Title page of a pamphlet

Title page of a pamphlet of 38 pages by John Francis Campbell of Islay published in Glasgow in 1880. The Gaelic title, Canntaireachd, means 'chanting' or 'singing'. He began to investigate the subject of a verbal notation for piobaireachd or classical Highland bagpipe music in February 1880, prompted by seeing the booklet of Canntaireachd published in 1828 by Captain Neil MacLeod of Gesto. Campbell concluded that, as "... nearly forgotten folk lore", this was a form of language used for teaching, learning and remembering music used by pipers without a knowledge of standard musical notation, and he linked it with musical chants performed by 'native peoples' in many of the countries he himself had visited.

J F Campbell's research and questioning produced sensible conclusions: 'Each school of pipers of old, and every individual piper now has a separate method of singing; but all chant articulately, and repeat the same sounds in chanting the same tune, when it has been learned by rote and "committed to memory". I suppose then that chanting music articulately is natural to mankind ..." (pages 6-7).

John Francis Campbell of Islay (1822-1885) was notable in the Victorian age as traveller, linguist, amateur scientist, geologist and geographer, and the pioneering collector of Gaelic oral tradition and folklore in the Highlands and Hebrides. As collector and writer, his great monument is the four volume Popular Tales of the West Highlands (1860-1862).

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