Crac’h (56); and in the summer of his 15th birthday, in 1972, he remembers having played with a horn reed made by Pierre Guillet, founder of Kevrenn Alré (interview with R. Becker 12-19-2023). Jean Baron, a bombard and biniou player from Upper Brittany, when he started out in the 1970s, also played with horn reeds but for him, “they were unpleasant for the tongue” (interview with J. Baron 09-24-2023). In the same type of material as the horn, Pol Jézéquel, an instrument maker in Persquen (56), who made reeds in the 1990s, was asked to make a tortoiseshell reed (interview with P. & M. Jézéquel 03-24-2023). Yvon Palamour (1932-2018), a sonneur from Pluvigner (56), before making boxwood reeds, he said in an interview with Roland Becker for the magazine Musique Bretonne, “started making them with anything” (Palamour, Becker, 2019, p. 25). And if we cannot say what this “anything” mentioned here was, a multitude of other materials were used to make the reed blades. In addition to reed of various origins, boxwood, horn or bone, I also found mentions of poplar with the Camembert boxes, chestnut, ash, apple tree, bramble, rye straw and various plastics. The question also arises of the use of metal in the list proposed by Bernard de Parades in 1949 (Parades de, 1949). The material of the reed is also subject to jokes. Thus some have been able to make believe that Kevrenn Alré used dried artichoke leaves to make the reeds (interview with R. Becker 12-19-2023). With regard to this census work, nearly 30 different resources, whether in terms of material or origin, have therefore been counted. This is why it seems interesting to look at what is used today. Following the questionnaire conducted as part of this work, it appears that today the overwhelming majority of instrumentalists use cane for their double reeds, whether for the bombard or the biniou. Of all the responses, it appears that 97.2% of those questioned use cane for the bombard reed, then come composite materials used by four people; and boxwood by three people.

 

b) Single beating reeds 

As for the single beating reeds used for the drone of the biniou, the diversity of materials is much less than for the double reeds of the melodic pipes. Bernard de Parades had listed in 1949 (Parades de, 1949) four resources for this drone reed: "elderberry, reed, water hemlock, feathers, etc." (Fig. 1). If the cane reed is most commonly used today, drones made of composite materials are also used, and elderberry has also been used for a long time and is still used today in a more anecdotal way. Polig Monjarret reported on this subject in 1949, the words of former players who said that "the drone reeds were made, as today, from the same reed. But it was not uncommon to make some with young elderberry, from which the pith had obviously been extracted" (Monjarret, 1949, p. 14). On this subject, Alan Letenneur, who worked on this material, also indicates that "there are times when it is better to take it. It is rather October-November. So that there is really as little sap as possible". He specifies that it is "because you have fewer critters. And it is more stable. It takes less time to dry too. So, this is roughly the period when you have to try to harvest the wood. Basically, it is the shoots from two years ago" (interview with A. Letenneur 07-20-20230). Among the traditional players who used and made such reeds, we find the names of Thomas Le Berre (1868-1940) from Dinéault (29), Jean-Louis Gueguen from Plozévet (1892-1962), Pierre Caté (1892-1972) from Berric (56), Per Guillou (1933-1978) from Carhaix (29). We must also add the name of Jean Magadur, previously cited, who declared in 1981 that "The drone reed was generally made of elderberry" (Demazières et al., 1981, p. 13) (Fig. 5). 

 

Jean-Louis Gueguen recounted in 1937 that he made "reeds in scao wood, elderberry if you prefer" (Le Petit Breton, 1937, p. 7). He made them in particular for his friend and instrument maker Jean Douérin (1931-1974) from Plozévet (29) as well. In his box of materials for reed making, kept by his family, there are stored a large number of these elderberry reeds in preparation (Fig. 6). Among these materials, there are also three large and wide feathers that could have been used to clean the elderberry reeds in preparation or even the instruments. It is also possible to consider that the calamus, the hollow axis of the feather, could have been used to make simple beating reeds (Fig. 7). If this were to be the case, it is perhaps this material that Bernard de Parades (Parades de, 1949) had in mind when he proposed the feather as a resource for drone reeds. c) Tubes and coppers, wire and stopper The double reed is mounted, according to the terminology that I will use here, on a tube or brass (Appendix III). The difference that I will make here between the two is that the first is an extruded tube and the second, a thin rolled metal plate. In all cases, once shaped as desired, the reed blades are ligatured on it. This tube or brass can be decorated with a cork stopper or a piece of tow that allows the reed to be held in the well of the melodic pipe (Fig. 8). If there were reeds with corks before 1955, Kristian Morvan told us that the Glotin company had filed a patent that year for the “tube for biniou reed, bombard and similar musical instruments”. Generally, the reeds of the levriad of biniou and bagpipe are not mounted with corks, however, Dorig Le Voyer said in 1956, adding cork stoppers to the reeds of the biniou bras that he makes (Le Voyer, 1956a, p. 2). 

