I hope you get your plaid on (too).

M

It’s the rare artist who accurately represents the bagpipe, especially one in full performance flight. With the exception of The Simpson’s Groundskeeper Willie few sets of pipes and their piper come off as near-accurate representations of the real thing. I know, I hear you: its art, it’s interpretative, suck it up.

The bagpipe in its many forms has been around for eons and it’s found everywhere. The pipes the world over are touchstones of great tradition. And not just that, have been the apple of many an artist’s eye. Maybe the many different incarnations of the instrument might account for the oddly – and consistently – inaccurate representation of the instrument.

Whatever it is I know that there’s something about the instrument that prevents artists from taking the thing in. There’s maybe a crazy blurry force field that blinds the artist’s eye, that twists drones over chanter over bag over shoulder. A spooky thought, however unlikely.

I also know this odd phenomenon starts at the very beginning of an artist’s career. Exhibit A: my near five-year-old niece, Lexie. Here we have a strapping piper (hello) and a seemingly mildly interpretative, ever-so-slightly upside-down pipe.

I wonder what she saw in me and my pipes – and what she took in, and remembered. I assure you I did not sit/play for this portrait.

Still. I see this as hugely promising work. Damned fine, in fact. And that has nothing to do with the artist’s tagline.

M.

Here’s the scoop: After meeting and date number three or so they start talking a little about their families. He says to her something like, “my Mum’s family comes from a little place in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland: Benbecula”. “Yikes”, thinks my sister – or something like that. That’s where my father’s mother comes from!

So it turns out that the Benbecula village, or maybe more rightly stated, “enclave of houses”, that is Torlum, Benbecula, forms a seriously common thread for both of them. On the birth of their first child I have a feeling they were on high alert for overly close eyes – or, worse, only one: mid-forehead.

Of course, all’s well but interesting to learn more of my brother-in-law’s family; most probably, my family.

Here’s a tune he passed to me. Provided here at his courtesy. I looked at this and thought right away that the way to find out more about it was to talk to Reay Mackay, a Godfather of North American piping.

Reay is a veritable fountain of piping knowledge, a child prodigy and so a person who has made music through a good chunk of 20th century piping life. In his insight to this tune, he didn’t disappoint.

This tune, “Alex MacMillan”, is my brother-in-law’s grandfather [**small world alert**born in Torlum one year after my grandmother with the same surname as my grandmother's mother, the 1891 Scottish census shows both families living in Torlum at that time ... I digress]. It was written by Donald Ewen Macpherson from Skye. Reay relayed yet another fascinating back-story to this manuscript [I admit: it's the second back-story that may interest you].

First, the tune is really good. We both agree, it’s full of merit, clearly written by an accomplished musician and completely playable and worthy of competition. Second, **small world alert** the manuscript is from the hand of Murdo MacLeod, one of Reay’s teachers and Benbecula emigrant – and, just by the way, a pupil of John MacDougall Gillies.

Reay said he could recognize Murdo’s hand anywhere and has copies of tunes written in the same stylish pen. So here we have a tune for a Benbecula man, composed by a Skyeman and in the hand of another Benbecula man – all immigrants to the Toronto-Hamilton area, you’d have to think they were all good pals.

But the really interesting thing about this is related to the composer of “Alex MacMillan”.

Donald Ewen Macpherson was something else: a real all-rounder. Not saying the guy could just play jigs and the big music, no, this guy could play the whole gamut of bagpipe music and highland dance, toss the caber and do all the heavy events – and do them well. In fact, as Pipe Major of the Royal Scots he won the wrestling championship of the British armed services [William Donaldson, “The Highland Pipe and Scottish Society: 1750-1950"].

Macpherson was a man cut from the all-rounder rough cloth of John MacColl and D.C. Mather. Though those guys, while Highland dancers [the kind of Highland dancing, by the way, the Gaelic College is so down on], didn’t seem as big on the heavy events. Not like our Donald Ewen Macpherson.

So what’s the deal with Donald Ewen Macpherson and his buckshot aim at all the prizes on offer at the Highland games?

