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through several transformations before it becomes a pibroch compos- ition. And the same must have been true for clàrsach compositions, since this was a different instrument. So if a parallel is suggested between pibroch and the still more remote harp repertory of early Wales, any discussion must also address the differences, lest we become trapped in meaningless generalities. We must also take into account those elements in pibroch that are idiomatically related to the instrument for which the music was composed, so that they can be separated appropriately when comparing them. The aspect of pibroch especially relevant here is the system of finger movements used in so-called 'standard variations'. Variations in Scottish pibroch may exhibit devices similar to variation techniques in other types of music. Such devices in the pibroch repertory may be called 'melodic variations' in order to distinguish them from 'standard variations', where all main notes take the same subsidiary note or notes, which vary only occasionally with other notes. Table 1 (opposite) presents the figures that characterize the three most common sets of standard variations in pibroch, following sources from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The system may be described as a method by which each of the 'head notes' (as Joseph MacDonald called them in about 1760)3 or 'theme notes' (as pipers call them now) is embellished: first with low A (a') either preceding or following (column I, centre); then, in the next movement, by doubling or tripling the subsidiary low A (column II); and, finally, by extending the figures of column I with a type of throw to E (e"), whereby the second note of the figure is continued as an integral part of that throw (column III).4 The subsidiary notes of standard variations are fixed notes. They are always low A and E, though low G (or more rarely B) is occasionally used as a contrast to low A. The result is a forbidding alternation of fixed intermediary notes and changeable theme notes, as illustrated in Duntroon's March (Figure 3: see below, page 14). One type of rising figure, which is superficially the same as those of set A, is ignored here. In this type the figure can contain two theme notes, and consequently, one may find B (or occasionally C sharp) as the first note. In a less common form of standard variation (a form of thumb variation), suffixed high A (a") is used in exactly the same way as low A, while in another kind of thumb variation (more properly, a thumb doubling of the Ùrlar, or ground), high A is used less often and is sometimes contrasted with high G: see the example of Fàgail Cheann Tire (Figure 2, page 14).