Seán Folsom è nato a Berkeley, in California, nel 1949. Comincia la sua carriera musicale suonando il clarinetto e il sassofono nell banda della sua scuola, come molti giovani americani. Verso la metá degli anni sessanta impara a suonare l'oboe, il flauto e la chitarra, con i quali inizia ad esbirsi in un ensemble di musica barocca, e in gruppi di jazz e rock'n'roll.

Il suo amore per la musica tradizionale lo porta ad imperare a suonare la cornemusa scozzese nel 1969-70, e quindi quella del northumberland e quella irlandese nel 1973. Da allora ha collezionato 27 altri tipi di cornamuse (che suona regolarmente) provenienti dall'Europa e dal Medioriente. Inoltre, esegue musica su ghironda, flauti, flauti di canna, armonica asiatica (il sheng cinese) ecc. Per contribuire a diffondere la conoscenza delle tradizioni musicali dei popli del mondo e dimostrarne i punti in comune, si esibisce in scuole, festival, e in incontri organizzati da diverse associazioni in tutti gli Stati Uniti, nel Canada e nella Nuova Zelanda.

Seán ha inciso Holy Well (1985), con il gruppo di musica celtica "Sheila na Gig"; Beautiful Vision (1982) con il famoso Van Morrison; Surfaris: Lost It in the Surf (1987) con Ron Wilson; e la colonna sonors del film Northern Lights, premiato come miglior nuovo film al festival di Cannes del 1979.

Sean Folsom was born at Berkeley, California, in 1949. He began his muiscal training as a clarinet and saxophone player for his school marching band, like may other American youth. In the mid-sixties, he learned how to play the oboe, the flute and the guitar, with which he performed in a baroque ensemble and in jazz and rock'n'roll groups

His love of traditional folk music led him to the Scottish bagpipes in 1969-70 and to the Northumbrian and Irish bagpipes in 1973. Since then he collected 27 other types of bagpipes(all of which he plays) from Europe and the Middle East. In addition, he performs music on the hurdy-gurdy, flutes, reed pipes, Asian harmonica (Chinese sheng), etc. To foster the understanding and similarities of peoples of the world he performs for schools, festivals and at corporate meetings; throughout the US, Canada and New Zealand

Sean recorded Holy Well (1985), with the Celtic group "Sheila na Gig"; Beautiful Vision (1982) with rock'n'roll celebrity Van Morrison; Surfaris: Lost It in the Surf (1987) with Ron Wilson; and the soundtrack ofr the film Northern Lights, winner of the Best New Film Prize at the 1979 Cannes Film Festival.

Gian Luca Cominciamo dalla tua educazione musicale...

Seán Folsom I miei genitori mi hanno fatto prendere lezioni di piano quando avevo sette anni. Cosi ho imparato a leggere la musica. Nel 1962, delle Los Angeles,ho cominiciato a suonare il clarinetto. Quando la mia famiglia si è trasferita a Carmel valley, verso la fine di quell'anno mi sono avvicinato al sassoofno e, dato che ero un appassionato della musica barocca, mi sono fatto comprare anche un oboe. Poi, èstata la volta della chitarra, poco prima che i Beatles diventassaro famosi. Al liceo facevo parte della banda, una tradizione americana dal diciannovesimo secolo: infatti, da allora, se scuola aveva un gruppo era organizzato sotto il modello banda di fatti.

G.L. Me ne sono accorto durante la sfilata per il Columbus Day...

S.F. Nel sud dell'Ingheilterra, per chi voelva imparare la musica c'era un maestro per il flauto dolce, il violino o il pianoforte (e più tardi la chitarra). Nel nord, invece, per chi lavorava nell fabbriche di tessuti, la banda era una garanzia contro la disoccupazione! Se la miniera chideva o c'era uno sciopero, i lavoratori potevano suonare in quells che gli Inglesi chiamavano la banda "all tedesca" o chiedendo l'elemosina. Negli Stati Uniti, migliaia di musicisti passano per le bande, il che non è male se si pensa a quanti suonatori di fiati ciò produce. Suonare i legni è stato per me come fare l'apprendistato per le cornamuse. Dal clarinetto e l'oboe il passo è stato breve per cominiciare a suonare le Highland pipes. Quando ero ragozzo, negli anni '50 e '60, l'unico tipo di cornamusa connosciuta era quello scozzese. Allora, mi avevano perlato del Uilleann pipes me, per qualche motivo, pensavo che ne ofssero una versione più primitiva. La prima volta che sono stato in Inghilterra, nel 1969, Keith Nelson (un suonatore Americano di banjo) mi aveva parlato dellae Northumberland e delle Unilleann pipes, così mi sono fatto daregli indirizzi di Colin Ross e di John Lincoln, due costruttori di Nurthumerland pipes.

