Odd to me (and that upper case “O” would stand even without kicking off a sentence) that the new leadership of the GC, namely Rodney MacDonald – himself a terrific fiddler – should give the big welly boot hoof to piping and, seemingly, Highland dancing. Gone from the curriculum is Great Highland Bagpipe music as played around the world and in its place something called “Cape Breton piping” or “kitchen piping”.

I can guess what is meant by “Cape Breton piping”: it’s essentially bagpipe music that evokes the fiddle and, some might say, the sounds of Gaelic language. But “kitchen piping”? Kitchen piping as we know it today are words used in the wider piping world to describe showy, usually newish, music performed in an informal setting – like the kitchen (hello!). While “kitchen piping” may’ve been a phrase used for eons it’s only been in the last 20 years or so that the phrase has gained any general currency. I’ve never heard it used synonymous with bagpiping in CB.

The best player of piping in the CB style that I know is John MacLean, an old friend who now lives outside of Halifax. John’s Dad was a fiddler but John’s bagpiping was developed in a world of rich history and strong musical discipline: the competitive bagpipe world. I think back to the comment made to me this past summer by the great South Uist piper Rona Lightfoot, “you can’t make much music without some technique”. John MacLean is an example of a piper with strong technique that has easily adapted to the piping-fiddle style needed for supporting music for dancing, or “square sets”. I can tell you: of the relatively few pipers with connections to CB, John MacLean’s technical excellence is not common.

From my earliest experience journeying through CB I could feel a strong sense of the bagpipe as made for steerage and the fiddle first class. Yes, CB experienced great luck in landing expert old-school (nineteenth century) pipers on her shores, but that excellence was never sustained. Perhaps the fiddle co-opted the greatness of the old pipers. Certainly without bagpipe music the Cape Breton fiddle repertoire is but a hollow stump. And not just old bagpipe music: we commonly hear the brilliance of “competitive military-style pipers” throughout the CB fiddle repertoire: “Kintara to el Arish” (William Fergusson, 7th H.L.I), “Inverary Castle” and “John MacDonald of Glencoe (Willie Lawrie, Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders), “John Morrison, Assynt House”, “The Conundrum” (Peter R MacLeod, Scottish Rifles) – this to name but a tiny few.

There’s great glory and tradition and, dare I say, Gaelic-ness to today’s “competitive” bagpipe music. It’s a rich, lively tradition with huge vibrancy. It evolves. It moves forward. It influences, even CB fiddlers – whether they know it or not.

A shame the GC has sought to look further inward as the institution, assumedly, seeks to grow and move forward and be acknowledged as relevant both to CB pipers — and those beyond the Causeway.

St Ann smoke signals suggest this is unlikely.

M.

I take good manners over (good-intentioned) “political correctness” anyday. What can beat good manners with a splash of the golden rule?

So we come to Halloween. You may’ve seen the recent bit of news around the students from Ohio University and their well-meaning Halloween “we’re a culture, not a costume” ad campaign. The campaign was, or is, intended to underscore the huge offense in firing up Halloween costumes that promote cultural stereotypes. Images of Mexican, African-American, Japanese and Native, or aboriginal, American were among those put forward.

Now there’s no doubt, to my way of thinking, that there is merit, in seeking to educate people about offensive cultural stereotypes. But all this press, this talk, this noise, got me thinking: what’s with the on-going societal permissiveness of British-based stereotypes? Really.

This may be a surprise to UK readers but to Canadian and American (and Australia, New Zealand and, perhaps, assorted other Commonwealth countries) this is real: the cheap, er, “frugal” Scot, the drunken, fight-ready Ulsterman and the snooty, emotionally cold Englishman are all common themes on the storyboards of most global advertising agencies. Fair game. And no one blinks an eye.

While today a kid doing the Halloween rounds dressed as James Fenimore Cooper’s Mohican, Chingachgook, may be totally and completely politically incorrect, it seems odd to me that it’s all well and good for that same kid’s pal to do the rounds as Austin Power’s Scottish “Fat Bastard”.

What a complicated world we live in.

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, 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.

Anyway, I say you can either play in a band – or not. A band is a fragile thing. A band is a crazy little ecosystem. An ecosystem: a system formed by the interaction of a community of organisms with their environment. Yep. That’s a pipe band. When it comes to a healthy pipe band and a membership that’s firing away on all cylinders I say it’s chronically crappy attendees that are the global warming to the pipe band “ice cap”.

In the reality that is the pipe band world of the 21st century there will always be valued members of the pipe band “ecosystem” that have been granted by membership sporadic attendance status due to distance, or, some seriously extenuating situation. These are exceptions to the rule. [A funny thing, from my experience: these exceptions would be "core members" should they reside closer to the pipe band home.]

Anyway, in the end, it’s really simple: you can do it – or you can’t.

As I trudge forward, gain a bit of what I hope is wisdom, it seems to me, more and more, that the true definition of a good pipe band differs very little from that sometimes said of a good friendship: one feels better after having spent time with a good friend. So true of a good pipe band, regardless of experience level.

If you avoid pipe band practices – or anything – or anyone – for that matter … time to make a change. If it really is worth doing, it’s worth doing right.

Making good music with like-minded people is a very special thing.

One to be treasured – not avoided.

M.

It’s on these pages that bands usually learn what adjudicators thought of their competitive performance – and, by the way, it’s from these pages that pipebandspeople generally judge adjudicators. I’m a sentimental sort, believe it or not, and have, truth be told, quite a few pages dating back to my earliest times with bands laying around the old archives – and some recent artefacts, too.

As I came to the very end of this past contest season I came to reflect on what made up a good adjudicator’s sheet.

