Cheap air travel is well and truly a thing of the past – unless you’re maybe travelling on your own with your luggage in your pocket.

Knowing this it strikes me event organizers will have to take this unfortunate newish reality in to consideration when planning financials. Just sayin.

A pub crawl on the Grassmarket calls …

M.

PS. As some in the band found, for individuals, it’s £10 for every one kilo over the alloted 20 kg.

Assuming the contest remained in Glasgow the Royal Concert Hall complex might be booked for the main event. The main stage for the senior grade finals and the less large rooms for carefully scheduled band tuning assignments. Other stages in town could be engaged to allow the full roster of events. Not enough appropriate stage space? Erect a honking big tent, like the Piping Live! stage in George Square, for instance, and build the space needed.

Yes, I know there’s a lot of logistics to overcome to make an Indoor Worlds happen (or, under cover, at least). But I know most bands would appreciate it and the move indoors would undoubtedly elevate band musicianship even higher.

And the pipe band cape carrier? S/he’d fade into the mists (and heavy rain showers) of memory.

To all the bands on the weekend: good luck and stay dry – on the outside, at least.

M.

The comment is meant to be the apex of praise meaning “you’ve played like me, welcome to the rarefied world of me”…or something like that…the comment assumes that the person writing the crit sheet is the last word, the sole arbiter of good style, good music. And, I suppose, strictly speaking, a piping judge is just that, for the time s/he is sitting and taking in a competition.

The you’re-playing-like-me comment is, of course, meant with the, um, best intentions, but I wonder: if that is the best of golden praise is this kind of comment helpful in the broader context [corporate-speak alert]? I suppose from the point of view of those who view bagpipe music as a sort of precious museum piece; a static, unchanging, and slightly fragile thing, well, this comment works – it makes sense: we’re all “tradition-bearers” dammit and the tradition must be passed unchanged from one generation to the next in a bullet-proof box (maybe one like that natty Louis Vuitton World Cup trophy case).

For me, comments like this are not helpful. Bagpipe music is brilliant. A tip of the hat to the Scots, inventors of the modern world. Like the people who invented it the music is resilient, formidable and, like all great art forms, tailor-made for evolution. It stands on its own without any need of the good-intentioned propping up of judges or Gollum-like fawning.

Yesterday I read a comment on one solo piping judge’s scoresheet: “engaging”. Great comment. I suggest the listener’s engagement, the degree to which a musical rendition moved a person, is one of the best – if not the best – criteria for assessing the merits of a musical performance.

It’s not often easy to keep an open mind. But when it comes to listening to music, at least, an open mind is a state we should all strive for.

Easier said then done.

M.

From my earliest piping years its been Blair Drummond: A tune that’s both a perennial pipe band March, Strathspey and Reel favourite and a tune at the top of any top solo piper’s competing strategy.

I’ve always thought of BD as a great tune and yet if you’re to google “Blair Drummond” there is zippo bagpipe-pipe band-drum reference until around about the one hundred and tenth entry. Eek. And that reference is a year 2000 world’s CD.

Anyway, I’ll say now that Blair Drummond hasn’t found it’s way on my list by design. It’s been by chance. The tune is not one of my solo favourites. Yet, due to its six-part nature (and, therefore, part of a small and select group of pipe band repertoire) it’s the trophy wife [husband? Blair is a bit of a masculine given name, to my mind] of untold competing pipe band’s competition sets. In my many years playing in grade one pipe bands, there are few where BD wasn’t a featured strathspey. In fact, the 78th Fraser Highlanders of the olden days won a worlds with BD.

Anyway, a just a thought for the day – a hot day if you are in my neck of the woods.

I hope that the tune at the top of your own most-played list merits its place.

M.

So, on the strength of a shitey, heavily compressed, one-sided YouTube view of the band Rab fires off unhelpful words of derision — promising, no less, to feature more insightful gems in his mag around the dire state of Toronto Police and our ilk.

How disappointing. Not that Rab hates our stuff (and, apparently, the rest of Ontario’s grade one band’s medley efforts – more or less), but that he’s calling us out almost three years after the Internet hullaballoo of “Variations on a Theme of Good Intentions”. I thought Rab and The Piping Times were on top of what was happening. Evidently not the case.
And to be clear to those not in the know, the bass drummer of the Toronto Police Pipe Band may well be a “witchdoctor” [two words, I believe is more correct] – who knows – but one thing I do know: she is no “he”. Reagan Jones is a marvelous musician with a degree in music, to boot – something that can be said of very few of us.