G.L. È stato li tuo primo contatto con le cornamuse?

S.F. No, avevo ascoltato la banda di cornamuse della Sesta Armata, che era di stanza la Presidio di San Francisco, nel 1955. Suonavano nell'Auditoruim di Oakland per in circo. Ci sono andato con mi padre: gli piacevano molto le cornamuse perchè le aveva ascoltate surante la Seconda Guerra Mondiale e gli ricordavano i suoi antenati. Per me, era la prima volta che le ascoltavo dal vivo. Le avevo viste in televisione me quelconcerto mi fecevenire la pelle d'oca. Il loror suono aveva accesso qualcosa dentro me. A volte mi vengono ancora i brividi ad ascoltare un buon suonatore che si esibisce con sentimento su uno strumento accordato. Manon succede sempre: altrimente non riuscirei più a suonare!

Più tardi, nel 1963, volevo ordniaire una cornamusa ma costave 150 dollari che, allora, erano un bel po' di soldi. Non poteve permettermelo. Nel'69 sono andato in Scozia con l'intenzione di comprarne una. Li costavano 50/60 dollari, mentre a Carmel ne volevano 150. A quei tempi, non costavano tanot perché tutti volevano suonare lo swing e il rock' n ' roll, e gli intervalli musicali delle cornamuse erano considerati antiquati.

G.L. Puoi dirmi quello che sai del mondo ella cornamuse in America?

S.F.

G.L. Mi sembra di capire che in California negli anni '60 le cornamuse erano di moda...

S.F. text

G.L.Quanti construttori di cornamuse ci sono in California?

S.F. text

G.L. Qual è la tua filosofia nel suonare cosi tanti strumenti, alcuni dei quali tanto diversi dalla tua cultura originaria?

S.F. text

G.L. Quanti tipi di cornamusa suoni?

S.F. text

G.L. Chi costruisce gli strumenti che suoni?

S.F. text

G.L. L'altro giorno mi stavi parlando dei motivi per cui Gorgio Stella venne negli Stati Uniti..

S.F. text

Gian Luca Tell me something about your training.

Seán Folsom I had formal music training on the piano when I was seven. That's how I learned to read music. In 1962,in Los Angeles,I started playing the clarinet. When my family moved back to Carmel Valley later that year, I picked up the sax, and since I loved baroque music, I started playing the oboe. I got a guitar just before the Beatles became famous. In high school, I was in the marching band which is something of a standard American tradition since the 19th century in America.Later on, every school if they had any music at all it would be organized under the brass band model.

G.L. I noticed that at the Columbus Day Parade.

S.F. Yes, in Southern England for instance, if they teach music at all they have a tutor for recorder, violin or piano (and later guitar).In Northern England, the brass band was like unemployment insurance in the mill towns! If the mines closed down in northeast England,or they were out on strike, they could go play in what the English called the "German" band, and "busk" on the street. In the USA, thousands and thousands of musicians are put through this system, which is not bad, especially when you think of all the wind instrument players it produces.When I played woodwinds it was almost like getting an apprenticeship to bagpipe playing. From clarinet and oboe it was a minor step to start playing the Highland pipes. When I was growing up, in the 50's and 60's, the only type of pipes we knew of were the Scottish pipes. At that time, I had heard something about Irish Uillean pipes, but for some reason I thought they must have been a simpler form of the Scottish pipes. When I was first over in England in 1969, Keith Nelson (an American bluegrass banjo player in London) told me about Northumbrian and Uilleann pipes. I got the addresses of Colin Ross and John Lincoln who made Northumbrian pipes at J and R Glen's in Edinburgh.

G.L. Was that your first contact with pipes?

