John Codona, Edinburgh's one-man-band

When I was a little kid we used to get all sorts of people coming round the streets. There was the knife-sharpener with his big grinding wheel; there was Mrs Dunlop with her barrel-organ, pulled by Smokey the pony; there was Jeannie Livingstone the Musselburgh fishwife; there was the daily delivery of milk by St Cuthbert's horse-drawn milk wagons; and of course, there was John Codona, the one-man-band.

John was a member of the Codona family, who still to this day run fairground rides. They've been showmen for generations, probably going back at least to 1800 or beyond. A few members of the family moved sideways from the fairgrounds, and earned their livings doing what we'd now call busking, but in those days I guess you'd call them street performers. John spent his entire life playing in the street, a career lasting over 50 years.

When I first saw him I believe he carried the full one-man-band equipment, complete with big bass drum attached to his back, full Highland bagpipes at the front, and on top of the drum various cymbals and things, operated by foot pedals. I think the bass drum was controlled by clapping his knees together. It was all very technical, and fascinated me as a child. I guess some of my earliest experiences of music came from him, and I'm sure my first hearing of many of the old Scots tunes came from his playing.

My parents, too, appreciated his skills. The tradition, when a street performer came round the Edinburgh tenements, was to wrap a few coins tightly in a scrap of silver paper, open the front window and drop this offering down to street level where the performer could pick it up. Our stair was 3 floors high (4 if you count the ground floor) and some in other parts of the city are much taller, so this was a sensible way of contributing, saving a long trip downstairs.

My father, as a keen photographer, got John to pose on a couple of occasions, first in black and white, and a few years later in colour. Interestingly, none of these photos shows his bagpipes, though I'm convinced he did play them. The earlier one shows him with the big drum on his front, and blowing a set of panpipes. If I remember correctly - and here, the photo backs me up - these weren't the sort of panpipes you can now pick up in ethnic crafts shops, as played by South American performers. I think each tube had its own fipple-type mouthpiece, similar to a penny whistle's. He holds the instrument straight out from his mouth, as you certainly would do if you were playing with that sort of mouthpiece. Andean panpipes have to be blown over the top, and would be held vertically.

Sadly, over the years, John's health gradually deteriorated, and he gradually had to give up carrying the bigger, heavier instruments. The black & white photo may have been taken when he had already given up the bagpipes, and the colour ones show him when he was reduced to just the one instrument.

It's this instrument that intrigues me at the moment. My dad always referred to it as a "chanter", and I'm pretty sure that's what John himself called it, though for the first time I find myself actually looking closely at the instrument in the photo, and this is no chanter. I'm sure I can see some sort of ligature at the mouthpiece end, as though it's holding on a reed in the style of a clarinet. My best guess would be a chalumeau, which is a short, simple type of clarinet that plays only the lower register. I've had suggestions that it might be a toy clarinet or an Ab clarinet; also it's possible that this, as well as the panpipes, was something created or adapted by the musical members of the Codona family as a usefully loud instrument for street performing.

You can see the bigger versions of these photos on Flickr at the following links:
Black and white photo
First colour photo
Second colour photo

I've had these photos up on Flickr for several months, and yesterday I had an email out of the blue from one Frank Bruce who is currently writing a book about the Codona family; during his researches he came across my photos. Of course I'm delighted to be able to let him use them in the book, with Thomas Morgan McGurk acknowledged as photographer (I'm sure he'd be proud). But the whole episode has got me asking questions about John's instruments and style of playing.

For instance, notice that he plays his woodwind instrument, whatever it is, with the right hand at the top and left at the bottom. I know that in the past there was no rule about which hand went where, but I sort of assumed that by the 20th century people had settled down to left at the top and right at the bottom. Apparently, though, this isn't quite true, and I've had all sorts of interesting anecdotes about hand positions.

Here's one from Jack Campin: "The oddest story like this I've heard was about John D. Burgess, who entered a Highland piping competition and after winning it asked the judges, "did you notice anything unusual?" - they hadn't, but about halfway through he'd turned round with his back to them while playing a high A and swapped his hands round on the chanter."

More exciting still, I now find that Jacey Bedford has a large collection of historical photos, which include a couple of John Codona, as well as some of Mrs Dunlop with her barrel organ and the Store Milk Cart! I await their arrival on Flickr with bated breath!