 

In terms of the materials used, today brass is quite commonly used but this was not always the case. Dorig Le Voyer wrote in 1949 about this element that “The ancients made it in tinplate, in copper, then aluminum came later. But the tinplate rusts itself, rusts the reed, rusts the tow; "Aluminium is too soft and deforms easily. brass tubes are the best" (Le Voyer, 1949, p. 8). The reeds of Joachim Le Petit (1868-1964), known as Chim Petit de Grand-Champ (56) preserved by Roland Becker present precisely this aspect of corrosion of the brass and the tow (Fig. 9).

 

There are also opportunistic practices of recycling materials, such as Per Guillou who used metal tubes from Bic ink pens (Fig. 10) to make his levriad reed tubes (interview with L. Bigot 09-01-2023) or Jean-Louis Gueguen who made his copperplates by cutting up tin cans (Fig. 11). Louis Dupuis, for his part, described quite precisely the recycled materials and the method he used to make his tubes. In a 2008 interview with Jean-Luc Le Moign, he declared: “for the tube, I always had sardine cans, and then curtain rods that I cut up. For the corks, I would go and get some from the bistro. But since I only had pierced corks, I couldn’t do it. Then one day, at a party, I saw a guy using a two-headed corkscrew; I went to take a closer look, and then I bought one in Rostrenen. I then had corks that were no longer pierced – and the cork was good at the time. So, I cut pieces out of it, I pierced them with a drill bit, on the crankshaft, and I glued them to the tube with carpenter's glue (I was a carpenter). But the problem was making the cone! And then, one day, I set up a wooden lathe, with a bicycle wheel axle and a pulley with a piece of boxwood, and I covered it with sandpaper. I put the tube on it at an angle – I think that's how they still do it –, I turned and slowed the cork, until I managed to make an impeccable cone" (Dupuis, Le Moign, 2008, p. 23).   

‍  

4. The mysterious reed 

 

Finally, reeds, whatever the material, are also surrounded by mysteries and superstitions. Thus, Pierre Jakez Hélias wrote in 1961 on the back cover of the record by Per Guillou and Yann Péron published by Mouez-Breiz that "this precious reed is usually made of cane. But there were once some made of boiled cow horn, stretched into strips, worn on the grindstone, soaked in a bath of cider brandy. There were some made of rye straw and they had to be cut at night, at a certain phase of the moon, in a field of such exposure, between the third and fourth node, otherwise they had no virtue. What is surprising is the "strange stridors" of the bombard excited our ancestors to the point of delirium! [...] The biniou reeds, too, were the object of great care and some were considered diabolical." And besides, in a "Tale of Plougastel" published in 1979 and related by Louis-Marie Bodenes, the hero receives a magic reed for his biniou which forces everyone to dance as soon as a note is played, and to which they continue to dance until the last one (Bodenes, 1979, p. 22). 

 

III. The reed as a manufactured object 

 

Several steps are necessary to get from the raw material to the usable reed. As for the double reed, to summarize fairly quickly: once the material is chosen, it is necessary to take out strips, refine them to the right thickness, shape them, make the tube or brass on which they will be mounted, and finally scrape the reed. For this, tools are necessary. And if the reed has not always been preserved until us, the tool useful for its manufacture can, for its part, endure and be transmitted. In 1802, Joseph-François Garnier in his Méthode Raisonnée pour le haut bois described and illustrated in his fourth chapter the tools for making reeds (Garnier, 1802, p.6-7). For Garnier, only five tools are essential for reed making; and even today the equipment remains quite limited and is not just the preserve of tradespeople. In this survey, I therefore also followed the tools. They are few in number and rarely mentioned. It is also necessary to distinguish between the tools of the reed maker and the tools of the player who retouches his reeds.

 

1. Making your own reeds 

 

While in the 21st century, male and female musicians making their own reeds are rare, it seems that this was not always the case. Jean Magadur also said that making reeds for biniou and bombard "was even considered an ancillary job to their regular work, as was their own status as musicians" (Demazières et al., 1981, p. 13). In this interview, the tools he used to make the double boxwood reeds are described. We learn that Jean Magadur "cut this wood into thin strips with a saw. Then he scraped it with a piece of sharp glass". As for this equipment, while it is not always described, it is mentioned a few times in the biniou-bombard musician survey files. Thus Jean Raphalen (1891-1972), a bombard and biniou player from Bigouden, had "the equipment to make reeds". If the tools of Albaud Le Liboux (1882-1955) seem lost today, we know that this bombard player from Languidic (56), who did not have his own instrument and borrowed it from the friend with whom he played, came with the reeds that he made himself (Ar Men dir., 1996, p. 328). Players also made available instructions for making reeds and encouraged everyone to make their own reeds. For example, Charles Pletsier wrote instructions for assembling and adjusting his model of reeds sold by Glotin. It was distributed to KAV members and was partly published in 1978 in Escargot Folk (Pletsier, 1978). Gilbert Hervieux provided instructions in the 1980s for making boxwood reeds (Hervieux, 1983); and finally Josick Allot proposed a Method for the manual manufacture of biniou koz reeds. This method, which was developed by Jean-Patrice Collin, lists the essential equipment (Allot, Colin, nd). 