S.F. No, I saw the Sixth Army pipe band, which was stationed at the San Francisco Presidio and in 1955 they played at the Oakland Auditoruim for a Shriner Circus. I went with my father. He loved bagpipes because he had heard them during World War II and he identified them with his ancestry. I was hearing them "live" for the first time. I had seen them on television but I had the shivers at that live concert. I was physically affected by their sound. I still get those shivers when I hear a good player, performing on a well tuned instrument, with feeling. I don't get those shivers all the time; it would probalby interfere with my ability to play!

Later in 1963, I wanted to order a set but they cost $150 dollars, which back then was a lot of money. So I could not afford it. In '69, I went to Scotland with the idea of buying a set. They were$50-60 dollars a set, when in Carmel they quoted me $150 dollars. Back then, they were cheap because people were into jazz and rock'n'roll, and the intervals of bagpipes were considered old fashioned. At J and R Glen, I ordered a set but it never came.

G.L. Can you describe the world of bagpipers as you know it, in America? It seems to me that California is a particularly fertile ground for bagpipers...

S.F. There was a lot of immigration to the States from all the bagpipe-playing countries (Ireland, Italy, Poland and Scotland). What is interesting, though, is that, for example, in the case of Scottish pipes, their music was kept alive through the fiddle. In fact, in the Appalachian Mountians you still find some of the same mode of playing (A minor to G major) so common in Scottish music. Apparently, there were people with pipes in the Revolutionary War, there were people with pipes in the Civil War. Some of the earliest ethnic recordings of zampognari were made in New York in 1917. One of the funny, little known histories of the American recording industry, is that htey were very quick to sieze on the idea of appealing to the immigrant community by recoding ethnic music played by musicians "from the old countries" living in New York or other cities in the Eastern US. Of course, everyone would go buy and Edison machine and later a record player. Their children would then buy "Tin Pan Alley" jazz, swing, etc. cycling through these styles of music at the whim of the commercial music industry. As I understand it, piping was strong in all the metropolitan areas. Especially Highland, Uilleann and Italian zampogna.

A friend of mine, John Kimball, was telling me about a couple of zampognari who showed up in Rochester, New york, in the 1880's: they were itinerant pipers. All the boys had just gotten slide whistles, and whenever the zampognari came to play, these children would surround them and drive them crazy trying to imitate them and messing up their performance. They finally had to leave town, and this was reported in a Rochester newspaper. I met Jim at the Folk Songs Festival in Albany, N.Y. and he bought a ciaramedda that Brian Steeger had made for Francesco Stella.Which Francesco wanted me to sell.

G.L. I understand that In the 60's bagpipes were very popular in California...

S.F. Scottish bagpipes! The others were here but fewer, more hidden. The whole northern tier of states, because of their proximity to Canada, have a tradition of Scottish piping. This always surprises Europeans. When I went ot Ireland, in 1973 and '75, the Irish thought that all Californians lived at the beach and mingled with movie stars on Rodeo Drive. But here was a Californian who had learned to play their bagpipe! the Irish took it as a compliment to their culture.

G.L. How many bagpipe-builders are there in California?

S.F. Some of the ones I know are; Hector Bezanis, Tobak Ferenc, Richard Maheu, Dave McCort, John Pederson, and Brian Steeger. There were people building pipes here even in the 40's. There was a man named Wallace who made Highland pipes in Sacramento. Another maker who was interesting was Robert, or Bob, Thomas. He was part of the Owlsley Acid Circle, of the Grateful Dead rock band, in the 1960s. In the 1950s he played tuba in the US Navy Band. He got interested in the Bagpipes around 1960. He ordered a zampogna from Naples. In 1963-64 he went on a trip to Italy and bought a Ciaramedda from Oliveri (Oliva),near Mount Etna, Sicily. He brought these pipes back, and because he was playing them on the street, at the Renaisance Faire, at the Monterey Pop festival, etc. he inspired a lot of people,and a couple started copying his pipes. One of them was Brian Steeger. Other people got into the business of reproducing Bob's pipes, another one is Hector Bezanis,who tries to keep to the oridginal dimensions of the instrument, instead of reinventing it, like Steeger. There are a lot of people interested in pipes in California. As for the rest of the country, I know that in Vermont, every year, there is the Alan Jones Northumbrian Bagpipe Festival. All other types of bagpipes show up there too.

G.L. What is your philosophy about playing so many instruments, some of which are so different from your culture of origin?

