Adventures in Judging Piping & Drumming (and a photo)

Aside from getting a front row seat to good music, the best part about travelling around the place judging pipers and drummers is the people you meet. At its heart a good pipe band is a social club and that goes, too, for the judging game. While judges in most places are compensated for expenses and receive a fee, most don’t sit in judgement for the money. Travelling to games usually involves some degree of tedium – a little traffic here, a crabby border agent there. Its new friends made and old friendships renewed that is the best part of judging (that and the always five star accommodation, of course).
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Antigonish 1996: Not all 3-pace rolls

Among my stash of digitised VHS video is a good few hours of footage from the Peel Regional Police Pipe Band of my time as Pipe Major. The band then – as it is today, it seems to me – was well-travelled. With the exception of my first season (Antigonish!) we hit the World Pipe band Championships in Glasgow every year. In fact, its amazing to say now, as I think back, we even managed to make trips to Scotland for championship contests TWICE in the same season (Ayr and Renfrew) – to be clear: the band travelled to Scotland twice in the same summer. The commitment from this group was remarkable. It doesn’t take much thinking to reflect on the sacrifice members (and their families) made financially. And, for that matter, its true, so many bands do today – though – I, wonder, as a by-the-way, if that is diminishing a little.
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Happy Birthday: Live your life and forget your age

In my usual January Glasgow itinerancy I happened to meet up this late afternoon for a catch-up with a Scots friend, in this case, young Callum Wyndd. Callum, you may know, is a real up-and-comer in the solo piping world and a person I came to know as a member of the Glasgow Police Pipe Band (as the band was then known).
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D R MacLennan: Solo piping innovation in 1928!

On the last day of the calendar year I offer a genuine curiosity: a recording of what is likely among the earliest recordings of the Great Highland Bagpipe played alongside other (non-bagpipe or percussion) instruments. This 78 RPM shellac (pre-vinyl) recording from 1928 stars a luminary from one of the great piping families of the last 200 years in Donald Ross (“D R”) MacLennan.
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1970 World Pipe Band Championship Programme

You may have heard of the 1970 Worlds tribute band that has been formed to perform at this year’s World Pipe Band Championship in Glasgow, August 12-13. Rab Wallace has provided the back story on his site, Piping Press.
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Worlds Week Beckons: Rottenrow, Glasgow 1992

The World Pipe Band Championships in Glasgow, Scotland, is looming large. Its set to go August 12-13 – just days away. Starting around now pipers, drummers and their supporters from outside of Scotland have begun making their way through what we’ve heard to be an unpleasant steeple-chase of under-staffed airports and, likely, less-than-smooth travel experiences (an aside: I’ve travelled from YYZ to GLA twice since October of last year: all has been fine – touch wood – so good luck to all, there’s hope).
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Full Concert: Live in Ireland 87 in HD (from Glasgow Royal Concert Hall)

A recap here for context for people not aware of this project:

Reid Maxwell and I were judging, September 2013, at Canmore Games in Alberta, Canada. In between bands Reid spoke of an Eagles concert he’d recently seen on Netflix and in that, the thought was triggered: wouldn’t it be great to play that 1987 “Live in Ireland” recording again: reprised and live – a sort of tribute band thing, a celebration of the music.
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A grade one medley: looking back to 1997

Here’s another from the bag of newly-digitised video: from the grade one contest at the Highland Games in Chatham, Ontario, Canada. Here in full flight is the band I led at the time, the Peel Regional Police Pipe Band. Geoff Neigh and Willie Connell can be seen among the judges (both now, sadly, no longer with us).
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Scenes from Cambridge Highland Games (1989!)

I’ve just had a bag full of old VHS videos digitized. They’ve been kicking around collecting dust for years; after having sourced a place for a digitization job for The Pipers’ & Pipe Band Society of Ontario, I thought I’d get my lot done at the same time.
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A Banff Huff

It doesn’t matter if its parliament, a corporate board room, a church group or a pipe band, there’s at least one thing people have in common when they gather (oh, to gather): the huff. Huff is a funny sort of word. One syllable. It’s like one of those words that sounds like what it is – onomatopoeia. So huff, a mood of sulking anger, resentment.
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