Dunaber music

A Cape Breton Love Story

My friend, Thea (Gillis) Campbell, sent this to me this morning; as they say, I “LMAO”. I’m thinking you might like this:
Continue reading A Cape Breton Love Story…

Breton Pipe Bands

Yoann Le Goff sent me this site this morning: a link to a video recording of the premier grade pipe band event at Menez Meur, held June 30, 2008.   I am sure you will enjoy this video, you can watch and it’s almost like you’re standing in the crowd on what looks like an overcast early summer’s day in Brittainy.  C’était un spectacle merveilleux.
Continue reading Breton Pipe Bands…

Oliver Schroer

Oliver Schroer died yesterday.  A sad day.  We do have his music.  You can experience some of it here.  RIP

M.

Idiom

The competitive pipe band world is a challenging environment to make music.  Rules (and hefty musical parameters) aside, its a place, generally speaking, where there are strong preconceptions about what a pipe band should - or should not - perform.  For example, the competition medley, launched as an event around 1970, is barely middle age in human terms, and in musical terms is still suckling at the teat.  For the most part, what’s heard in pipe band contests today are really well thought-out arrangements and configurations of the main tune types common to bagpipe light music.  And, with one main, notable exception: the “reelpipe intro” or “hornreel” or whatever you call it, there  hasn’t been huge interest in shaking up the 25 year-old (plus) competition “medley” format.
Continue reading Idiom…

Variations on a Theme of Good Intentions

Last Saturday at the Georgetown games the band I play in, The Toronto Police Pipe Band, participated in the grade one pipe band contest.  The event was a “medley” event and we played a piece of music I built called, “Variations on a Theme of Good Intentions“.  What an experience.  We had all anticipated playing this “medley” and the crowd reaction was spine-tingling.  I have never in my long piping career experienced spontaneous, mid-performance cheers from a crowd at a pipe band contest.  I’m not sure about the other players  but it was all I could do to hold concentration.  Believe me, these are the kinds of “challenges” we want to be faced with when competing!  Forget the results for a moment, reaction like this is a performer’s triumph.  It is what this is all about, or should be.   
Continue reading Variations on a Theme of Good Intentions…

Music-making

I really liked this quote.  It made me think a little differently about music-making:

“No good opera plot can be sensible:… people do not sing when they are feeling sensible.”

  ~W.H. Auden (English poet)  

Early 20th Century Pipe Band Ensemble

A while ago I happened across a great site, the University of California’s (Santa Barbara) Cylinder Preservation and Digitization Project.  Here you can have a listen to any one of a vast array of mp3 recordings lifted from the university’s collection of almost 8,000 wax cylinders.
Continue reading Early 20th Century Pipe Band Ensemble…

Music-making Advice

My friend (and electronic music-maker) Mikael Hansson just passed me a quote that I absolutely love. 

So, some fantastic advice from Brian Eno, the “father of modern ambient music” and co-producer of the good U2 stuff:

“Play more things that make me dance around and less things that make me sit and look miserable in a plastic chair”

Yes, please.

M.

Pipe Band Circles are So Square

I’ve been going on for ages now about the standard competitive pipe band performance configuration, “the circle“.  This arrangement makes no sense to me.  Yeah, everyone can see the hands of the person leading the band, and that helps unison and timing of rhythmic transitions, but what about the many and varied down sides, the good reasons not to perform in a circle?
Continue reading Pipe Band Circles are So Square…

A Jig, “Jenny Hazzard”: Score & Sound File

I’ve had a couple of notes from people looking for “more jigs”.  So for the jig hounds here is a 4-parted 6/8 jig, “Jenny Hazzard”, from “Old & New Tunes“, published 1995.   I’ve played this in solo jig competitions with success and I’m pretty sure Peel Police Pipe Band played a couple of parts in a competition medley when I was PM in the mid 90s. 
Continue reading A Jig, “Jenny Hazzard”: Score & Sound File…