Band Travel

A quick note as I sit in a sunny Glasgow cafe digesting the entertaining editorial that was the band’s score sheets from yesterday’s contest in Dunoon (what a great day, by the way – congrats to Boghall! I’ll share more when I have easier access to technology).
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Just as I Would’ve Played It

A while back I was going on about how I thought most of us go about listening to music – specifically, bagpipe music. My ramble was around how we should try and get over the discomfort we feel (that’s the delicate way of putting it) when we hear musical interpretations outside of what we’re used to hearing – or playing.
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Rab Wallace / College of Piping Down on Canada?

I was at band practice today and one of the guys mentioned they’d come across a blurb on Rab Wallace’s blog where he slagged off the Toronto Police Pipe Band. How odd, I thought. Rab’s always been nothing but a professional when it comes to providing considered opinion. Anyway, I’m home now and checked out the offending words. And surprise: they’re offending. Here’s one of his entries:
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5 Things that Revolutionized the Pipe Band

I was building a list in my big square head – perfect, I thought, to note here: “Seminal Moments in Pipe Band History”. Anyway, as I started thinking and writing I found two lists developing: “inventions” and “moments”. My “seminal moments” sit in a draft file, the easier list is here. So here, I suggest, are five of the most important inventions, or developments, that went a long way to make the modern pipe band the impressive thing that it is today.
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Pipe Bands: Wisdom of the Ancients

A sample here of the blindingly obvious:
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10 Favourite Musical Memories of the Noughts

Yikes. Its two days to 2010. Cliche alert: it seems like yesterday … we were all freaking out about the apocalyptic possibilities of a new millennium. Then, as now, I was working in the technology field and clearly recall being assigned a “war room” shift. For those not familiar with the tech business staple of system recovery, the “war room” is a small group of multi-skilled people charged with restarting failed computer systems. I was the scribe of the group (an important role, of course). With black marker at the ready I was set to record the crashing systems and falling sky. Continue reading 10 Favourite Musical Memories of the Noughts…

Pipe Bands and Political Parties

One of the few purely academic things I remember from my time grinding away at university and studying political science is about political parties; specifically, the definition of political parties. You’ll know political parties are about bringing together like interests, promoting those interests and engaging people to a level that makes political authority happen. Political parties are about aggregating interest. Simply put, political parties are about bringing together people who think the same way.

It strikes me that pipe bands are no different.
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Memorable

I write this while standing outside the entrance doors at Paris’ CDG airport; a cloud of smoke enveloping me as a dozen smokers take their last, desperate pre-flight drags. The flight home awaits but not before a few moments of quiet(ish) reflection.
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Lorient Cheese Nazi

Just as you should expect the music at the festival is superb. I’m still savouring the great tunes delivered by the first grade bagads at Saturday’s competition. It seems to me the best bagads play with a level of musicianship that exceeds even the best of pipe bands. It’s inspiring.
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Off to Lorient

The band’s away to France tomorrow evening and we’re all pretty much set for nine days of music and, we expect, a lot of fun. Most of you will know the Festival Interceltique in Lorient is our final destination. This year marks the 39th year of the festival, and with attendance figures topping over 650,000, the “FIL” has become one of Europe’s largest music festivals. Continue reading Off to Lorient…