Learning to play the Bagpipe

I was watching the ads appearing on the side bar here and I saw one for”learn2pipe” a DVD tutorial by Pipe Major R Pinkman. Well… I decided to give it a try.

It was without doubt the best $40.00 I have ever spent! Mr. Pinkman’s course is complete, sufficiently detailed, and VERY well illustrated. He walks you through the very basics of holding the chanter properly, finger positions on the chanter, the scale, grace notes, doublings, triplings, tachums, grips or leumluaths and toarluaths and includes a nice repertoire of tunes. Naturally you must provide the effort to practice.

Now, will this make you a piper in 48 hours? Absolutely not! But, if you live far from a qualified instructor as I have for most of my life, then this is the very best alternative I have ever seen and I must tell you I have tried many. If you treat each lesson as a private tutoring session, practicing diligently each week in between, you will amaze yourself. In addition you will not spend much of your life as I have “un-learning” mistakes.

This package can be ordered at learn2pipe.com. Do not be put off by the basic nature of Mr. Pinkman’s web page; after all it is his teaching you are buying not his skill as a graphic designer. As soon as you make payment, you will be directed to a website where you can download the entire course onto your computer or play it directly from the Web site. The DVDs will arrive by mail with in a few days.

If you want to learn to pipe and for whatever reason can not get a qualified instructor then you must get this course. It is just that good!

Medeival experience in the 21st century?

And so, as I sat around I began to ponder….. How bad would it be to become a Ren Fair/SCA vendor? Have a small enclosed trailer to transport your pavilion and wares, traveling from one event to the next, and then returning home for the Winter. You could simultaneously sell your wares on Ebay and at the event, running all your credit transactions through Paypal or some such service.

A good source of inventory would be critical, from a wholesaler who could ship timely to different locations as you traveled. Deciding what to sell would be a challenge. Establishing price points for the product could also be an issue. There is also the merchant’s fee to consider as well as various local sales taxes. Also there is the cost of living on the road. I'm sure it wasn't this complicated in Middle Ages!

Wouldn’t it be grand though! I used to ride a motorcycle, and I attended many of the larger rallies. The merchants were always a main attraction. You knew they had substantial mark-ups, but it was all stuff you had never seen before. Very exciting.

Selling your wares by day, piping by the fire of an evening, all the while traveling the country with some rather colorful individuals.

Sadly, as a consultant by trade my first inclination is to develop a Business Plan, and then there goes the Majik!

First Bagpipes, now the kilt?

Mike,

I saw this on the internet,

"After all this, it is hardly a surprise to learn that the kilt and tartan, too, are not quite the Scottish traditions that they seem. Sad to say, the kilt was invented by an Englishman, Thomas Rawlinson, who came to Scotland in the 1720s to manage an ironworks in the Highlands. Rawlinson observed that while the actual native costume of the Highlanders — the long belted cloak called the plaid — might have been suitable for rambling over hills and bogs, it was "a cumbrous, inconvenient habit" for men working at a furnace. So he hired the tailor of the local army regiment to make something more "handy and convenient for his workmen" by "separating the skirt from the plaid and converting into a distinct garment" — the kilt. This symbol of Highland tradition, as Trevor-Roper notes, was "bestowed ... on the Highlanders, not in order to preserve their traditional way of life, but to ease its transformation: to bring them off the heath and into the factory." As with so many of the tales Trevor-Roper has to tell, the truth may not be as romantic as the legend, but its irony makes it no less compelling."

Ron F.

My god man, no one challenges our belief in Davey Crockette, Daniel Boone or Casey Jones! Reality is way over rated. Protect the legend. It's all that brings beauty to this otherwise drab existence. ;-)

15th Century Bagpiping anyone?

Well it looks like I’m in for a unique experience. I have been invited by Clan Amuck to attend the SCA War at Mormon Lake as their bagpiper. Period attire required. It immediately raises two questions in my mind. Exactly what pieces are period (14-15th Century) appropriate? And more importantly, is the bagpiper classed as a combatant?

The first question is not too great an issue as the Clan Chief advised me to just play “what ever”. Scots Wha Hae to march them into battle. Scotland the Brave and Minstrel Boy while they are flailing away at each other…. I don’t know.

The second issue though is of some concern, for both me and my bagpipes. I’ll need to get a little more information here! I think my youngest son has made the wisest choice, he is going as the Clan "Brew Miester" and entering the brewing competition. I guess the worst that can happen there is he could be carried off as "spoils of war".

