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.

- John Dryden, English poet (1631-1700)

M.

This photo is full of neat little details like reeds, mandrill and manuscript on the table; discarded coffee cups under the chair. Oh, and I note that students wore a kilt to lessons. I think today a chavy track suit is about as good as lesson gear gets.

Interesting to note, too, (just can’t resist pointing out) that John MacLellan played a standard-sized practice chanter. I see I have my standard-sized R.G. Hardie in hand – the same one I still use today (“we’ll have none of those over-sized chanter monstrosities”). The best technique is, of course, nurtured on the standard-sized practice chanter. To hear recordings of John A., and his impeccable technique and now a photo of him in mid-tune on a standard-sized practice chanter is further evidence supporting this truth.

Anyway, a self-indulgent photo – but one I thought you’d find of passing interest. With that slightly sour puss I’d have to think I was being majorly corrected for a serious piping misstep. A photo for a “caption” contest?

By the way, summer piping (and drumming) schools are great things: you’ll learn – of course – but you’ll also experience fun that will be remembered a lifetime and, if you’re lucky you’ll make lifelong friends.

That’s my summer piping school experience.

A friendly suggestion, too, to not forget to occasionally let the camera capture those special “background” piping moments.

Thanks, Colin!

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.

No matter how much water you drink after there’s always teensy, tiny little nut bits at the back of the throat firmly in place and ready to ignite a coughing fit mid-tune.

Nuts. Like a well-played strathspey, the eating of nuts needs to be well-timed.

You heard it here first.

M.

PS. Bonus tip number 2 of the day: Keep a tasty bag of nuts in the sporran on games day for sharing with fellow competitors.

This piece has me and Colin Roy MacLellan playing our hearts out in the March event at Oban. The video speaks for itself. If any piper should ever get uppity about the piper`s true place on the world stage of music, videos like this will quickly bring them down to earth.

Can you imagine the best pianists or violin players – or didgeridoo players, for that matter – having to lay out their music interspersed with`fun-runs`, hill races and caber tosses?

Me neither.

M.

“It has long been an axiom of mine that the little things are infinitely the most important”, said Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes. That’s true in transforming a performance from excellent to great. And true, too, for improving stage presence. In solo piping, “stagecraft”, as Scott MacAulay used to call it (the first person I ever heard use that term in a bagpipe context) is one of those things pipers usually figure out long after the “A” and nearer the “Z” end of their performing life.

A few random thoughts:

• When performing, if not marching or moving to a slow tune, face the audience
• On entry to the performing area, especially if the room is of a different temperature from that of the final tuning area, do not instantly reach for the slides and adjust your drones: play 8-16 bars of something engaging (not jarring) to the audience and then tune – no jigs and reels at tune-up
• Never tune with your back to the audience
• Aim to tune your instrument with a collection of notes that have some sort of (pleasing-ish) melody; try and develop something you can rely on for each tune-up and stick to it for every performance. These notes will become your tune-up security blanket
• Do whatever you have to do to get your instrument in tune. If this means stopping the bass and a middle tenor and tuning one drone at a time than do it. Unless the whole contest plays with an out-of-tune instrument you will be wasting your time trying to make music on wailing pipes (and getting rewarded)
• If you make a mistake don’t blink an eye. It’s all about a “poker face” – just like the song. Most judges will give a competitor the benefit of the doubt – if there is any doubt
• If you’re lucky enough to have one, acknowledge the audience on entry to the competition area – and when you’ve completed your show. Not necessarily a deep Japanese bow, a respectful nod.

Oh, and on entering the competition area, acknowledge the judge guy. A nod will do here, too. S/he’s got to listen to your pipe stylings, too. Sometimes that’s a fun thing – and sometimes it’s not. Recognize that truth with some sort of nominal recognition.

And remember, if it was easy, everyone would do it.

M.

