For long, the music of the pipes was so much a part of the life of the people that no records of tunes were necessary. But there came a time when interest in these things waned somewhat, and it was then that the want of printed or written records were felt. By reason of that want, we now know little or nothing of truly ancient Scottish music. Perhaps we have not lost much, but in any case it would have been interesting to know the musical tastes of our forefathers away back in the early centuries. We are quite willing to believe that some of the exquisite melodies still existing were handed down to us by Gaelic progenitors, and are as old as the race itself, but the fact remains that we cannot trace any of them for more than two or three centuries, nor tell whether or not they are older than the first mention of them we have in authentic history. That many of the tunes were composed on incidents or battles four and five hundred years back does not prove that the tunes themselves are as old as the events they commemorate. Composers then, as now, chose their subjects irrespective of dates. The pipes were in fairly common use about the middle of the seventeenth century, probably for centuries earlier, and when they were in use, there must have been music for them. But we have not that music now, thanks to the blank which occurred between the decay of the system whereby music was taught orally and the introduction of the educational system of later centuries. Clanship isolated the people into small communities and prevented a general knowledge of music from being spread abroad, and it could not very well be committed to paper when the people knew of no system of signs which would represent it. So the only method of preserving the tunes was their transmission from one generation of pipers to another, a method which rendered it very easy for the unscrupulous to re-baptise or paraphrase old tunes, and pass them off as their own, and also left the tunes to change gradually as they passed from performer to performer. Then, again, the decay of the Gaelic made it necessary to give English names to Gaelic tunes, and a number of the finest Highland airs have been wedded to the songs of such poetical giants as Burns, Hogg, Tannahill, and Cunningham, and their identity completely lost. Gaelic itself has been kept pure enough through traditional generations, but the conditions which applied to the music did not apply to the language. The language was the heritage of an entire people, their daily bread, as it were; the music was cultivated only by a class of the people, and was far more subject to change than the language.