Polish them drone bores?

Well, I don't know that there is an absolute "correct" answer, but here is what the lads on Bob Dunsire's forum seem to think!

"That said, there's no proof that highly polished bores create better tone. The old bagpipes, made on treadle lathes, don't have polished bores and yet they produce the best tone. Besides, the tuning chambers and drone bells don't have highly polished bores, and it's often said that these sections of the drone bore are what produce the better tone.Then again there are those who say 'its all in the longjoint bore.'
_________________________Iain Sherwood

A polished surface allows water vapor to condense far more rapidly than an un-polished surface because you're decreasing the surface area of bore.Compare this to frosted glass vs smooth glass. Water vaper condenses to form droplets far more quickly on smooth glass than on frosted glass.Mark


I remember a fad for drone polisishing some years back. Several Highland bagpipe dealers advertised the service. Aside from removing metal burrs and paper curls with pictures of queens and presidents from the drone who ordered the polishing, I never heard any improvement in tone. And not one experienced player I have ever asked has said, "Och, aye, you must get that done, and straight away!" Several suggested that they haven't even got a clue what their bores look like, really. As Iain, Richard, and Robin are saying, it may not do a thing for your tone. Do any top players swear by polishing?

Twenty years ago I polished the bores of my drones and noticed a slight increase in volume and brightness. I'm not entirely certain it was worth the effort. Mostly I concentrated on the bottom joints of each drone. I did the polishing with a piece of drill rod held in a variable speed drill. I wrapped the end with two sided tape and then twisted steel wool onto the tape to make a polishing head. With fine steel wool the effect is more of a burnishing than removal of material. I finished up with a twist of nylon stocking soaked in bore oil. The bottom joints came out very slick indeed.

From Bob Dunshires forum:That said, there's no proof that highly polished bores create better tone. The old pipes, made on treadle lathes, don't have polished bores and yet they produce the best tone. Besides, the tuning chambers and drone bells don't have highly polished bores, and it's often said that these sections of the drone bore are what produce the better tone.Then again there are those who say 'its all in the longjoint bore.'
_________________________Iain Sherwood


From Bob Dunsire's forum:
http://www.bobdunsire.com/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=462128#Post462128

New trends in Bagpiping

So where will bagpiping go from here? There can be no doubt that the main thrust for some time to come will be the traditional Bagpiping. Rigidly defined and steeped in the traditional image of the Bagpiper and the Bagpipe band. And this is as it should be. This is the image the public holds dear and conjures up when hearing bagpipes, and the public is the consumer. As in everything else, the marketplace defines the product.

But there seem to be new trends as well, as evidenced by groups like the “Bagpipe Barabarians” and “The Heathen Highlanders”. And while most bands now perform a version of Queen’s “We Will Rock You” (sometimes even in public), Rock and Country artists alike are beginning to explore the bagpipe’s potential .

As a child growing up in the USA I remember when the Guitar was associated only with “Cowboys” and classic Country Western music. Then folk artists, balladeers, rockers and new agers all grabbed a piece of it. Who is to say the same thing is not happening with the bagpipes.

GallowBlogging...: Bagpipe dream - glorious history of Scotland's iconic instrument is made up, says expert

GallowBlogging...: Bagpipe dream - glorious history of Scotland's iconic instrument is made up, says expert

Highland Bagpipers, a recent thing?

I couldn't sleep last night and so I spent some time banging around the net. I found an interesting article on a blog called the Ochophobist. It was in the April '08 posting, about half way down and titled Stage Highlanders, Triumph of Cheap Cute. As I read the article, the author is proposing that today's "Bagpipers" are a homogonized, "Disneyfied" invention of the Victorian era. My first thought was that this was bunk, but then I began thinking, how is it that bagpipers EVERYWHERE look so very similar? Why is the music so rigidly interpreted? It seems that the major difference between performances is skill and execution, rather than artistic interpretation. For example, if you were color blind how different would any two bagpipe bands in the world be? Food for thought. Why is it bagpipers wear kilts, how does that impact the music? It seems a little strange that a tradition supposedly going back 800 years, originating in extremely rural and remote glens and valleys would produce such a uniform and standard product. Now the author's assertion that bagpipes themselves were not invented until the Victorian era is clearly in error as there are historical references from much earlier periods. I'm willing to bet however that those Bagpipes and the GHBs we see today were very dis-similar. I'll bet the music was also.