Hope you enjoy the tunage.

M.

M.

First up, Home Depot, that huge North American mecca of all that’s DIY. I needed a light switch cover. It’s pissing rain, I aim to be in and out in a few minutes and carry on. In I go. First off, as I pass through the door, there’s a pimpley-faced guy in his early twenties with a fist full of flyers and a way-too-cheery “welcome to Home Depot”. Yeah, whatever, thinks me, as I stare fixed on my mission and rudely (yet supportively of Home Depot) carry on. So I grab my $2.98 purchase and head to the cashier. And what awaits me?

“Hi there, did you find everything you were looking for today?”
“Yup”, says me.
“Are you paying with your Home Depot card today?”
“Nope. Debit.”
“Would you like to get a Home Depot card?”
“No”.
“Can I have your postal code?”
“NO”
“Do you need a bag today?” [our so-green part of the world charges five cents for every plastic carry bag used]
“NO”

I manage to make my way out of Home Depot without a Home Depot credit card and a marginally increased level of crabbieness (crabbitness to some).

On to Chapters, the bookstore (bookstores of a similar size in the UK would Waterstone’s or W H Smith, Collins in Australia).

I picked up my purchase and walked to the cash, dreading, every step – and I mean this – that I’d get the infamous/dreaded (to us locals) cashier who asked twenty questions before taking your dough.

The dreaded Chapters cashier was there but fate smiled on me and I got “Betty” to take my order. Betty: a late middle-aged disciple, as it turned out, of our infamous long-winded Chapters check-out person (name witheld – but believe me, she is infamous amongst people I know in the area who shop at this store: a cashier to be avoided at all costs).

“Hi there, did you find everything you were looking for today?”
“Yes.”
“Can I interest you in a rewards card?”
“No.”
“Are you aware that the reward card benefits… ”
“Yes.”
“Oh, how would you like to pay?”
“Debit.”
“Can I have your postal code?”
“No.”

Everyone I know hates this kind of invasive questioning. Why, oh, why do these places do it? To encourage online buying?

A check-out at one of these places is worse than being held at the line at a big pipe band contest. Really.

OK. So there is a bagpipe connection today.

Have you considered signing up for Dunaber reward points?

M.

Let’s take a pipe band’s traditional “number one” dress: ostrich feather bonnet, bi-coloured horse hair sporran, diced hose, white spats, a plaid that might double for a train at the right big royal wedding and, of course, a seven-yard wool kilt (multicoloured, of course). Could anything else scream, “look at me”, more?

The true number one dress would see pipers with officer-sponsored drone banners and ribbons over cords – but let’s stick to old-style civilian number ones. The bass drummer, too, and often tenor drummers, would see themselves festooned with leopard or bear skins, trophies or acknowledgements from overseas campaigns, if a military band.

With all do respect to this waning number one dress tradition [and full disclosure: I lived this for a while as a member of the Pipes & Drums of the 48th Highlanders of Canada] the old way saw pipers tarted up to the nines. But boy, is it ever an old tradition that impresses when in full flight. To this day the number one-dressed piper remains the general public’s stereotypical piper image. I can hear Alan MacDonald now talking the real Gaelic tradition but let’s leave it for a minute and say these Victorian English inventions, adaptions if you will, have found a place – like it or not.

Since the earliest months of this year I had it in my mind that the current incarnation of civilian pipe band “costume” – and that is what it is – wasn’t cutting it. The tartan of the kilt and colour of hose were really the only items where a band set itself apart. Sporrans all leathery and head gear all Glengarry boat-like. And the ridiculous trend for “Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer” snowman waistcoats? It’s like we’re all wanting to be butlers or something. I think we’ll be laughing at old photos one day soon, like we do now when looking at big 1980s hair and super-skinny ties.

What about bag covers? Surely we can do better than monotone velveteen bag concealers? We’ve seen leopards and ostriches thrown into the mix of pipe band gear – horses of every colour, too – what’s wrong with sexing up the bag cover? Not so much – I suggest.

So. I had a zebra patterned cover made. I had four made, in fact. They look smashing [by the way, do you know smashing, like “galore” is, in fact, a Gaelic word?]. Zebra patterned bag covers are surely a tame affectation, especially when compared to eighteen inches of ostrich feathers on the bean and a few handfuls of horse hair below the belt. Er, you know what I mean.

I’m on a mission to convert the band to zebra. I don’t anticipate success. But I suggest to you all: go crazy on the bag covers, express yourself, be true to your type-A ostrich-wearing, leopard-toting forbears and set yourself free!

Whatever. Papa’s got a brand new bag.

M.

Anyway, the piping and pipe band world is full of secrets; most all of them little unsaid, unspoken bits and bobs that sort of make the whole twisty piping world turn round. Of course they’re unsaid, I know – they’re secrets – but many of these secrets come to be known by those of us who hang around the game long enough. Here’s one I learned very recently only after the holder of the secret was in what I suspect was a weak, heat-addled, beer-infused moment.

I’m going to share this secret with you today.

Maybe I’ve been out-to-lunch and oblivious to the ordnariness of what I’m about to tell you, a well-kent obviousity – more common knowledge than secret. Whatever. Here’s what I’ve recently learned:

On hot sweaty days in the summer – or anytime, I guess – many (many) people evidently wear a garment commonly called “spanx” under their kilt. This spandex delight apparently prevents chafing and painful TCHR (thigh-centric heat rash).

Anyway, I thought this pretty funny; funny in that lower-case ‘f’ way. But funny. Maybe because its not a kilty-piping issue I wrestle with.

Whatever. If chafing is getting in the way of your marching and phrasing and, um, pipe major-ing, on you go and get yourself outfitted with a funky pair of spanx.