 

2. Making reeds for others 

 

It is one thing to make reeds for oneself and another to offer them to others, and it does not necessarily require the same investment in tools. Indeed, as soon as production goes beyond the personal framework, it is almost necessary to standardize it and therefore to have tools that allow it. 

 

a) The templates of Thomas Le Berre (1868-1940) 

Thomas Le Berre of Dinéault (29), miller and musician, ultimately had a fairly professional practice in reed making. He is renowned for his double boxwood reeds for the bombard and biniou and for his elderberry drone reeds (ArMen dir., 1996, p. 330). Pierre Douguet (1853-1931) of Dinéault also, bombard player and instrument maker, used to buy his instruments from him. In the Enquête sonneurs biniou-bombard, it is specified that all his instruments “were reeded, tested and possibly rectified after assessment by Thomas Le Berre”. In his tools, he had several templates, the only remaining elements that have come down to us, allowing a certain standardization in the shape of the reeds. (Fig. 12)

 

b) The equipment of Jean-Louis Gueguen, known as Jean-Pouf (1892-1962) 

The family of Jean-Louis Gueguen from Plozévet (29), a bombard, biniou, and accordion player, has kept a complete box of his reed-making equipment. In it, we find the raw material to make double and single reeds, as well as a set of tools including a hammer, a knife, a file, mandrels, a block and leathers (Fig. 13). He worked in his workshop which was set up at the bottom of the garden of the Au biniou breton café-house that he occupied in Plozévet. The anvils are still in place on the workbench. It was in this workshop that he practiced his thousand trades: tinsmith, hair cutter, reed maker, etc. Jean-Louis Gueguen died in 1962 but we know that at that time he must have still been making reeds. Indeed, in his box of materials, there is a letter addressed to him by J. Colin of Athis-Mons (91) dated April 11, 1962. This person asks that he "make 6 biniou-bihan reeds for the levriad (an old biniou), 4 drone reeds and 6 bombard reeds." 

 

c) Gérard Guillemot's equipment (1934-2002) 

Gérard Guillemot, in addition to his work at La Poste in Saint-Brieuc (22), made double reeds for the bombard, the biniou and the bagpipe as well as drone reeds. His workshop was in the attic of his garage in Plérin (22) where he apparently worked from the 1960s to the 1980s. His son Gwenn Guillemot was able to recover part of his stock and equipment. The tools consist of a chopping block, various hand-made mandrels, two folding knives, sharpening stones, leathers, and a spinning machine. This was cobbled together from a small bench grinder that his son remembers seeing him use, attached to the kitchen table (Fig. 14). With this equipment, there is also a block of paraffin, the shellac used to glue the corks and varnish the wire, and the brown wire characteristic of Gérard Guillemot's productions. In a small matchbox, also associated with the lot, are stored the blades of the machines that Gérard Guillemot had built. 

 

d) Machines 

While it is still possible to mass-produce reeds professionally by doing everything or almost everything manually, like Alan Letenneur or Guy Cesbron, the mechanization of certain steps has become part of the procedure. The operating chain remains the same, but most reed professional makers have been using machines since at least the 1970s. First of all, they make the work less taxing: gouging and assembly in particular can cause musculoskeletal disorders. This equipment also makes it possible to produce reeds more quickly and they are also more standardized. These machines are not necessarily found in the same state on the market and reed makers have shown ingenuity in designing and building them. 

 

When Gérard Guillemot equipped himself with a gouging machine, a scraper and a width cutter, he had them built by the company Frank Père et Fils in Conflans-Sainte-Honorine (78). These are the same machines that were then used by Pol and Magali Jézéquel when they bought them from Gérard Guillemot in 1992, to be then resold, when they ceased their reed making business, in the early 2010s, to Jorj Botuha. Pol Jézéquel had also developed a machine for guillotining the strips and adjusting their size, as well as another made from a valve grinder to give the conical shape of the corks. Daniel Le Noan, after having worked manually for a long time, also used several machines of the same type, a gouger and a width cutter, but also a scraper developed by Yves Séger, a retired aeronautical toolmaker. Thierry Goudédranche from Guilligomarc’h (29), who has been working in reed making since 2016, has also invested in the same type of machines, which he had made according to his own design. Bernard Kerboeuf, a former hurdy-gurdy maker who learned to make reeds under the guidance of Gérard Guillemot in the 1970s, set up his own reed making workshop in Plélo (22) in 2021, where all the machines were designed by him. Another machine that is quite frequently found among reed makers is the one used to mount reeds: to string them. Pol Jézéquel said that he had the idea to make such a machine after talking to Daniel Le Noan about his shoulder problems related to this step. Pol Jézéquel says that he "had ruined a shoulder tightening the string. Which immediately put an idea in my head: don't do that by hand. So, what I did was mount a drill on a table at 45 degrees [...] with a chuck the inside shape of the copper. At the end, I put a fishing reel with the brake and in fact, I adjusted the tension of the wire with the brake of the reel. And that's how I mounted my reeds". Daniel Le Noan also says that he designed his drive machine for spinning in order to avoid tendonitis (La bombard et ses cousines, 2011). Bernard Kerboeuf made such a machine with a mandrel mounted on a hurdy-gurdy crank. Guy Cesbron, whose workshop is in Plouégat-Moysan (29), uses a drill on which he mounts the appropriate mandrels. Loïc Denis, a bagpipe reed maker in Lorient (56), also has such a tool made by Jorj Botuha. 

