The visit last weekend began with a piping clinic in an upstairs room in a pub in Manhattan. We had 12 attendees. My co-presenter, Jim MacGillivary, Ontario, began with a detailed look at technique.
He urged everyone to set time aside each day for work on scales. Single gracenote practice was very important too; our movements, when broken down, all comprise these essential embellishments after all.
By the Editor
Scales should be practised religiously and with rhythm, slowly at first. Jim cleared up the confusion over what he means by beats falling on gracenotes. More accurately, it is when the gracenote strikes the chanter.
As everyone should understand, this means that the actual formation of the gracenote has to start before the beat note it is played on.
Poor technique, said Jim, bends the shape of your tunes – the melody altered as you struggle to get the work in. Slow down if necessary and use a metronome – it’s never wrong.
Treat the strathspey exercise as a GDE, not as a doubling on C or B followed by the E gracenote on low A or low G.
Jim then took the class through Scotland the Brave, emphasising where the beat fell, and why it was important to take your time until you had it in perfect symmetry.
Two hours of solid advice; more people should have been there to take advantage of it.
Afternoon, and it was my turn to take the floor. My main thrust was in the necessity of a quality instrument. There was nil sense in having a pipe that was difficult to blow. It discouraged practice.
If you were given a hard reed by the pipe major and didn’t want to muck around with it, then get a solo chanter and an easier reed and use that for practice. It would be money well spent.
Above all it was vital to be comfortable with the pipe, one of the most difficult of all the instrumental family to learn properly. Take a pride in it and always try to look the part. Cords properly distanced, hemping neatly done, metalwork burnished, head straight, shoulders back, right size of bag and blowstick.
I then went through all the sets of pipes present and with a few adjustments managed to get them sounding better. We finished around 4pm and met up again in the evening for the judges’ dinner – Brooklyn Games were the following day.
How pleasant to see Jim Wilson again after a huge number of years. We remembered him beating me into second in the B Piob at the SPA about 50 years ago.
A wet day for the games but not too cold. I judged the Grade 1 Piobaireachd and Jim MacGillivray the MSR. The Champion Piper was John Hughes (a commendable Glen is Mine) and he now gets an invite to Eric Stein’s competition in Florida in November.
After the solos we had four Grade 5 bands to judge in pouring rain. I did ensemble, Paula Glendinning piping and Gordon Bell drumming.
The winners were Joe McGonigal and his St Columcille training band from Kearny, New Jersey (see pic above). Piping Convenor Gerard McStubi presented Joe with a new trophy donated by Eric and his wife Maureen. It was modelled on the Empire State Building. Maureen’s grandfather worked as bricklayer on the famous landmark back in the 1930s.
Order your digital edition now…just click here or on picture….
Detroit Highlanders, Barlinnie Highlander… the list goes on…
