Colin was quick to nix the texting. I was incredulous ["ooooh, incredulous!"]. And didn’t I experience the same damned thing just the other day while doing my best to pass on what I was able during my own lesson.

I don’t really think young piping people – or maybe just young people – think too much about it. There’s an obsession to check the phone, to respond, to make sure they know their friends know they’re alive. But when it comes to the phone thing, do what you like, wear your thumbs red raw, just don’t do it during a piping lesson. It’s a sure-fire strategy if you’re looking to get fired.

Be in the moment. The moment is what’s real.

M.

Anyway, he’s put an item up this evening that is quite amazing, at least to me. Up for auction is a genuine miner’s canary cage, used for centuries by miners (until 1986 in the UK) to enable early detection of lethal gases. It wouldn’t be much of a life for the poor little yellow bird but a useful life in the extreme. My dad’s offering is nineteenth century vintage and there for the taking. It’s most interesting to me, I think, because it represents a really common saying: “like a canary in a coal mine“. And here we have that old expression fairly spring to flight.

To keep in line with usual blog blab I think I really have to tie this to a piping thingie. So, “a canary in a coal mine”: are there things in the piping and pipe band game that might be likened to canaries in coal mines? Early warnings?

Random, off the top of my big square head:

- Games and competitions disappearing
- A reduction in the number of bands – everywhere (especially in the higher grades)
- Continually low attendance at the annual general meetings of governing organizations – everywhere
- Pipe bands competing with rubber drum pad “covers”

I’m sure there are others. You’ll have your own thoughts, I know.

M.

Here’s the work of Italian-American artist, Cyrus Cuneo (1879 -1916). This image represents the famous Sir George Simpson, the Dingwall-born (Scotland) governor of what was once known in Canada as Rupert’s Land, an unbelievably massive expanse that surrounded Hudson’s Bay.

George Simpson was the formidable head of the Hudson’s Bay Company, one of the oldest companies in the world and today one of Canada’s biggest department stores (they’re not paying me to say it, but it is a good store). He was apparently an eccentric type, loved the pipes, and so would have them, and a piper, close at hand on his travels – including those in the deep Canadian wilderness [why is it eccentrics are so often the go-to bagpipe lovers of the world?].

Like pipers in some parts of the world – like, say, Cape Breton – who prefer to play sitting down (surely an open invitation to hemorrhoids, by the way), I can’t imagine much fine technique, tuning and rhythm happening while playing pipes in a canoe.

But we’ll see. I hope to report back sometime over the coming warmer months – at least sometime after the spring thaw. Who knows? Maybe the whole canoe experience will prove to be the optimum bagpipe playing place.

Funny how people from the modestly-sized Dingwall can sometimes be the most interesting.

M.

Willie is said to have told the well-known piping enthusiast, Major-General Frank Richardson, that he had won more prizes with the two-parted strathspey, “Balmoral Castle” than with any other.

I’d have to think he played it “twice-through” – at least.

That wouldn’t fly today in a strathspey and reel contest, by the way. Not recommended.

M.

Here’s what I found – more or less: I’m reminded that competitors, especially amateur competitors, take what a judge writes on a score sheet to heart in the biggest way. Comments from judges can occasionally out-sway anything a teacher – in this case, me – has directed. For instance, if a judge writes something like, “more pointing in the second phrase of the third part of your march is needed”, I’ve found that it is not uncommon for pupils to go nuts and go beyond what’s been directed and point the bejeezuz out of the noted phrase – because that’s what was noted on a hastily scrawled score sheet.

And one of the downsides of adjudicator sheets? I can’t say absolutely but it feels like in some cases the crit sheets provided by judges create a sort of FrankenPiper: music ends up being made outside the direction provided by the teacher and built around the synthesised feedback of ten or more judges. So we have performances adjusted to reflect the feedback of a pile of judges [random thought: a herd of cows, a parliament of owls, a flock of seagulls, a controversy of pipers ... what might a group of judges be called? There must be something better around than "a pile of judges].

Judges only hear what’s played on the day – that tune with nerves, background noise and any number of distractions and challenging playing conditions. That performance may not be close to what your teacher has taught – or your best.

We need to consider the opinion offered up on score sheets. Score sheets are invaluable, by the way. But unless you have bolts at the sides of your neck and a great big scar across your forehead below your balmoral you really need to listen and trust your teacher.

M.

We’re coming up to the bagpipe competition season and everyone who aims to seriously take part is hard at it trying to make the best music they can.

Today’s May first – a big day for those of the Pagan persuasion (Beltane and all that) – and a slew of other groups of varied and disparate kind. Maybe a few of you rushed out early this morning to wash your faces in May dew – an apparent tonic and secret to youthful appearance [by the way, the May dew thing seems to be working for me, as so many of you can clearly see, just an unsolicited tip].

But for me the month of May has always been the start of the outdoor bagpipe competition season. My first outdoor contest was in May. It was at “Alma Highland Games” [and that seems weird to key in as Alma is a pokey little place in the middle of the American state of Michigan - not so highland] where I launched my solo competitive piping effort.

It was 1977 and Star Wars was the movie tearing up the global box office. Me? I was playing “Hills of Perth” at Alma for Bob Worrall’s teacher, the Ulsterman, Bill Millar. And here’s my score sheet – or what’s left of it:

So, in case you have trouble reading Bill Millar’s infamously poor scrawl – and – the text tears of the old score sheet – here’s what he said:

“This boy needs more practice”

Break – 5/5 [Hello! No breaks in the performance of one march - 5 outta 5!]
Time – 8/10 “Expression is lacking” [the highlight of this score sheet]
Tone and Tuning – 12/25 “Pipe chanter very sharp on top; drones no’ in tune”
Expression – 13/30
Execution – 13/30 “Execution is very ragged”

So, all in all, a score sheet to toss in the bin. I didn’t. As you see, I have shreds of it now. Like almost all constructive criticism I’ve received – and continue to receive – I took it at face value. And practiced. Practiced my face off.

In 1982 I again went to Alma games, five years after my unsuccessful rendition of “The Hills of Perth” and won professional prizes – at my first outdoor open contest.

I add this little factoid with a view to encourage people – I know it appears as something less noble, but it is here to point out the power of practice. Really.

Yes, maybe Bob Worrall and Jim McGillivray blootered it up, paving the way for my wayward entry to professional prizes – but that’s not my point. My point is practice delivers great rewards: win or lose – with practice, better music is made.

M.

Hope you enjoy the tunage.

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.

M.

From “Nine Blasted Notes“, the dance remix of “End of the Road” (featuring Paula Lynn Walker). The hornpipe is my tune, “The Anne Spalding Hornpipe” – score here.

End of the Road

Ev’ry road thro’ life is a long, long road,
Fill’d with joys and sorrows too,
As you journey on how your heart will yearn,
for the things most dear to you.
With wealth and love ’tis so
but onward we must go-

Chorus
Keep right on to the end of the road, keep right on to the end,
Tho’ the way be long, let your heart be strong, keep right on round the bend.
Tho’ you’re tired and weary still journey on, till you come to your happy abode,
Where all you love you’ve been dreaming of will be there at the end of the road.

With a big stout heart to a long steep hill,
We may get there with a smile,
With a good kind thought and an end in view,
We may cut short many a mile.
So let courage ev’ry day,
Be your guiding star alway-

Anyway, get out those fancy pumps and dance!

M.