 

Media: Video by Daniel Le Noan, La Bombard et ses cousines

 

3. Retouching reeds 

 

If the bagpipe players do not make their own reeds, they often have the equipment they need to retouch them. In 1982, in an article in Le Pays Breton on the bombard, it is stated that "The bagpipe players generally have a real surgeon's kit to take care of their reeds. This ranges from a razor blade to electrician's pliers, including triple zero sandpaper, a boat nail retouched with a file, a sparrow's feather and a pipe cleaner." (Les sonneurs de Kan ar Mor, 1982). The razor blade is a tool that scrapes the reed in order to soften it so that it is less hard to play. It is probably the tool that I have seen most often in the oldest musettes that I have been able to access. Today, out of all the responses to the Anches Survey questionnaire, only ten people say they use razor blades. On the other hand, 41 people say they use a knife, 31 sandpaper, 30 a cutter. There are also four scalpels, two wood chisels and one person uses a “bistouri”. The other tools mentioned and intended for other uses are the pliers (51 responses), the mandrel (12 responses), the file (3 responses) and the plates (3 responses). More generally, of the 242 people playing the bombard who responded to the survey, 121 said they retouch or have their reeds retouched.

 

There are many articles on reed adjustment and their content has evolved according to the times and the desired aesthetics. For example, Dorig Le Voyer in a 1956 article on How to adjust a reed, concluded with these words "In summary, adjust your reeds 'hard'" (Le Voyer, 1956b). He recommended not to soften the reed at the risk of losing timbre, playing quality, power and overall accuracy, the latter being sought after in bagad. An interesting counterpoint is that of Yann Le Meur, a bombard player born in Châteauneuf-du-Faou (29) on this subject who almost never started playing again. (Fig. 15): sandpaper and razor blades contained in G. Gicquel's soner's case (1940s-1950s)  because of this required hardness. He wrote in his memoirs in 2002 about his first attempt around 1968 that his "first bombard reeds were thick and hard. So much so that I had trouble getting a sound out of my instrument and my notes were choppy, labored and out of tune. In the militant circles of sonneurs of the time, it was believed that reeds should be hard. This was first and foremost a necessity for the bagadoù of the time, well-ordered ensembles for which the tuning of the instruments was facilitated by the hardness of the reeds, which thus did not vary" (Le Meur, 2002, p. 28). Nowadays, Thierry Goudédranche in his booklet Mon Anche suggests that each sonneur adapt the reed to his or her own way of sounding (Goudédranche, nd). He explains in a very visual way the different areas of the reed and the impact of their retouching on the final result: timbre, pitch of the different registers of the instrument, ease of sound emission, precision of attacks, etc. 

 

IV. The reed as an object of history 

 

With the reed, this small object, this consumable of the bombard and the biniou, whose provenance is not always mentioned, it should be possible to trace part of the history of Breton music and to grasp a little of the way in which the stories of the musicians intersect and intertwine. 

 

1. reed making before 1976: a diversity of practices 

 

Between the second half of the 19th century and 1976, the history of reed making is, at this stage of the investigation, still difficult to fully grasp and will need to be clarified. However, it appears that this period could already be divided into at least two parts, the data for which are still partial: the one relating to the making of reeds in the period often described as the era of the "traditional sonneurs" before the arrival of the bagadoù, in the 1930s and 1940s; and the years that followed with the explosion of bagad music. As for the oldest period, that of the "traditional sonneurs", I was able to find, in the sources that I consulted, 33 mentions of people making reeds. For these 33 people, if not all the dates are acquired, the oldest that it was possible to locate is Jean-Marie Caignard (1855-1937) from Locmariaquer (56), a biniou player, who is known to have made at least reeds from cane from the Gulf of Morbihan (Becker, 2008, p. 31; interview with R. Becker 12-19-2023). The materials encountered are quite diverse and the same maker can use several. For eight of them, the material used is not certain. Boxwood (13 mentions) and cane (12 mentions) are those that are most often identified; horn, bramble and rye are reported once, and there is a question about a potential bone reed. Elderberry is indicated four times for the simple drone reed. Among the 33 people listed above and recorded in my database, the talabarder Guillaume Léon, known as Léon Braz (1870-1950) from Carhaix (29), made his own bombard reeds. They could be made of reed and boxwood (Fig. 16) and, it seems, of bramble. Indeed, "according to Per Guillou, Leon Braz made his reeds with a variety of thick brambles, which he picked green and dried between two boards" (Berthou, Molard, 2002, p. 8). 

