Dunaber Music » Delightful Data of the Day

For the Love of the Pipes

Michael Grey — Mon, 04 Mar 2013 00:13:42 +0000

I recently started teaching a young fellow in town [and to give you an idea of how close he lives to me this is what he said at his last lesson: “I see you were having work done on your house this week...” Welcome to small town life.] Anyway, he’s a keen piper (redundant words, I know) and full of enthusiasm to move forward, to get better.

We were talking the other day. I asked him how much he practised.

And what follows is pretty much how the conversation went; and get ready for a surprise ending …

“About a half hour a day”, he said. I told him that wasn’t enough. He needed to bump that up to at least an hour.

He then said, “Well I’ve always been good at regular practice – expect for a three month time last year.”

“What do you mean?”, I ask.

“Well, I broke my neck and couldn’t play.”

Gulp.

Now this kid is the picture of teenage health – no sign of any illness, let alone a broken neck.

He then proceeds to tell me in the most nonchalant way the story of his broken neck. It went something like this:

“Me and my friends were playing around on a trampoline at a summer party in Lynden. I was jumping on the trampoline and fell; my ex-girlfriend was jumping, too, except she landed on me. I could hear my neck snap. I felt weird and knew something was really wrong.”

And here is the kicker:

“The first thing that went through my head was, ‘will I play the pipes again?’ – the second was, ‘will I be able to walk?’”

Now isn’t that something? To walk or to pipe? Breaking your neck must stand as the ultimate acid test for true love of the pipes.

His story has stuck with me. Like most stories and like most things that happen to others we know, they, one way or another, find a way to reflect on us – and we, of course, reflect: “how would I handle that?”, “what would I do?”, “could that happen to me?”. And so it goes. I’ve thought about his story more than once since his telling – and I told him so yesterday at his lesson – at the same time he gave me permission to pass along to you.

So there you have it; take from it what you will.

A Halloween Tumshie

Michael Grey — Wed, 31 Oct 2012 19:08:30 +0000

I’m often asked, believe it or not, what the words are that kick off the “Sergeant Malkie Bow’s Consternation” tracks from my Shambolica! and Unqualified Favourites recordings. For the record, the words are, “Mikie, it’s Malkie, you’re a big tumshie…”.

A tumshie, you may know, is a Scots word for turnip and often used in a light derogatory way – if such a way exists – as in “goof” (used by Canadians), fool or numpty, another Scots word.

In honour of Halloween and the old Scots tradition of carving turnips, or tumshies, for Halloween lanterns here’s a tribute to William Henry Hunt‘s, “The Turnip Lantern” (1838).

A real tumshie, for sure. If the candle fits …

Martian Marching

Michael Grey — Mon, 03 Sep 2012 22:33:45 +0000

At it’s closest Mars is just over 56 million kilometres from Earth. If you could walk at a fair pace, say 6 and a half km an hour you could do the Earth to Mars trundle in about 4000 years.

If you had a car and were driving from Earth at a good highway clip at 110 km/h or so, you’d arrive in Mars 228 years after departure.

If a bagpipe bass drone under average tuning conditions is 80 centimetres or so, let’s say a metre, to help my math (and it’s always needed help), then it would take 56 trillion (56,000,000,000) sets of pipes with their bass drones all lined up, to connect Earth to Mars.

You needed to know that.

M. (is for Mars)

DDD: Signature Tunes

Michael Grey — Fri, 13 Jul 2012 14:51:50 +0000

Most musicians have music that is associated with them, either through performance or composition. For the pianist Glenn Gould, for instance, it’s his interpretation of Bach’s “The Goldberg Variations“.

For legendary Scottish piper, Willie Ross (1878-1966), it’s the march, strathspey and reel set: “Bonnie Anne’, “Balmoral Castle” and “The Grey Bob” [random: I've an Uncle Robert].

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.

DDD: George Stewart McLennan

Michael Grey — Sat, 07 Jul 2012 00:15:35 +0000

Here’s something you may not have known about the great piper and composer (“The Little Cascade”), George Stewart McLennan (1883-1929):

He was five feet, two and a half inches tall.

Another example of great things coming in packages that are not always the largest.