Leon Arundell is Australia's leading taborer. He is a multi-instrumentalist who plays mediaeval, morris, Australian and modern music on pipe and tabor. He also plays a range of other instruments and combinations, including ukelele, pipe and psaltery, spoons, bones and lagerphone. He is based in Canberra, ACT, and featured in the Final Concert of the 2008 National Folk Festival.
A taborer (pronounced "tabberer") plays two instruments at once - a "tabor" (small drum) and a "tabor pipe" (similar to a penny whistle).
Click here to see Leon (in the elephant hat) playing “Stop the Cavalry” on pipe, drum and cowbells for Molonglo Mayhem Border Morris, and here to hear Leon playing the Pipe and Lagerphone. WARNING: large file 3 MB.
Taboring has a long history. Three-holed pipes, as used by taborers, have been dated to be several thousand years old. Pictures showing pipe and tabor being played together date back to the thirteenth century. In Act 3 Scene 2 of Shakespeare's play, "The Tempest," the airy spirit Ariel plays "flout 'em and scout 'em" on the tabor and pipe.
Pipe and tabor remains popular in France, Spain and Portugal, and is the traditional accompaniment to English Morris dancing.
If you can walk and chew gum at the same time, then you can learn to play the pipe and tabor.
Before becoming a taborer, Leon played penny whistle, guitar and percussion with bush bands including Hobart's legendary Collywobblers and Canberra's Ettamogah Philharmonic Orchestra. His repertoire ranges from the 14th to the 21st centuries, and includes traditional Morris dance tunes and Australian favourites such as "Click go the Shears." In addition to pipe and tabor, he has been known to play the pipe in combination with any of a range of other instruments that may come to hand, including:
boar's head psaltery
* bones
*
tambourine
* wood blocks
* drum and cowbells
* spoons
*
lagerphone
* even two pipes together!
The emphasis is on music with novelty and fun.
Leon has accompanied Molonglo Mayhem Border Morris ( http://rsc.anu.edu.au/~pdc/molonglo/ ) at the National Folk Festival, at the Exeter Village Fayre, and at folk festivals at Jamberoo, Cobargo and Majors Creek. He has presented pipe and tabor workshops at the Illawarra, Cobargo and Major's Creek Folk Festivals, and in May 2002 he gave a workshop for Hobart's "Jolly Hatters" and the Longford Morris.
Leon is available for workshops and demonstrations. For more information, please contact him .
If you're a taborer yourself, please get in touch - Leon would love to join you in a two-person quartet!
This page was last updated on 25 June 2008