S.F. Well in America, anything is possible, or it's supposed to be, in the best spirit of American "laisser-faire", where you are not bound by rigid tradition. In the 1950's ther were two generations of Americans who had gone to war and come back. My father called World War II " a vacation in the off, off season" These veterans were cosmopolitan by virtue of having gone to war! Where I grew up , in Monterey, California, there is the Defence Language Institute, and I went to school with the sons and daughters of its' teachers. We had Poles, Romanians, Russians, Italians, etc. There were also Sicilian fishermen in Monterey. Because of this, I like to visit foreign places, I like the idea of there being other ways of living, thinking, enjoying yourself. We all have to eat, sleep get up, and go to work, and music making is another similarity. In all the differences there are similarities. What makes people happy or sad in a tune is probably the same the world over. If you had a Chinese audience, and you played a sad tune, they would understand it. If asked, they would say " Oh, yeah that's a sad tune".

G.L. How many types of bagpipes do you play?

S.F. I have about 30 different sets(circa1996). Instead of telling you about the ones I play, I will tell you about the ones I don't have in my collection; the Mallorcan Xeremie; the iz Zaqq from Malta; the cheremis'(Volga Finns)Shuvyr; the Estonian Torupill; I don't have a Neh Haban from the Perisian Gulf either or a Czech Dudy. I don't have a bagpipe from the Ukraine (although my Koza from South Eastern Poland is a relative of it) Everything else I have it, or a version thereof. I don't think I will ever own all of them. At this point, I am reaching physical overload. When I only had twenty pipes, I had them all reeded and going. Now that I have thirty, not anymore. I don't have enough time in a day. The Groves Dictionary of Musical Instruments, 1984, lists 90 different names for bagpipes. Some pipes are duplicates, under a different name, of course. It's like all the different names of God! I have 5 Italian Zampogne, and the Croatian Surle, which is similar to the Istrian Piva. I have a Piva that Steeger made which he said was a North Italian Piva, but I don't know where he got the drawings for it, and if it can be connected to any of the Pivas from Piedmont. In the 1980's, I read an interesting article about Pivas in Modale (a French folk music magazine) by Eric Montbel (one of the best French pipers). I remember there was one type very much like the Bulgarian Gaida.

G.L. Who makes the instruments you play?

