Competing pipe bands are mostly made up of people outside of the leisure class – and I have to say I’m not even sure such a class exists in the world today – a long way off from my line of sight, anyway. Pipe bands are full of working people, or, just as likely, students and young people starting out a working life.

Forget for a minute the possibility that you’re one of the scores of bands from outside of Scotland that can’t fulfill their August GLA travel plans. So what? You find out that Iceland’s unpronounceable volcano prevents you from taking to the skies.

The real problem comes when you land in Scotland, practice your face off, compete, and THEN find you can’t leave the country. What does a band do — a travelling group of 30 to 50 (or more) in size? How to prepare for the possibility of an indefinite life as a Scottish traveller?

I hope to hell it never comes to be but maybe Iceland, in her capricious, Calum Campbell-y, volcanic way, will somehow bring pipers together.

Who knows? Come August 15th, maybe we’ll see the spare and front rooms of Scotland become the crash pads for visiting drummers and pipers.

Stranger things have happened.

M.

So much easier, I know, to make multi-instrumental music without the untempered Great Highland Bagpipe getting in the way. But he says that’s not why the pipes were left in the cold box . His composer’s brain was in the key of funk apparently. And that was a good thing for this project. Think fuzzy-hatted brothers playing the Park Bar – if the Park Bar was in Detroit – or Chicago (if the horns are going like on “Under the Influence”).

The vocal tracks – the songs – stand-out. I thought he’d blown the budget when I heard the silky smooth “Lonely Man“, sure he’d hired James Taylor as guest. He didn’t of course (well he may’ve blown the budget but it wasn’t by booking JT). He’s built and sung a really good song.

I think Calum has to be the poster boy for piper-as-musician. It strikes me that most pipers think of themselves as pipers. Not musicians and certainly not artists. They’re pipers. Then there’s Calum: musician, artist and – by the way, by chance and by blood – a piper. A real MacCrimmon. His brilliant forbears invented and refined an art form. They, too, were musicians, artists and, lucky us, pipers.

I think we need more Calums. More musician-artist-pipers. More MacCrimmons.

I’m not sure about Scotland but I know there’re pieces of “Man’s Ruin” ready for commercial Canadian radio – and, all of it, for your Walkman or iPod thingie.

M.

Blah blah blah.

M.

Performances were around 10 minutes in duration. That’s an eternity in pipe band terms but pretty reasonable in the creative, exciting and free-wheeling world of the bagad.

A few observations here relative to our little pipe band world:

Stagecraft: I can’t think of a pipe band anywhere that bests the stage presence of any of the bagads we saw yesterday (and those presented were all part of the premier bagad grade – grade one to us). Although, to be fair, I found the constant licking of reeds by the bombarde players kind of gross – if not off-putting. I’d rather see a bombarde player’s back then have to see a gobbled reed.

Musicianship: Generally speaking, bagads have us over a cider barrel when it comes to understanding music theory and applying a few of its possibilities. For instance, standard throughout the contest was the mid-performance exchange of different pitched bagpipes. Harmony, too – beyond that of the bagpipe’s drone and chanter – was the norm, and in most instances really well done. As is the case with pipe band harmony, it’s the well-placed interplay of simultaneous note intervals that create memorable shivers and touch the soul. We have a lot to learn from the best bagads.

Melodic Variety: I found sameness to the bagad melodies – both in rhythm and tonality. And, from my experience, that is not always the way of things. For Highland bagpipe ears (those dialled in to around Bb) it can be said that the tonal centres of most performances hovered around F and C minor. That, and the requirement for bands to highlight dance music from the Sud Cornouaille region of Brittany, appeared to limit the potential of melodic and rhythmic diversity [how's that for political correctness!].

Bagpipe and Tonal Unison: Where the bagads may rock the musical thing in an overall sort of way, the best first grade Highland bagpipe bands are ahead of bagads when it comes to technical unison and unanimity of technical precision.

My overall observation is about pipe bands. I’ve been a big proponent of longer pipe band selections (medleys). I am not sure I’ve been on the complete right track on that front. Bagads and their 10-plus minutes of performance work for the most part because they have the latitude to rest: they can stop, start as they like and have the option to integrate a variety of sonic textures (meaning: use other sounds like accordion, clarinet, voice, etc).