 

Per Guillou (1933-1978) from Carhaix (29), who is the youngest in this series, was a bombard and biniou bell-ringer. He admired Léon Braz, from whom he had learned to ring by following him on his wanderings in Carhaix (Monjarret, 1978). Per Guillou was also a biniou and bombard maker and made double reeds in boxwood and reed, as well as single reeds in elderberry (Fig. 17). Per Guillou forms a sort of link with the second part of this period during which, while he was active, a few professional reed makers were identified. Reeds were notably marketed and available at Dorig Le Voyer, at La maison Glotin, at Étienne Rivoallan (1931-1961) in Bourbriac (22) and at Jean Capitaine (1923-1984), who succeeded him after his death. Per Guillou also apparently acted as an intermediary between the reed maker Gérard Guillemot and players in need. It was by cross-referencing two sources: an invoice/order book of Gérard Guillemot and the memoirs of Jean Baron that this information emerged. He recounts his time in 1972-1973 in the 41st Infantry Regiment at Lande d’Ouée in Saint-Aubin-du-Cormier in his first volume of Chemins de sonneur (Baron, 2013, p. 129-130): “It also happened that we needed reeds for our bombards. At the time Dorig Levoyer made a few but the lead times were often very long. He ordered his reed from Glotin and assembled them himself; they played and were sturdy. Jean Capitaine de Bourbriac also sent us some but the quality was not always up to scratch. We preferred to go to Pierre Guillou in Moustoir near Carhaix. He managed to order some from I don’t know where, not making them himself, but he supplied us with some.” Gérard Guillemot’s notebook covers the end of 1972 and 1973 and we find in it orders for Per Guillou that are dated April 6 and May 10, probably in 1973, the time when Jean Baron was still in the army (Fig. 18). 

 

Gérard Guillemot’s reeds were appreciated and they gave the young Yann Le Meur the desire to play again, who, when he returned to the bombard, did so with Gérard Guillemot’s “extraordinary reeds” (Le Meur, 2002, p. 29), which his mentor René Henry, then a friend of the latter, had given him. Gérard Guillemot, who was not officially on the reed market at the time but a civil servant for the PTT, apparently also made reeds for Dorig Le Voyer and Jean Capitaine. On this subject, Paul Jézéquel remembers that "Gérard [Guillemot] made the reeds for Capitaine and also for Dorig Le Voyer. Dorig made reeds, but sometimes it was Gérard who made them. He cut the corners. He put in the red threads and he cut the angles" (interview with P. and J. Jézéquel 04-24-2023). 

 

This was also the case for Louis Dupuis who recounts having supplied Dorig Le Voyer with about ten reeds per year until the 1960s (Dupuis, Le Moign, 2008, p. 23). And in a commentary on a 1959 pair competition, we learn that Claude Gestin (1934? - 2023?), a biniou player, made levriad reeds for Dorig Le Voyer (Monjarret, 1959, p. 27). At this time, it appears that the demand for reeds increased sharply over the years, and it is quite possible that it became complicated for the people who made them to keep up. Gérard Guillemot himself, between 1973 and 1975, left it to the young Bernard Kerboeuf to finish some of his reeds in exchange for being able to keep some (interview with B. Kerboeuf 07-03-2023). This is how, from this decade of the 1970s, the practice truly entered an era of professionalization. 

 

2. 1976: a professionalization of the practice 

 

This comes with the arrival of Daniel Le Noan (1954-2023) on the reed making market and the creation of his company dedicated solely to this activity in 1976 for which in 1998 he received  the diploma of Artisan d’art from the Chamber of Trades and Crafts of Côtes d’Armor. Le Noan started playing the bombard at the age of 13 in a couple with, in particular, Alain Michel from Plougonver (22), his buddy at the biniou. He then obtained his reeds from Jean Capitaine and in 1973, the latter offered to make reeds for him. For a few years, his production was then marketed directly at Jean Capitaine. Daniel Le Noan also gradually equipped himself with precision tools and settled permanently in Plougonver (22) in 1982. He said about this in 1996: "this allowed me to obtain quality and above all regularity in manufacturing, which is beneficial to the players, but also - and this is important - to the luthiers themselves, who were able to use my technique to improve their instruments in terms of sound quality" (Nekepell, 1996). Because at the same time, instrument making, which was also evolving, was diversifying. Daniel Le Noan, who was conducting research on reed making, was in contact with instrument makers, and in particular Olivier Glet and Gilbert Hervieux in order, among other things, to support it (interview with C. Le Noan 10-23-2023). He was thus able to provide up to a dozen different reeds to allow instruments, sometimes new ones like the alto and tenor bombards, to come into being (L’écho, 2001) . (Fig. 19).