S.F. My first set of pipes were Scottish, made by Lawrie in Edinburgh. I bought them in Stockton, California,from Steve Litchfield. He had a collection of instruments he did not play; handmade guitars and special harmonicas. I asked him about his bagpipes, they looked good, so I told him I had $100 dollars,and would he sell them to me? He said"Sure" It was August 1970. The first month was really hard because I had no idea of how pipes were set up. so I would puff the bag up and a loose drone stock would pop out and shoot across the room! Commedy! At that time I lived in Sonora, 130 miles Northeast of San Francisco, and I was alone. I finaly met someone a year later who played the bagpipe as a young man but had given up when he got old. So it took me a year of hard work to get the thing to go. I went to Pipe Major Donald Shaw Ramsey's shop in San Francisco, and bought reeds by the bushel. I got recordings, I got books,but without a teacher. I do not recommend it! After the Scottish pipes, I got a set of Northumbrian pipes (by Ken Fisher) when I went back to England in 1973. I went to Colin Ross, I stayed with him about a week, and he agreed to sell me this set for $235. He sat down and tuned them up. He made reeds in front of me, and it was an important event, since I have been making all my reeds for all my instruments ever since. That's very important in order for me to play all the different pipes I have. Reeds are the problem for with a lot of players who cannot make their reeds, and get discouraged about playing. After the Northumbrian pipes, I also got the Irish pipes, and I started to hang out with the Irish community in San Francisco. There were two old pipers (Paddy O'Neill and Dan Sullivan) who emigrated from Ireland, and bought Uilleann Pipes in America. They did not have them in Ireland. I n Ireland they played the Scottish pipes, while in America, they took up the Uilleann pipes because they were available, and these Irishmen were making good money, and the pipes were comparatively cheap. Nobody was playing Irish pipes (in the 1930s) when Dan and Paddy arrived, the older pipers had died. In Chicago there was a huge community of Irish pipers, with 20-30 pipers. Same in New York and Boston. In 1973 the folk revival was taking off and in the fall of that year,The Chieftains came to San Francisco for the first time. Also in 1973 I met Denis Brooks, a great piper and bagpipe scholar. He had been working on a book about bagpipes for years. He had started with the Highland pipes in Seattle, Washington, and he got a set of Uilleann Pipes from Paddy O'Neill, in 1954. Then he read up about all the other bagpipe stuff, and in 1960, the Baines book on Bagpipes came out. He had met some Gallegos, Spanish bagpipers who lived in California. He met Hungarian, Italian, and Bulgarian players in the U.S. and so on. He was very interested in the pipes, so he started writing to all the different pipe-countries, ultimately getting some instruments, and being one of the first pipers for for an international dance ensemble, called Westwind, that started in the late 1960's, in Los Angeles. They did dance suites from different European countries and Denis played the Bulgarian Pipes for them,in 1968. A very interesting man and a very good musician. He now lives in Ireland, in County Cork. I don't see him very often. He was a great inspiration to me. In addition to being a very good Uilleann piper, he was intensely interested in all the pipes. If he did not have a type of bagpipe, he had recordings of them, and he would play them for me, all the Balkan stuff. The first time I ever heard a recording of Zampogne was at his house.Anyway, by sometime in 1980,I had a representitive collection of all the pipes. Sometimes I would buy them from other pipers who came back from trips. For example, there is John Creagher, who is a Scottish piper from Santa Rosa, who spent time in Sweden, and met Per Godmunsson. When John came back, he set up an import business of Swedish bagpipes, so I got a set of Swedish bagpipes he imported via Ted Anderson, who wanted another set. So I would get a lot of bagpipes from piping channels. Other times people would just give them to me , like in the case of a fellow who had been vacationing on the Dalmatian coast in Croatia, in 1980, and showed up at my house in 1986. He said " Here I understand you can play this". A Croatian Diple, and he just gave it to me! A little later, I ended up playing for the Croatian dancers in San Francisco, in 1988. The Olivski Island Association put on a Poklada, which is their version of Carnival. Anyway they called me, and I ended up playing Diple for them. These things happen. In regards to Italian pipes, I got my first Ciaramedda from Brian Steeger, who was copying Bob Thomas' set, in 1979. I stared playing them, and in 1982, another fellow showed up. I was playing music on the street in Berkeley, and Jeff Stonehill showed up with a Zampogna from Scapoli, he had bought directly from Ettore Di Fiore. Jeff had been to his house and bought that and a Piffero, I think he said was in Isernia. He ended up not being able to play it, because the reeds were broken. I told Jeff that I could get it to play, but on the other hand, I could trade him for that set, a Spanish bagpipe (Gaita) from Gallicia, of which I had two sets. This became my second set of Italian Zampogna. A little later, Brian Steeger met Franceco Stella, the Grandson of a piper, Giorgio Stella, who came from Cosenza, to the United States, to Helper, Utah around 1903. He brought with him one bagpie he called "della voce". In 1920, he carved another one he called, "zampogna Molise" [the first is actualy a Calabrian Surdulina, while the second, looks like a Sicilian Ciaramedda, n.d.r.]. Anyway, he had those two sets and Brian cuoldn't figure out how to get them going. I listened to the LP record Global Village put out called "These are the Songs You Know"[Chesta e la Voce ca Voi Canusite, recorded by Alan Lomax, n.d.r.] and on the recording there are four minutes of the Zampoga Calabrese, played by an old man who showed up in New Jersey, in 1980, just before he died.I listened to the LP, and I was able to distinguish the patterns played on the chanters, and the note of the drone. So I made the reeds, and put a new goatskin bag on it, and gave it back to Francesco, in order to get the grandson back into playing. Francesco had heard his grandfather as a little boy up to the time Giorgio died in the 1950s. Francesco wanted to play the to the Zampogna so bad. It turned out he has emphysema, so he really couldn't wind it. Right now, we're talking about putting a bellows on the Zampogna so he play it the way the Sordellina was played. In the 16th century, they played the the Neapolitan Musette with a bellows. Think of it, you could play "Tu Sende Della Stella" and sing along at the same time! Francesco Stella had loaned Hector Bezanis his Zampogna to copy and Hector made a copy for me, so I got it up and running in 1992, to play at the University of Chicago[at an Italian and Greek traditional dance festival, n.d.r.]. Francesco's grandfather, always called it Zampogna, and never called it surdulina. I understand the Albanian (Albanese) word for the is "Karamuxia". That's the way it's printed on the record jacket of the dance troupe "Allegresso di Longro" from Calabria

G.L. You were telling me about Giorgio Stella and how he came to the States...