Stay cool.

M.

Anyway, Georgetown put it’s usual classy right foot forward and, this time, organized a neat moment of recognition for Bill Livingstone. This note isn’t about Bill’s many [many] accomplishments. It’s about a well-placed good intention. The Georgetown games folk are thoroughly dialled in and, again, they stepped up and recognized a moment to do the right thing.

In part, courtesy of a rendition of the famous pipe-bandified Boys of the Lough “Mason’s Apron”, the closing ceremonies saw Bill recognized by band members past and present. The whole thing turned out to be a lovely gesture organized by Sue McCarroll and the Georgetown games committee.

The whole experience got me to thinking: aren’t we really shitty at recognizing – I mean, really, recognizing by thanking people. Especially in our sometimes “mental” competitive world of bagpipes.

Bill deserves his big, bold tune of thanks in the sun – but so, too, do a good many others.

Time to get the lead out.

M.

M.

Anyway, my bit was a comparative look at pipe band ensemble. I checked out competitive orchestras – yes, they do compete – American high school concert bands and British brass bands. I learned a lot in my seeking out of information related to other competitive musical worlds. For instance, I can now tell you with great certainty that it’s scarily, freakishly and jaw-droppingly amazing how close the British brass band world mirrors that of the pipe band. Maybe a blab for another day.

But one of the biggest surprises, or “a-ha moment” is related to music copyright [here's me grabbing the chance to poke fun at corporate jargon: for those not exposed to the lingo, an "a-ha moment" is what people in corporate meeting rooms everywhere, it seems, say when they learn something new].

I’ve always imagined myself pretty savvy when it comes to copyright. I’ve a pretty good understanding of my rights as a composer, a publisher and what needs to be done when I make a record. But I’d never thought much about the licensing of music when it came to the subject of live piping, or pipe band performance. We so easily bend to the path of least resistance – the way it’s always been done. Sometimes, anyway!

Other competitive musical worlds – like those mentioned here – slavishly follow the laws of copyright to the letter. All scores must be provided in advance of a contest. Proof of publisher’s permission to both reproduce scores (those scores provided to adjudicators) and perform non-public domain compositions live, must be given to event organizers. This requirement is provided plainly in the rules of entry – not talking fine print here – it is baseline info provided up-front on entry forms. Penalty points are assigned musical combos that fail to follow copyright rules.

When it comes to copyright generally and performance licensing specifically, the piping world and, especially, the pipe band world, well, like a stop sign in Italy, it’s viewed only as a suggestion.

What exactly am I talking about? Well, consider this from SOCAN, Canada’s performing rights organization (and there’s an agency for anyone in the world looking to be aligned with one). These agencies exist to help protect the intellectual rights of composers and help get them what they’re due. They collect licence fees, as set by their national or organizational copyright board, from anyone playing or broadcasting live or recorded music.

In Canada, according to the Copyright Act, any public performance of copyright-protected musical works requires a licence. The Copyright Act is law. So, when a song – or tune – gets played in public, music creators (not just the performers) are entitled to collect their licence fees. This is the way of things in most countries; certainly so in Canada, the U.S., New Zealand, Australia, South Africa, France, Italy – and the United Kingdom. The list does go on.

Not unlike high school concert bands competing in the United States, pipe bands pretty much everywhere, need to have publisher’s permission, or a publisher’s license, to perform a musical piece. All those ditties we play at pipe band contests the world over – the ones that are not seriously oldie-goldies, like Scotland the Brave, need a license.

Like it or not, without a license, we’re breaking the law.

And that is the truth.

M.

I’d have to think I’ve been both. I’ve been at this game a good while and would be prevaricating in the worst way if I said otherwise. I’d like to think those crap moments in my career were closer to my inexperienced early days. Probably not all, though. C’est la vie. Welcome to the human condition.

And what prompted this Sunday confessional cum sermon? I’ve been cleaning out the office [see last blog entry] and found a shiny little gem: A genuine 78th Fraser Highlanders Pipe Band “Canada’s Wonderband” button! The talk of the town in Chicago in July 1983.

It was early days for the Frasers and we were full of piss and vinegar – among other stuff. A couple of people in the band had this great idea to whip up “promo” buttons to hand out to [what we naturally assumed would be] the adoring crowds of the big Chicago pipe band contest.

So that’s what we did. We sort of CharlieSheened ourselves – and learned, I think, a lesson in humility.

If any pipe band, or anyone, has their sights on a victory, the first thing you should do, if you don’t want to win, is hand out buttons and flyers saying you’re the best – or Canada’s “Wonderband”.

The Chicago contest was one of only two the band lost in 1983. Blame the buttons? Maybe not. But they sure didn’t help.

Looking back I cringe at these buttony things. But, you know what, they sort of represented a passionate iconoclastic ethos.

And so I say, bad idea, good intention.

Everything aside, I do know that the words “win with humility and lose with grace” is a clichéd line for good reason.

M.

I always thought those old cheesy Japanese movies from the 1950s might benefit from a little kick, a little something to give them a boost. I’m not talking Seven Samurai or Rashômon here, I’m talking about movies like those from the Godzilla and Mothra franchises (did they call ever call old movie serials “franchises”?).

Anyway, I thought how great it would be for one to snag a pipe band soundtrack, music to go along with the badly dubbed English.

There must be something about the Japanese language that offers much less concision than English. It must take way more words to say in Japanese what might be said in English. Lips always seem to move long after – a second or two – the English dubs are heard.

Here’s a little something to pass a few minutes of your time. The soundtrack is the Toronto Police Pipe Band from their “Live at the el Mocambo: Raw and Off the Floor” recording from last year. You can download tracks here.

楽しむ

M.