Anyway, odd, too that Rab would publically insinuate what was going through judge Kenny Eller’s mind as he adjudicated. For the record, here are summary words from Kenny’s very professional, constructive and most helpful PoPo adjudication sheet: “…complex counter-rhythms very pleasing” … “well orchestrated” … “superb rhythmic entry…” … “rhythm plus…”a pleasing performance…”. I find it jaw-droppingly surprising that the Principal of Glasgow’s College of Piping would write such editorial without meaningful insight.

A final thought. I scrolled though Rab’s blog and there’s a raft of recent entries that impugn Canada’s piping scene – Ontario’s anyway. A casual reader of Rab’s words would almost think Canada was in the World Cup final against Scotland (laugh out loud here).

All this is to say, what a shame. Our world is small and we look to great institutions like the College of Piping, and its leadership, to rise above the fray and raise us all higher. Not knock down pipers and bands – and friends.

M.

PS. If Rab hates this year’s PoPo medley effort, let’s hope he doesn’t seek out “Idiomatica” !

- John Dryden, English poet (1631-1700)

M.

In this list I’ve stayed away from competition winning streaks; I’m not sure record-breaking fits in that well with the definition I’m using: those moments that might be defined as “highly original and influencing the development of future events”.

So here’re my five “seminal” moments; I haven’t cast them in stone, of course, and these could all change tomorrow:

1. Friday, Janaury 18, 1901 – 9:30 pm – MacDonald, Morrison and Norris meet in the Horse Shoe Bar, Drury Lane, Glasgow and devise the three pace drum roll to the bagpipe ‘E’ note to commence the pipe band performance of a march tune alongside a strathspey and reel. Pipe bands never looked back.

2. Saturday, June 22, 1957 (month/day to be confirmed) – Drumming maestro Alex Duthart, with his drum corps of Shotts & Dykehead Caledonia Pipe Band, wins the first of his 14 world drum corps championships. This moment marks the sort of official comming of age of his pipe band drumming style. A virtuosic and musical way of scoring and interpreting that is standard today.

3. Monday, September 21, 1959 – 12:15 pm (date/time to be confirmed) – Bob Hardie agrees to take on the leadership of the Muirheads & Sons Pipe Band from Jackie Smith. Pipe Major Hardie builds on Smith’s already excellent band to create a legend. Hardie’s band creates a sustained level of musical excellence that is reflected in their refined musical phrasing, sophisticated technique and tight unison. Without Hardie and Muirheads we would not see pipe bands evolve as they have.

4. Saturday, August 13, 1983 – Boghall & Bathgate Caldeonia Pipe Band play their medley at the World Pipe Band Championships begining with the “The Big Road Brusher”. This excellent tune, written by accordion player, Bob Abbott, marked the beginning of a generation’s worth of medley openers and created, it might be said, a new form: the pipe band “marchpipe” or “reelpipe”. Here’s a 1984 rendition:

5. Wednesday, August 12, 1987 – 8:00 pm – 78th Fraser Highlanders Pipe Band, concert in Ballymena, Northern Ireland. This evening represented the output of a dynamic musical collective that was the band at that time and signalled a change in the way many pipe bands build and portray their music [full disclosure: I was part of the band that played this show].

I can think of at least five other moments but blogs work best in fives, don’t you think.

You’ll have your own moments, I’m sure.

M.

It wasn’t until the mid to late 1970s when people like Gord Tuck in Ontario and James Warnock in Northern Ireland (and others) started building chanters made from high density thermoplastics like Delrin and Polypenco. These new chanters, cheap and durable like an old Ford Fiesta, allowed the broader pipe band world easier access to unanimous pitch. The plastic chanter became a sort of equalizer, raising the quality of pipe band sound across all levels of proficiency and ability.

2. Synthetic Drum Heads: Invented in the 1950s (Wikipedia says the Mylar drumhead was invented by Chick Evans in 1956 – so who knows) the impervious nature of the synthetic drum head was a lifesaver for pipe bands. Until then heads were made from natural materials like calf skin or something equally susceptible to environmental changes. Think of the number of times you’ve heard a band play in pouring rain – or – start a performance in dry conditions only to have the weather turn torrential. Today, when that happens, drum tone changes very little. We can thank the synthetic drum head for that.