 

In the 1990s, reed making attracted new people, and this is how the SARL Anches Korzenn (Fig. 20) with Fabrice Lothodé from Auray (56) and Yves-Marie Landrein from Rosporden (29) was formed and operated between 1992 and 1998. It was also in 1992 that Pol Jézéquel began the profession, joined in 1999 by Magali Jézéquel, to devote himself to instrument making, until the cessation of the activity in the early 2010s. Finally, in 2001, Yves-Marie Le Bras, who is still active, set up his reed making structure in the Lannion region (22). Most instrument makers, such as Youenn Le Bihan or Éric Ollu, also make the reeds that accompany their instruments. Gilbert Hervieux did the same for a long time for biniou in the key of G or A, for want of finding any. As for the succession of the oldest makers, Meven Le Voyer, following in the footsteps of his father Dorig Le Voyer, also offered bombard reeds (Fig. 21) and published an advertisement for this purpose in 1979 in issue 0 of the magazine Musique Bretonne; and in 1985 Yves Bilien took over Jean Capitaine's business: instrument making and making reeds in cane (Morgant, 1985, p. 8). This was also the time when cane had the hegemony, whether for double or single reeds. Almost all reeds were made of this material. The diversity that could have existed before had disappeared. There are a few makers who make reeds from cane but also with composite materials that are appearing, notably with the use of yogurt or crème fraîche pots like Claude Gestin in Forêt-Fouesnant (29) (Fig. 22), Christian Besrechel (1955 – 2023) in Ploeuc-L’Hermitage (22) and Guy Cesbron who still officiates in Plouégat-Moysan (29). There are obviously exceptions, and some makers continue to use boxwood. Gilbert Hervieux, a musician and instrument maker from Saint-Vincent-sur-Ouest (56), proposed a document in 1983-1985 so that everyone could make their own boxwood reeds. There is also Jakez Philouze, a biniou and bombard player from the Auray region (56) who has been active since the 1970s, who turns his instruments and still makes his biniou and bombard reeds in boxwood (Fig. 23). 

 

3. 2016: Daniel Le Noan retires 

 

In 2016, Daniel Le Noan retired and a wave of panic blew through the bombard players! Indeed, many of them had only known Daniel Le Noan's reeds supplied by their bagad. But Daniel Le Noan did not retire without having prepared a little for what came next, and Thierry Goudédranche and Benoît Queffeulou were able to benefit from his knowledge. He also continued, with his wife Claudine Le Noan, to supply them with cork tubes, an activity that Claudine still carries out. It was also around this period that the commercial market, particularly for bombard reeds, exploded and there were at least a dozen double reed makers established for the bombard who are still active: Xavier Boderiou, Jorj Botuha, Guy Cesbron, Gilles Garneret, Thierry Goudédranche, Bernard Kerboeuf, Youenn Le Bihan, Yves-Marie Le Bras, Alan Letenneur, Neuranter, Éric Ollu and Benoît Queffeulou.

 

4. What is in our reed boxes? 

 

Until the 1980s, reeds were still difficult to find and we see in the boxes of the musicians of this period, between the 1950s and 1980s, that reeds of various origins are found side by side. In the boxes, discovered by Gilles Kermarc, of Michel (1940-2006) and Nicole Querrou (1941-) who mainly played in the 1960s, we find reeds of cane drone, bombard reeds with black tow probably made by Le Noan and a reed potentially by Étienne Rivoallan, as indicated on the handwritten label affixed to the box (Fig. 24). In the boxes of Efflam Cuven, deposited by his family at the Dastum association, reeds with black tow Le Noan are found alongside reeds with blue tow and other brown ones, some of which could be made by Guillemot, and others by Le Noan who, it seems, also used this colour of thread at the beginning. We could multiply the examples, such as with the reeds contained in the musettes of René Hénaff (1903-1993) a piper from Pouldreuzic (29) or Guy Gicquel (1921-2007) from Rennes (35). In these musettes, we also find bagpipe reeds that could have been used to reed the bombards. Some of these boxes, like those belonging to Donatien Laurent (1935-2020), researcher and piper, are full of reeds in the process of being recycled. He kept the tubes, wires and unbroken reeds neatly stored. It seems that this practice of recycling reed reeds was quite common. From the analysis of the questionnaire conducted in 2024 for this work, it emerges that today the overwhelming majority of instrumentalists obtain their reeds through a commercial channel, whether for the bombard or the biniou. Thus in 2024, it appears that only 1.2% of bombard players use reeds of their own making for bombard reeds (and among them, i.e. 13 people, only three of them use only their reeds). This number is 4% for biniou levriad reeds and 12.7% for biniou bourdon reeds. During the survey conducted in 1979, this figure was 37% but it is not specified in the publication of the results whether these are all three types of reeds or just one (Malrieu, 1979a). It should be kept in mind that the population is not the same as during the 1979 survey and that 70% of the people who responded to the 2024 survey come from the bagadoù community.

 

During the years when Daniel Le Noan was active, there was much less diversity in the reed boxes of the sonneuses and sonneurs than in the past. This no longer seems to be the case today. In the questionnaire conducted as part of this survey, if 90 people (out of the 242 sonneuses and sonneurs of bombard) still say they use Le Noan reeds, if we only consider commercial products, there is once again a certain diversity in the reed boxes. Indeed, if 41% of people have reeds that come from a single maker, they are of two different makes for 25%, three different makes for 21.5%, 4 different makes for 7% and we go up to seven different makes for 4% and the remaining 1.5% did not give an answer. It should be noted that nine people do not know the maker who produced their reed (Fig. 25).