I’ve recently gone through a season of playing a selection of music with next to none of the above qualities (four bar rest notwithstanding) and jeezuz, it felt like a lifetime.

Anyway, I suggest that until we shake up the profile of what makes up a Highland pipe band performance (instrumentation, duration, rests permitted, staging rules, general parameters),for a competition medley, maybe, five to eight minutes in duration works.

For lovers of the music of the bagpipe maybe the Breton phrase works: “Ur yezh hepken n’eo ket a-walc’h”

One language is never enough.

M.

At last night’s band practice the piper next to her turned and said, “I only soaked my reed for an hour, and, is it ever good!”.

Soaking a reed for any length of time will make it anything but good (for a non-piper reading this you’ll now understand the “LOL”). Water is the reed’s enemy. It brings instability and dullness to pitch. Water generally ruins a reed; it shortens its productive life. Tip of the day: soak a reed for an hour if you seek crappy sound.

Yes, reeds require moisture to produce bright, vibrant, engaging sounds. That moisture should only ever come from breath. Play a new reed in the pipe for 20 minutes and you’ll find that natural moisture postively transforms the sound produced by a reed. Living in a dry centrally-heated house I can empathize with a piper`s temptation to throw some water a dry reed`s way. But never soak it. Save that for your feet – or your head after a late night.

And a final funny from the same band practice; it sort of speaks to perspective and the importance of attending band practices so the whole team knows what you can and will contribute. In my friend`s words: “…the (new-ish) bass drummer asked me if I wanted a music stand for our ‘Scotland the Brave’ set. I think I need to attend more practices…”

Off to Glasgow (and Dublin) this evening. Celtic Connections calls.

M.

And here’s one of the oddest postcards I’ve ever seen; someone actually posted this – in 1912!

What’s with the broom!

Anyway, avoid snowbanks and keep your shoes on!

M.

Happily, my shift didn’t start until the afternoon of January 2, 2000, so I was good to go and enjoy the passing of the millennium as I pleased. And my choice happens to kick off my list of memorable musical moments of the “noughts”: 2000 through to two days from now:

And my list in rough chronological order (note: these spring first to mind and I wouldn’t be surprised, if I tried again, the list might be slightly different):

10. New Year’s Eve 1999. James and Jan MacDonald host one of Vancouver’s most famous Hogmanay doos. The hoi polloi of Vancouver’s piping and drumming community all find their way to the MacDonalds. This special year I managed to snag an invite and subsequently flew five hours west to be part of the fun. What hosts. What fun. A remarkable midnight marchpast of our throw-together pipe band with members including Pete Aumonier, Jack Lee and Angus MacPherson will never be forgotten. Good people; good times. [by the way, for fans of the movie "Whisky Galore", James MacDonald is the wee baby in the carriage in the scene where his dad, Neil Angus, plays at the réiteach].

9. Recording Shambolica! and Jane Siberry, July 2001. I was awfully lucky to engage a pile of talented people to work with me on Shambolica! and one of my all-time favourites was among that group. There’s something about Jane Siberry’s voice that moves me. She’s a national treasure – or, more rightly, an international treasure. She jammed her eclectic backside in Bryan Greenwood’s studio’s sound booth and for six straight hours made amazing music. Her work on “Nut Brown Maiden” is electric.

8. Bruce Gandy’s Gold Medal-winning performance, Northern Meeting, Inverness, September 2003. Bruce and me go back a long way and while we’ve always been intense competitors (especially with each other) I was thrilled to be there for his winning tune. One of those performances that fires on all cylindars and can’t help but win. “The Rout of Glenfruin” was the tune, for the record – a tune that should be played more, I think.

7. Colin MacLellan’s Clasp tune, “End of the Little Bridge”, at the Northern Meeting, Inverness, September 2003/4 [Colin, nor I, sure of the date]. What a tune. This tune was edge-of-your seat stuff. Tempo, rhythm, drama, all falling together in one rare and fabulous explosion of pibroch playing. People who hate pibroch should’ve heard this tune.