Happily, my shift didn’t start until the afternoon of January 2, 2000, so I was good to go and enjoy the passing of the millennium as I pleased. And my choice happens to kick off my list of memorable musical moments of the “noughts”: 2000 through to two days from now:

And my list in rough chronological order (note: these spring first to mind and I wouldn’t be surprised, if I tried again, the list might be slightly different):

10. New Year’s Eve 1999. James and Jan MacDonald host one of Vancouver’s most famous Hogmanay doos. The hoi polloi of Vancouver’s piping and drumming community all find their way to the MacDonalds. This special year I managed to snag an invite and subsequently flew five hours west to be part of the fun. What hosts. What fun. A remarkable midnight marchpast of our throw-together pipe band with members including Pete Aumonier, Jack Lee and Angus MacPherson will never be forgotten. Good people; good times. [by the way, for fans of the movie "Whisky Galore", James MacDonald is the wee baby in the carriage in the scene where his dad, Neil Angus, plays at the réiteach].

9. Recording Shambolica! and Jane Siberry, July 2001. I was awfully lucky to engage a pile of talented people to work with me on Shambolica! and one of my all-time favourites was among that group. There’s something about Jane Siberry’s voice that moves me. She’s a national treasure – or, more rightly, an international treasure. She jammed her eclectic backside in Bryan Greenwood’s studio’s sound booth and for six straight hours made amazing music. Her work on “Nut Brown Maiden” is electric.

8. Bruce Gandy’s Gold Medal-winning performance, Northern Meeting, Inverness, September 2003. Bruce and me go back a long way and while we’ve always been intense competitors (especially with each other) I was thrilled to be there for his winning tune. One of those performances that fires on all cylindars and can’t help but win. “The Rout of Glenfruin” was the tune, for the record – a tune that should be played more, I think.

7. Colin MacLellan’s Clasp tune, “End of the Little Bridge”, at the Northern Meeting, Inverness, September 2003/4 [Colin, nor I, sure of the date]. What a tune. This tune was edge-of-your seat stuff. Tempo, rhythm, drama, all falling together in one rare and fabulous explosion of pibroch playing. People who hate pibroch should’ve heard this tune.

6. Field Marshal Montgomery Pipe Band tuning up for the World Pipe Band Championship, Glasgow, 2007. FMM are the poster people for precision and musical intention. Listening to them prepare for their world-winning performance: an indelible memory.

5. A week in Glasgow with the 78th Frasers (Halifax Citadel) Pipe Band, 2007. As a traveller to Glasgow for piping and pipe band events the 2007 trip with the Halifax Frasers, a great band I “guested” with, will be hard to forget. I can’t speak for any other time but in August 2007 this band had magnetic and percolating pipe band chemistry. What a great time. Win or lose, this was a great adventure with great people – one that sustained the whole week’s visit.

4. Toronto Police Pipe Band playing off the field at the North American Pipe Band Championships in Maxville, Ontario, August 2008. The park had been beset by hurricane-like rain and the usual (fantastic) performance spot had been moved to a farmer’s field – or what felt like a farmer’s field. The crowds were right up yer backside and well in to their rain-delayed cups. This was the year of “Variations on a Theme of Good Intentions” and marching off with Padrig Sicard’s Breton march will never be forgotten.

3. Ruth Sutherland’s singing of, “Tuireadh Mhic Criomain”, at Scott MacAulay’s memorial gathering, November 2008.

2. The Toronto Police Pipe Band’s playing of “His Father’s Lament for Donald MacKenzie” in the car park of Lycée Des Métiers Marie Le Franc in Lorient, France, August 2009. A strange moment. No one around. Our band manager, Jack Wield, ex-Edinburgh Police Pipe Band, thought the same. He said, “My God, that was beautiful”. Goose-bumpy.

1. OK. This isn’t in order. And, its not a bagpipe-y sort of thing. But a bit of a confessional: One of the most memorable musical moments for me may not’ve been in the bagpipey world. Here is k d lang:

All the best!

M.