 

V. The reed as a sound object 

 

Can the reed, which is a priori only a consumable of the bombard and the biniou, be more than that and sound alone? Yes, it is possible! And Ronan Le Gouriérec, in his works, shows us this very well, making a tune resonate with only the reed and the bell of the bombard for the effect. Certainly, positioning the reed in his instrument opens up other possibilities. 

 

Media: Video: Ronan Le Gouriérec and ‘the sound of the reed’

 

1. Power, intensity, volume 

 

It would be interesting to be able to create, as Roland Becker suggests, a sound image between the recordings of Alain-Pierre Guéguen of Doctor Azoulay at the 1900 World’s Fair, the laridé of Tanguy & Le Lain sounded in Auray in 1908, the Pathé recordings of the 1930s, those of the 1950s by Mouez Breiz editions, and those that have followed until today (Interview with R. Becker 12-19-2023). 

 

Media: recording -  Tanguy & Le Lain, Laridé, Auray, 1908

 

This image, which it is not possible to generate in the current state of our technical knowledge due to the different parameters of the sound recordings, would certainly give us solid bases to discuss this terminology: power, intensity, volume, and to disrupt them with the term evolution! But we are not going to be talking about this physical analysis of sound here. It is rather about collecting the impressions of some, some and others, and seeing how these can be linked to the anchoring and how this perception has evolved. On this subject, it seems that there are relatively few written traces before the arrival of the bagadoù and Ar Soner magazine which regularly echoes it in its columns (Fig. 26), whether in the form of a complete article on the subject, like that of R. Gruber in 1957 which raises the question of the proportionality of sound between instruments (Gruber, 1957), or that of Michel Le Rol who "deplores in competitions this race for sound power" in 1989 (Le Rol, 1989), or insidiously or cleverly in the publication of comments on couples or bagadoù competitions. 

 

Jean L’Helgouach (1933-2000), archaeologist and bombard player, in an interview conducted by Anne-Marie Nicol before his death, responded to the parallel that could be made between reed hardness and power that “this power is relative. In the bombard-biniou koz pair, the bombard is an instrument that stands out from the biniou by its octave difference. It is not a powerful instrument, it is an instrument that is percussive, but not very powerful. I think that we made it powerful with the introduction of the biniou braz and I remain convinced that it was a big mistake, an obligation in the evolution, but it was a small death for the bombard.” (L’Helgouach, Nicol, 2000, p. 14). 

 

This opinion, that the biniou bras or the Scottish bagpipes would have favored the emergence of a power of sound, comes up quite frequently in the articles of the journal Ar Soner and it is certainly to be linked to what has been called the ecossomania which reigned at the time in the years 1950-1960 (Leon et al., 2003). In an article entitled L’invasion Écosse (The Scottish Invasion), Jean L’Helgouach posed head-on the question of knowing if the bagadoù equipped with Scottish chanters still intended to sound with bombards: “in this case, it will be necessary to double their numbers to succeed in restoring the balance of powers” (L’Helgouach, 1956, p. 3). Throughout this period, it was necessary to seek and find a balance between the strands of the bagadoù in recent history, which had as models the “traditional sonneurs” on one side and the pipe-bands on the other. This balance came about through research into instrument making but also into the anchoring of instruments. That same year, 1956, in issues 87-88, an article by Polig Monjarret was published entitled Écossophile et Cornemusophobe in which he describes the need to harden the reeds to “maintain an immutable chord” and increase the power of the drones “to constitute a pedal powerful enough above the whole” (Monjarret, Ar Soner, 1956, p. 4-5). Léon Braz said on this subject to Polig Monjarret, before his death in 1950: “you’re suffocating me with your three-story biniou” (Polig Monjarret, un enfant du diable, 2020). Gaston Mesnard, in 1956, as has already been noted regarding the training of a bagad, says the same thing about bombard reeds: "[...] in bagad a very hard reed is needed, with a voice, and it is not generally the best reeds as they are adjusted to give a nuanced and warm interpretation in a couple, that give the best results in a (bagad) group" (Mesnard, 1956, p. 5). 

 

It is this difficulty of understanding, between couple music and ensemble music, that had to be overcome and accepted that the desired intention was not or no longer the same. We must also ask ourselves the question of knowing to what extent we are not still marked today by this legacy of the early years of the bagadoù, for which a certain uniformity in sound was sought and to achieve this, power was favored. 

 

2. Timbre and expression 

 

Timbre is what distinguishes sounds of the same pitch and intensity from each other. Expression, for its part, has to do with the interpretation that we associate with the instrumentalist and which can be defined by other parameters than those mentioned above: phrasing, attack of notes, envelope, sound threading, etc. It is with these characteristics in mind, and as learning progresses, that each and every one will choose their reed. The example of Per Guillou is interesting on this subject. Polig Monjarret remembers that "he was a reed maniac, had stocks of them, spent time choosing one, according to the weather, the atmosphere, the place..." (Monjarret, 1978, p. 10). The choice of reed according to the playing style is not only  the prerogative of Breton musicians. 