6. Field Marshal Montgomery Pipe Band tuning up for the World Pipe Band Championship, Glasgow, 2007. FMM are the poster people for precision and musical intention. Listening to them prepare for their world-winning performance: an indelible memory.

5. A week in Glasgow with the 78th Frasers (Halifax Citadel) Pipe Band, 2007. As a traveller to Glasgow for piping and pipe band events the 2007 trip with the Halifax Frasers, a great band I “guested” with, will be hard to forget. I can’t speak for any other time but in August 2007 this band had magnetic and percolating pipe band chemistry. What a great time. Win or lose, this was a great adventure with great people – one that sustained the whole week’s visit.

4. Toronto Police Pipe Band playing off the field at the North American Pipe Band Championships in Maxville, Ontario, August 2008. The park had been beset by hurricane-like rain and the usual (fantastic) performance spot had been moved to a farmer’s field – or what felt like a farmer’s field. The crowds were right up yer backside and well in to their rain-delayed cups. This was the year of “Variations on a Theme of Good Intentions” and marching off with Padrig Sicard’s Breton march will never be forgotten.

3. Ruth Sutherland’s singing of, “Tuireadh Mhic Criomain”, at Scott MacAulay’s memorial gathering, November 2008.

2. The Toronto Police Pipe Band’s playing of “His Father’s Lament for Donald MacKenzie” in the car park of Lycée Des Métiers Marie Le Franc in Lorient, France, August 2009. A strange moment. No one around. Our band manager, Jack Wield, ex-Edinburgh Police Pipe Band, thought the same. He said, “My God, that was beautiful”. Goose-bumpy.

1. OK. This isn’t in order. And, its not a bagpipe-y sort of thing. But a bit of a confessional: One of the most memorable musical moments for me may not’ve been in the bagpipey world. Here is k d lang:

All the best!

M.

Merry Christmas Everyone!

M

I like this. I can`t account for the artist`s reasoning, or thinking, behind the pumpkin-headed piper. But I think she got it right.

Have a good weekend. Happy Halloween, Happy All Saints` Day…

M.

We in pipebandom can – and do – get pretty uppity about our place, the pipe band movement’s place, in the culture of the world. We view pipe band music and pipe band importance as serious business: “don’t they know who we think we are”, I think back to a silly and oft-quoted line from a long-ago band. I know I have – and do. But really, I have to tell you, when the Chieftan guy, Lord Provost of Glasgow, Blethery MacSomebody, said, “…and I am happy to say that as of half eleven today the BBC has had 50,000 hits on their web offerings…”, I thought, “WTF, is that all?”. Good gawd, there’s 6 billion people on God’s green earth and a group of people not much bigger than the small town I live in tuned in … crap bags. Not good.

I suggest that should the full “ratings” stats be released by the BBC we, the “pipe band world”, will get one of the most accurate measures of our place in the world. We may not know, or have a sense, of the stretch of our influence in world music, world culture, but we will have a sense, courtesy of hard numbers, of our hard core audience. I would sorely hope it is way above 50,000 “unique hits”.

And a comment on the crowd: The BBC provided a fine aerial few of the crowd. The assembly of performers (and not all performers, I note, opted to participate in the massed bands thing) out-numbered the audience – or, at least, appeared to out-number the audience. Do the people of Glasgow really care about the WPBC? Enough to buy a ticket and have a listen? Once again, it looked liked families and friends filled the stands.

Hats off to Bob Worrall: He is one smooth, in-the-know and all ’round good-talker guys in the commentary department. While some of the pipe band world’s governing bodies (read: RSPBA) may not recognize his leading adjudication abilities, the world (all 50,000 of us online, at least) rates him tops in all areas that touch on fair and insightful.

Congratulations to all the winners and all the participants – you played your hearts out and we appreciated it all.

M.

PS. Is it just me? I hate it when in a music contest like this people start saying stuff like, “I’m proud to be a Canadian because the Canadian band won”, or “Proud to be a Scot becauase the Scottish band won”? That rings hollow with me in a contest that, I think, is about music.