S.F.Yes, a number of Calabrians came over to Helper, Utah, to work in the mines for copper and apparently the Calabrians the mine owners brought over had some experience in coal mining. Giorgio Stella was a sheppard and he ended up along with them. He played the Zampogna at weddings, dances, and festivals. He played at all times, not just for Chirstmas, or Saint's Days [Ognissanti] and Giorno di Maggio[ May Day]. He loved to play his Zampogna, and he would say it was very important to have an all-white goat, to make the music very sweet. If he could not find an adult all-white goat, he would find a kid that was all white and raise it himself. He went for fairly large bags, so the goat had to be fed plenty! He also had various tuning picks that hung off the Zampogna for beeswax. He had one to puncture the evileye, and one to let it pass through. It was all hand carved wood. At the top there was a circle, and there were dots all around the circle, the pick continued from the circle, at the bottom. This cicle would let the evil eye pass through. I told this to Larry Di Stasi, an Italian-American who wrote a book called "Malocchio", a really good book on the subject. I would see Larry when I played at the various Italian festivals, at the Italian Consulate, at the Loenardo Da Vinci Society, at the Italian American Historical Society, and I told him about what Giorgio Stalla did with his picks, and he said he had no knowledge of evil eye and musicians. At the time, I had Stella's pipe, so I showed the picks to Larry. One was in the shape of a bird, I remember. Anyway there was a lot of things that Francesco remembered over the years. I showed Francesco some copies of "Utriculus". Francesco grew up speaking a Calabrian dialect, he is no longer fluent at it though. He is going to donate one of his grandfather's bagpipes to the museum in Helper, Utah. The museum director has aked him to document everything he can remember about it, so that when the Zampogna is exhibited, it is well documented through what what he remembers his grandfather as saying. I am sure that there are plenty of people in Calabria that know about those same traditions. Sometime though, I feel that there are somethings immigrants can remember even better, in some ways, because they are apt to hold on to it, whereas, people in the "old country" say "Oh, Yeah that old stuff...." and ignore it.

This piper in San Diego, Seamus Taylor, who wanted me to go play for there for an event, he called me up. We were having a conversation about tradition versus innovation. He told me that Willie Clancy, a famous Irish piper, said that the standards were already set by the old people, and they can't be transended. It's always been a challenge to me ; I played Rock; I played Jazz, etc., but I always try to recreate the intensity of feeling of that music that is from somewhere else. In Ireland, the people have a whole genre of folktales about how the pipers learned their music from the "Shee", which is Gaelic for the fairies, the spirits. They are sais to be people our size, or bigger, who are all around us, but invisible appearing only at certain times. Pipers would play on a bridge over a river, or a bend in the road, or the fairy mound, in the hope of being inspired by them. In the folklore of the musicians in China, the musician goes to a lonely place, and plays music in the hope that the "female ghosts" (like the muses in Greek myth), will inspire them to make new and more beautiful tunes. In India they do the same. In Africa, they have a story about a "Jinn" (a genie) playing the Balafon (marimba) A man hearing this music, takes some wooden bars, and puts them on his lap trying to imitate the Jinn. The Genie says no that's not how you play them, and ends up giving the man a lesson of how to do it. Thus the instrument itself is given to the people by the supernatual beings. This is from the Mandinka people in Gambia. This is how the "genius" of a people was sent down from two, three, four thousand years ago. It is a real challenge to recreate that magic, everytime I play. Putting a Bass and Drums to it doesn't add to the music in my estimation, it actualy detracts from it. But it certainly creates a market for those people who have never heard traditional music. So that's my hope about the fusion. It may popularize it. Then, some people, instead of listening to the fusion, will go on to the traditional music and listen to that. It is important for me, after having met all these old men, who are now dead and gone, to remember them and how they played. I will never play exactly like them, but those are the models I have in front of me, when I think about how I should sound. That is an important part of my playing. It's like seeds: nowadays , they sell you catalogs with all these different types of seeds, they are all hybrids, and they have patents on them. At the same time there is a group of people who are preserving the old wild seeds, to make sure there is something left in case the hybrids all die in a season of blight.