We only have to look to Donaldson for a little insight. Referring to the early days of the twentieth century he notes the problem [p. 205] of the “same old names” turning up in the solo piping prize lists with the “struggling young player” never seeming to catch a break. I suggest that’s probably an age-old problem. Though pipers like Donald Ewen Macpherson had a solution to covering their travel – and other – expenses: they competed in all the events they were able:

“Given such difficulties, some young pipers preferred to concentrate on track and field events, where arcane considerations of authority and reputation did not predetermine the outcome, where they did not have to bear written accreditation from social superiors before they could even enter (as was the case with piping events at a number of games, including the Northern Meeting), and where victory and defeat were normally unequivocal. Robert Meldrum recalled one of his own pupils, Donald Ewen Macpherson of Skye, ‘who was a most promising piper, playing some splendid piobaireachds, but he preferred the athletics side of the games…”

Indeed he did. He emigrated to Toronto and, according to Reay, opened a gym on Queen Street in Toronto, one of the city’s main streets. Signs, like this tune, point to his continued involvement in the piping world.

So, there you have it: an interesting story and damned fine tune – all courtesy of my brother-in-law.

That’s Brother-in-law: thanks to our small world, with the biggest of upper case Bs.

M.

PS. Interesting to note that on emigrating to Canada Alex MacMillan joined the 16th Battalion (The Canadian Scottish) and in WWI fought at the Somme serving in the same regiment, and battles, as piper James Richardson, VC.

From left we have Julie Wilson (who today looks very much like this young girl), Andrew Berthoff (Julie’s hubby and resembling, here, a Simon Le Bon wannabe), me (in turn, resembling a corpulent sort of forshadowing of the Harry Potter character), a bearded Jim McGillivray, the ever-smiling Lillian Livingstone and Bill Livingstone, showing just a hint of hockey hair.

Forget T S Eliot and his crappy April, I say November is the cruelest month – at least for us in the northern hemisphere. We’re surrounded by nothing but grey (and not the good kind): short days, long nights, and not much in the way of shimmery snow and invigorating crisp cold. Cheery? Not so much.

So, rotten November, my mucky motivation for today posting this happy pic; I’m sure November exists as it does to encourage our yearning for times like long August days and for places like Cafe Gandolfi (and, by the way, for their unsurpassed Stornoway black puddings – avec champignons [of course - just sayin']).

We know you can’t have your peaks without your valleys and November – and, um, early December – counts as a valley!

On reflection, I’m reminded, too, in part from this photo, that friends and family are everything.

Bring on the Yuletide season!

M.

So I’m just now going through my pics from worlds week in Glasgow. And I come across the stupidest picture ever (not really): a picture of a meal I was about to choke down. I remember taking this pic, feeling slightly ridiculous and self-conscious, hoping no one would notice, and, clearly remembering, too, that amateur food pics on a digi-cam always look nauseating – no matter how fantastic the real thing. I do seem to recall someone at the table saying, “WTF are you doing?”

This is lunch in the Station Bar adjacent the National Piping Centre. Across from me is Colin MacLellan, beside him is Cameron Drummond (who had just played an excellent recital at the NPC), and across from him is his dad, Ian. Allan MacDonald is sitting on a pulled up chair to my left, having just dropped in for a sandwich only minutes before the food came.

The grub here is the special of the day, “Macaroni and Cheese”. It was delicious. Let’s have a look at Mikie’s vacay calories:

A. Salt and pepper: the real spices of life; in easy arm’s reach, and ready to ensure daily sodium levels are maintained. There’s no life without salt.
B. Pint of Tennant’s Extra Cold. Something light and effervescent to wash down the cheesey goodness. Not just that, the heart-healthy effects of beer make men 30-35% less likely to suffer heart attacks. Slainte mhath! [240 calories]
C. Macaroni and Cheese: comfort food deluxe and full of necessary “brain food” carbohydrates. [700+ calories]
D. Chips: OK. The tipping point for this lunch. At first glance a nasty add-on. Not atall: rich in vitamin C, Iron with hints of calcium and vitamin A. Get it in ye! [350 calories]
E. Salad: The delicious tomato jumps off the plate and offers a vital anti-oxidant – and lycopene. A great benefit, especially for men in my family. And the roughage. Think of the roughage.

Anyway, there you have my August 11, 2011, Station Bar lunch. Not a meal I’d generally come across in my neck of the woods, but that’s the point of travelling, isn’t it?