Sheets are always passed around the band and it struck me that not all members value the same comments. Yeah, drummers tend to focus on percussion [hello!] and pipers on piping. But when I thought about it, it struck me that really, it was the overall band comments that most often caught the attention of pipebandspeople – generally speaking.

When I say “overall” I mean comment that either provided insight on ensemble, the overall ability of the band to engage the listener, or comment that somehow came across in a way that pulled the band — or “tribe”, if you will — together. I’ve observed that should comment from any one judge be viewed by band members as patently unfair the outcome usually sees the band pull together in a sort of collective indignation. Bad sheets can be a weird sort of team-builder.

“Bass drum destroying the ensemble”, “snare phrasing completely undermines melodic line”, “a completely dispassionate performance” and “musically devoid” are possibly imagined examples of “bad sheet” that effectively team-builds.

I like sheets that reflect the personality of the assesor – unless, of course, s\he’s an unhappy, miserable, unhelpful sort, then, not so much. In my part of the world, at least, it’s not completely out of the ordinary to read a comment from a piping judge that goes something like, “Bill missed the attack” or “Jenny’s harmony effort really worked for me” or “I thought Bruce was going to hyperventilate by the end of the performance”. It’s a small world and I’m good with judges naming names when comment is passed along in a collegial, fair and respectful way. These sample comments are all fictitious, for the record – but, I assure you, I’ve seen variations on all of these sorts of comments – and then some. I’m sure you have, too.

Anyway, just what makes good pipe band score sheet comment? The kind of comment that connects with bandspeople?

I suggest comment most valued by pipebandspeople has characteristics that include:

First and foremost, jargon-free notes around fundamentals, the “media”, the instrumentation and technique used to create the music: Impartial comments that assess the objective mechanics of the performance: Did we play unanimously [oops, jargon-alert, I mean, did we play together]? To what degree were we tuned? Did we sustain that tuning? Judges that have the ability to clearly and unambiguously portray an assessment around these elements score big-time with pipe band folk. Should they miss this – and they do – and have – they are usually summarily proclaimed incompetent (to put it in a PC way).

At the same time – I hesitate to say “secondly” – judges that have the courage to state a musical bias while stating informed musical reasons for that bias are usually appreciated – or – at the very least, remembered. We’re talking an assessment of music, after all. A good judgey comment in this department, to my mind, might go something like this: “march unsettled-feeling; pipe corps lacking unison due to phrasing ahead of the beat, especially at PM’s side of band”. This would fit in a sort of primary musical comment category. A secondary category might be around a melody or musical passage: “on first listen the repetitiveness of ____ tune’s phrasing left me cold”. Or, better yet, a positive musical comment: “the surprising minor-major key change to the second melody moved me – love it”. If comment is stated respectfully it really is hard to fault.

So what makes a good pipe band score sheet? Considered, fair, balanced and, I say again, respectful comment around mechanics and music. I think that’s it. To somehow portray listener engagement would be fantastic but really, for now, I suggest pipebandspeople would be happy with a fair and respectful shout out around mechanics and music.

And by extension? What makes a great pipe band adjudicator? A person who not only capitalizes on their experience but rises above that sphere of experience and reflects, processes and considers a result in a way that demonstrates intellectual and personal integrity. A person who has demonstrated a love for the music by being a life-long student of the music and not a self-proclaimed life-long authority on the music. It’s a tall order and, happily, most of the adjudicators I have encountered around the world fit this category.

It’s the very few who fail miserably. To those few I point to Van “the Man” Morrison for inspiration: “You can’t stay the same. If you’re a musician…you have to change, that’s the way it works”.

Give me the argument against that.

M.

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.

I obviously have zero understanding (nor do many outside of Google, apparently) how the algorithms work to make Google’s search engine so effective. But I’d have to think that previous searches and the general popularity of a search subject have to come in to play.

So what gives with “bagpipe cartoons”? What do people want with “bagpipe cartoons”? What do they do with these things (aside from tarting up whingey blog posts)?

Man, bagpipes need some new PR.

M.

Facebook, MySpace and all the other online “time-wasters”, surely take up more and more of our prime living, breathing, thinking time. I use the internet a lot. It’s an important tool for my work, my job. I probably use it more on-the-job than off. I’m fairly sure I’m near the top of my demographics’ internet usage stats.

No matter how we spend our time, especially our “free”, non-work, non-family time, we know that it’s finite – there’s only so much of the stuff to go around. I wonder if the internet, while a fantastic medium to connect people, may be having a negative impact on the quality of other “free time” pursuits; think pipes, drums.

Really, think about it: if someone is frantically clicking away on Facebook, regaling their friends with weather updates, their moods and the pork chop in the pan for supper, then you’d have to think that for the average user, more Facebook — for example — means less attention to other things, like music-making – and thinking about music-making. From my experience, when it comes to creating music it is the thinking part that is more important than the making part.

Just a thought.

A little book I’ve always enjoyed is Angus Macpherson’s autobiography, “A Highlander Looks Back”. In a cultural context, a bagpipe context, he writes of another time and place: the nineteenth century Scottish Highlands. I wonder if his time was more conducive to great music-making than ours:

“As a very willing pupil by the peat fire at Badenoch, I was initiated into the mysteries of piobaireachd, my tutor being my father, a product of the MacCrimmon school of Skye. In this modest school of learning, I have seen men who after a hard day’s work, walk ten or twenty miles for their ceol mor lessons, no matter what the weather, and in the small hours of the morning, after Highland hospitality and the environment of the good old-fashioned ceilidh, they would tread their homeward way with their minds steeped in that which conveys to the Highlander something which nothing else can.”

Not so much time in those days for Facebooking, “Mike is happy that the grass is cut”.

M.