 

Thus, regarding the Athenian aulete Antigenidas from the 4th century BCE, Theophrastus noted that before him, "in a time when playing was done without embellishment, the time for cutting [the reed] was said to be at the rising of the Arcturus [...] But when ornamented playing was adopted, the time for cutting also changed. [...] <Thus>, it is said, the reed can be used from the third year while <requiring <only> brief preliminary tests, and the reeds lend themselves to ample vibrations, as is necessary for ornamented playing" (Theophrastus, 2003, p. 99-100). A choice on the quality of the reed is made here even before the reed reaches the hands of the person who makes it. Today, according to the responses to the Enquête d’Anches questionnaire, among the 242 bombard players, 93 people answered the question of choosing one reed rather than another depending on the playing situation. Among those who left a comment, 24 explained that they chose their reed according to the instrumental formation adopted. This distinction is essentially bagad/couple or bagad/group, but there are also a few group/couple and duo/couple (Fig. 27). 29 people specified that they select their reed according to the playing situation (bagad, rehearsal, competition, duration of the performance) and among these, sixteen of them declared that they chose an “easy or soft reed” for questions of endurance. Seven people chose their reed for questions relating to a need for sound power as well. Finally, six people used one reed rather than another depending on the chosen terroir. One of these people also states: "I will not use the same reed to play the Aven as the Vannetais". In 2024, as in the first half of the 20th century, the question of the terroir is still relevant. There are few direct old sources on this subject but the one concerning the wood turner and instrument maker Pierre Jacob (1896-1954) based in Pont-Aven (29) is quite enlightening. We do not know if he made the reeds himself or what material they were made of, but in any case, he offered for sale with his bombards and biniou "high-pitched reeds for Bro Erech and Cornouaille" and "low-pitched reeds for the Gallo country" (Morvan, 2009, p. 35). 

 

In the section reserved for free comments of the Enquête d’Anches questionnaire, the most numerous remarks concern what each person expected from a reed. There are obviously nuances in the comments, but one of them perhaps best sums up what was written overall: “a good reed must have power, timbre, be resistant, while not being hard!” On the subject of power, not everyone is looking for it, but for the rest: timbre, resistance over time, ease and the passage to the octave are often mentioned. If the mechanical properties of the reed therefore enter into the search for all these qualities, timbre and accuracy in particular, the person behind the reed can also do a lot about it. Another person, making his reeds, left a comment which, beyond the technical effects that can be applied in his playing on the reed, evokes, in this extract, also this almost impalpable side of the relationship that one can have with it and which participates in the expressiveness: "[...] a reed is to discover oneself, one must analyze what happens: cause = effect = response. [...] The intention, the intensity and the osmosis between the reed, the instrument and the character of the player". By making, retouching or working on one's reed, it is possible to modify its timbre, to give it the quality that one seeks and to understand how it can be adapted to a form of expressiveness. This is the whole issue behind the knowledge that one can have of a reed. And this ambition is old, dating back to at least the 4th century. Before our era it appears that research on reeds never ceased with the aim of achieving a form of sound ideal which is obviously specific to each period and each person.

 

VI. The reed as a storyteller 

 

Who has never moaned after a bombard reed that had just gone out or ceremoniously buried it? Who doesn’t have a box full of unusable but memory-laden reeds, stored in a corner of their home? Who has never grumbled about the fact that they were going to “have to remake a reed”, that is, choose a new one and spend time breaking it in? The relationship that we have with our reed goes much further than just producing sound! 

 

I had wanted to learn how to make my own reeds for a long time. Approaching this practice allowed me to understand my sound in a different way and to choose the timbre that seems to suit me. In any case, this clearly influenced my playing on the one hand, and my relationship with the reed on the other. Working on the reed, with a scientific approach, also made me discover very diverse documentation. First of all, there was a sum of written, sound and human sources to link together. Then it was necessary to record, photograph and even draw the furniture, reeds and tools, to understand it, interpret it and present it. All this data associated with each other made it possible to reveal part of this part of our musical and social history. If it remains nevertheless to continue the exploration of many avenues that had to be put aside for a time, in order to fit into the framework of this presentation, one of the ambitions of this file would perhaps be to accentuate the awareness of the richness that the study of our material culture can bring to our history, even with an object as small as a reed. Studying these reeds has also allowed me to meet many people, who have been the source of extremely rich moments and many emotions. In the end, I feel like I have also met a family: that of the musicians. This may seem grandiloquent when put this way, but going through the biniou-bombard musicians investigation has made me discover many lives of musicians that I did not know and rediscover others differently. The stories in the pages of this rich documentation all tell something about them and their collectors. I got to know these people, most of whom are now dead, as if they were still alive.