Canntaireachd is a oral means of transmitting musical compositions for the highland bagpipe through vocables that represent notes on the pipe scale as well as specific changes between notes i.e. rolls, triplets, etc.
Canntaireachd (Scottish Gaelic: literally, "chanting") is the ancient Scottish Highland method of noting classical pipe music or Ceòl Mòr by a combination of definite syllables, by which means the various tunes could be more easily recollected by the learner, and could be more easily transmitted orally.
It was first written down at the end of the 18th century, in the Campbell Canntaireachd (in the National Library of Scotland).
"In its written form, canntaireachd provided the basis of the indigenous notational system and it was brought to its most developed form by Colin Mór Campbell of Nether Lorn in Argyll, at the end of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th Century.
Canntaireachd predates staff notation and was the oral means of transmitting the music from player to player.
Such subtlety cannot be expressed in staff notation and this formal system of canntaireachd, where the short notes have to be articulated in a specific way, draws attention to their importance in the expression of the music.
However, there is a measure of skill to be taken into account, in that the singer must adapt to letting the time taken for renewal of breath to be counted as being part of the value of the preceding note if the pulse of the music, as played on the pipe is to be maintained.
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