And, anyway, food is always the second course to the company. And this time it was first rate.

Buon appetito.

M.

Pure quality.

Better, I guess, than “plays like a bagpipe, sounds like a flute”.

M.

And what’s that percentage? GHBs represent about 0.0014931492726393354 of the world’s population. More or less.

Should pipers feel vulnerable? I think I really refer to the pipe and not the piper so, I put it this way: is the playing of the GHB an at-risk art form?

I’m not sure. In a way, I guess, the GHB is extremely vulnerable: the music is very loud and in-your-face. It usually takes patience and thought to take in, understand and appreciate — all rare commodities in our modern, urban, short attention-spanned world. Oh yeah, and not many people play the GHB.

Bagpipe music is not pop music. It never will be. It’s a genre of folk music that survives in the twenty-first century world thanks to passionate pipers [and competitions - note to self: blog this subject]. Sure there are a few parts of the world where the GHB will always find a welcome home and a place to be heard, like, say, the north of Scotland, but a continued and thriving global GHB depends on passionate pipers, particularly those who teach.

I used to teach a lot. Teaching bagpipes kept a little money in my pocket through my late teens and well into my twenties. I had the time, interest (and need for cash) that provided the push that saw me teach scores of pipers. It takes time and real energy to devote quality teaching time to an aspiring piper. Today I wish I had more of it. But we all do what we can and most of us contribute to the art form the best way we’re able.

Passing on what we know to other pipers is vital for a continued and vibrant art form, one that the GHB represents.

Hats off to those of us who devote time and energy to teaching, to creating a new generation of GHBers. If you can, teach.

For me, yep, I’ve always kept the group teaching, the workshops, going but can say today I have only one pupil.

Well, it’s a start.

And for a look at what triggered today’s homily, here’s one of my prize pupils, Jenny Hazzard of Woodbridge, Ontario and Edinburgh – one of the best pipers anywhere. I stumbled on this photo today.

Here’s Jenny playing one of her first tunes on the pipes, performed in the basement of my parent’s house on Coppermill Drive, Toronto:

She’s hardly changed a bit! Go Jenny!

M.

From time-to-time, in the last year, I’ve heard the hint of a piper from the other side of the course [I'm super lucky, I think, my house backs on a golf course - though I don't golf]. Anyway, over the summer I’ve occasionally pulled weeds to the far-off strains of ‘Barren Rocks of Aden’ and other assorted tunes of glory – a very good thing, I say. Anyway, I’ve also heard chanter strafing. It’s the only phrase I can think to describe it.

C.S. is not pretty. I’ve done my share of it, no doubt. But man-oh-man, when you hear it repeatedly, well, it’s absolutely repellent. Not a good bagpipe marketing ploy. In C.S. it’s like a piper’s hands are squeezing out every drop of bottled up and mostly-insane nervous energy. Not melodic. Not rhythmic. Not pretty.

I wonder today why we do it (and we all do it). I’ve heard inexperienced players do it, I’ve heard gold medallists and world champion pipe majors do it, and, as I said, I’ve done it. It’s a bagpipe thing. Why?

I can only think that we chanter-strafe because we marvel that our fingers move at all. We need to know, before we play a tune, that there are in fact nine notes on the chanter. We strafe in a sort of celebration that the notes are roughly in the right place, from a pitch perspective. We strafe our chanters because we can.

C.S. may not sound great but our reasons for doing it seem sort of reasonable. Just sayin’.

M.

I remember, a couple of years back, standing on at the side of Loch Langass in North Uist and sending and receiving BlackBerry messages. There I was, standing on a pretty great example of desolate landscape, a heap of land in the midst of the North Atlantic, and still, there I was, in “real-time” contact with most of the rest of the world. That’s amazing. Really.

Think about it: it wasn’t until 1956 that direct overseas dialling came to be [think, too, on that "dialling" point, how many of us are now adults and have never "dialled" a phone]. Until 1956, all overseas calls were operator-assisted [and more piping trivia: D R MacLennan, half-brother to George Stewart, won the Oban medal, that year, in 1956, his double gold medal year].

Technology has brought most all of us so much closer together and I have to think it’s a really good thing. I guess, how close is too close, too much, is maybe a thought for another day.

Just a reflective thought for a really lazy Sunday afternoon.

M.

M.