A corollary invention might be the Kevlar drum head. Kevlar has been around since the late 1960s but only came to pipe band drum heads in the 1980s. The result was a potential for higher pitch and more complex scoring.

3. Synthetic Drone Reeds: The guys in the band know my feeling about cane reeds: not worth the pain and aggravation. Flicking, rolling, snapping, starting, drying, rebridling, caressing, cajoling, hair-ifying, the list of negatives is effing endless and outweighs any positives by a country mile. I can imagine that there’s more than a boat load of pipe bands who have lost championships due to the fickle unreliability of cane reeds (I’m talking not just of roaring and squealing drones but also instability of tuning). The stratospheric benefits of the synthetic drone reed to today’s solo piping standards is a story for another day. I can’t praise the synthetic drone reed enough. I believe it was Mark Wygent of the U.S. who developed the synthetic reed in the 1980s with Glasgow’s Ronnie MacShannon and company being among the first to perfect the reed in the early 1990s.

Oh synthetic drone reed! Where were you when I started piping? I would’ve learned so many more tunes and practiced so much more (and probably had so much more hair today) had I not been forced to fiddle with bespeckled cane nasties.

4. The Korg Drone Tuner: I remember Ed Neigh’s Guelph Pipe Band of the 1980s as the first to use the big, grey, Soviet-looking Korg drone tuner. “Har, har”, we’d all laugh, as Ed and Pipe Sergeant Jim McGillivray speedily tuned the band to refined perfection. We were pipe band goofs who didn’t know better.

The tuner, like the plastic chanter, has brought the sound of even the least proficient bands up a notch – or ten. When I think about it – the advent of the electronic tuner could easily slip into number one spot on my wee list.

5. Cheap Air Travel: When I started in the pipe band game air travel was not common. It wasn’t uncommon. But it was not common. The competing bands of the world did not travel to Glasgow with any great regularity. Overseas trips were events and not, as they are today, akin to a July jaunt to a local cottage or summer place. There’s an implicit assumption today in many of the world’s competing bands that membership means personal commitment to an August trip to Glasgow. The effect of that assumption is a note for another day, but because of cheap(ish) air travel, that’s the way of it.

Still travelling today may be cheaper compared to times past but it sure is a lot less fun: no smoking cigars at the back of the plane (with drink in hand) or pipes strafing jigs at 10,000 metres – it’s all about removing shoes and belts and all the rest of the (now) usually torturous security rigmarole.

When I read today about great bands like the Australian Highlanders having to pass on the Worlds due to travel cost I have to think the winds of change are blowing and maybe Glasgow’s Worlds may be in the midst of a regression to past times.

Anyway, my point is that cheap air travel, to now, has brought the pipe band world closer together. It helped build friendships and it helped in the exchange of music and musical ideas. Even more than the Internet. Yes, I did consider the Internet.

There you go. Five things. Maybe a little food for thought to think of your own.

M.

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.

While she convalesced she gave concerts around the world presenting music composed especially for the left hand – though she used her right. Her story is an inspiring one. As she recovered she progressed from “left-handed” Ravel and Prokoviev compositions to the more familiar two-handed compositions on which she has built a career.

Today she spoke of one of the biggest professional changes that occurred as a result of her health problems: Fialkowsaka no longer agrees to play music she doesn’t like.

The standard way of things in the classical music world is something like this: a soloist is called up and asked to perform with an orchestra. The soloist is given the music to be played. And that’s it. You learn the music and show up and play well (one hopes) and get paid. Don’t like the music you’re meant to play? Tough. “Suck it up, princess”.

Fialkowsaka says now when invited to play she acknowledges the repertoire request but, if she doesn’t like it, she tells them and suggests what she will play. Apparently orchestras work with her – no probs. “I play better and audiences are happier,” she says.

The piping parallel is crazy clear.

I was thinking of all the sub-par, damn-near crappy tunes I’ve had to learn over the years courtesy of set tune lists – “The Blind Piper’s Obstinacy”, anyone? And I think Janina F has it right. Wouldn’t the world be filled with much sweeter music if musicians – and pipers – could play the music they pleased?

The same thing happens in bands, of course, but bands are not democracies. A talk for another day.

M.

PS. You should be able to listen to this show by podcast. Have a listen.