Happy New Year to All

This is the last day of 2009, a great year for Smallpiping and Border Piping.  Here's to hoping 2010 will be even better.

Here's a few links to some great events I'll be attending (or trying to anyway) in 2010:


Golden Festival - My very favorite non bagpipe (well, actually there will be bagpipes!) event of each year.


Upper Potomac Piper's Weekend - ( I won't be able to attend this one, but you should!)


Celtfest Cuba! - I'm going to try really hard to make it to Cuba!   Yes, there is celtic-ness in Cuba!


Maine Pipes and Fiddle - The best two events of the year, of course.

http://www.peifiddlecamp.com/ - I'm really looking forward to this one.  The first Prince Edward Island Fiddle Camp.  But not just fiddles.  Smallpipes will be represented, including a few loaner sets made by yours truly.  Ward MacDonald, of Maine Pipes and Fiddle fame is running this glorious monstrosity.  I can't wait.
No link for it, but the Vermont Bellowspipe school is always a treat.

And of course:

Piper's Gathering

In addition to all these things, I will be slowly plodding through tunes to put together a tunebook.  And of course, 2010 should have the Elbowmusic Workshop producing a record breaking amount of Smallpipes and Border Pipes!  And maybe a third type of bagpipe . . . .

See you in 2010.

Nate

Maine Pipes and Fiddle Weekend

This was the seventh Maine Pipes and Fiddle Weekend.   It's amazing that we're not only continuing to hold these twice yearly, but growing in numbers!  The state of piping in Maine and the surrounding area is continuing to move in the direction we've all been hoping for: Smallpiping, PEI/Cape Breton Style!

Fiddle Class on Sunday Morning

Friday Night was the concert.  It wasn't as well attended as it has been in the past.  We inadvertently scheduled it the same night as two other local events.  But audience size aside, it was brilliant.  Pipes, fiddle, piano, guitar, bouzouki, harmonium, all came together perfectly.  It was amazing, really.

Ward, Ellen, and Owen on stage

Saturday morning (which came a bit early), found us all in class.  In the Smallpipes class we worked on "Keith and Kelly's", a four part jig that Ward wrote for Keith and Kelly, who host the instructors every year during the workshops.  We also talked a lot about key signatures.

Lunch we picked up from the local Co-op.

Best part of the weekend (that's my sandwich and cookie on the table)

Saturday afternoon we worked on Lady Carmichael's, a nice two part Strathspey.  And, like always, we worked on tapping our feet to strathspey time.

Saturday evening we had pizza (really good gourmet stuff) and tunes (also gourmet of course) at the Central Hall in Blue Hill.  Ellen had other business, but playing with Ward and Owen was a real treat.  And It was great to play old tunes and new with old friends and new.

 

Holly treating the die hard sessioners to a song as the jam was coming to a close.

After the session, I caught some of the Blue Hill Contradance.  I use to attend this, the longest running contradance in Maine, every month when I lived in the area.  Ward and Owen also played along with the band for a set.  Great stuff.

Sunday morning we learned "Last Summer's Reel", one of my favorite reels.  It's another tune written by Ward.  Ellen would rather teach us for "session friendly" tunes, but Ward's tunes are so damn good we can usually convince her to teach them to us anyway (if we beg).

After that, we all said our goodbyes, and another Maine Pipes and Fiddle Weekend had come to an end.

 

Filling out the survey.

Now I'd like to just mention a few things about the Maine Pipes and Fiddle Workshop in general.  Those of you who haven't attended the Weekend are probably not aware that this is not just a bunch of  totally separate piping and  fiddling classes.  We're bringing pipers and fiddlers (and guitar players) together.  We're teaching fiddlers what to make of these people who play such strange contraptions and pipers that they are musicians too.  Pipers tend to be on the fringe of the music world, so we're trying to bring them in out of the cold, show them that they are full members of the musical world, and give them the tools to talk to other musicians.  And, of course give or strengthen those tools for the fiddle students.

Movement for musicians class

In addition, there are a few big lessons that we want the attendees to take away from the weekend.  One of which is the relationship between musicians and dancers.  It's likely that many attendees will never play for a dancer, but we're playing dance music here!   Even when we're not playing for dancers specifically, we want people to want to dance.  The movement class gets all the musicians (fiddler's, pipers, and guitar players, all together) out of their seats,  and shows them what the dancers are doing (very very basically).   Then it puts them back in their seats, and shows them what their feet should be doing while they play each type of tune (Marches, Strathspey's, Reels, Jigs and etc.).  It's one of the many times during the weekend that sparks the Aha! moment for attendees.

Smallpipes Class

Another thing I want to mention, which is very closely related to the dancing thing, is the emphasis, during the entire workshop, on rhythm.  This was one of my Aha! moments.  Lesson one in rhythm is to learn to tap one's foot properly (as in the movement class).  It sounds simple enough, but to really do it right is not simple.  To do the heel/toe thing with reels for example, not easy.  I didn't think I had a problem with this, but I did.  This would take a whole book  to explain.  You'll just have to trust me that what most of us (by us I mean adult learners of dance music) are doing with our foot tapping is not enough.  The rhythm must be both internalized and externalized.  And when you really start to get it, everything changes.

For example, the smallpiping classes, like with most workshops,  are built around the learning of new tunes.  Now,  I used to leave from other workshops with a whole bunch of tunes I'd "learned," and then I'd  go back home to relearn them, so I could play them on my own.  But when I leave the Maine workshops, I leave with two or three tunes I know, and can play.  So when I go home, I just play them. What's the difference?  This rhythm thing.

When you teach students how to build a solid foundation of rhythm, and then help them build each tune on top of that (or maybe within it?), everything gets easier.  It' difficult to explain, but I can't emphasize how different this is, at least for me.  And how much it's affected my piping.   By just working on my rhythm, my gracings have become cleaner, the speed I can play a tune at has drastically increased, I can learn tunes much much faster, and I play more relaxed.  If you lay down a foundation of rhythm, and then build everything from that, it all falls into place.

Okay, rant done.  Go to Maine Pipes and Fiddle in the Spring.  We'll have the next date posted shortly.

youtube

A new owner of a set of my Pear Smallpipes has posted two clips of himself playing the pipes:

A chanter

D chanter

Not bad for only two weeks of playing them!

Samhainn tune

While getting into the spirit of Samhainn (the Cetic New Year, Gaelic for Summer's End), Tim Cummings has written (and played) a new tune based on the 13th century Dies Irae (Day of Wrath) chant.

"Dies Irae" - Timothy Cummings

Cape Breton Weekend

I went down to the Upper Potomac Cape Breton Fiddle Fest this past weekend.  I had a great time.  It was a very quick two days of music.   And it was my first workshop where I was solely a fiddle student.  

Wendy MacIsaac, and Kimberly Fraser 

 

It wasn't easy, but I got through all the classes alright and learned a lot about how to do some of the little things that make Cape Breton Fiddling sound like Cape Breton Fiddling.  I especially enjoyed Wendy's classes.  She has a very easy going and friendly way about her that put me at ease, typical cape Breton demeanor really.  

To other pipers thinking of learning to play the fiddle:  Do it.  It hasn't gotten in the way of my piping at all.  In fact, I think that fiddling has really helped my piping.  I've never felt more confident as a piper than now.   If you think of music as a valley that you can only see from the mountain you live on, learning to play a different instrument is like standing on a different mountain.  It just gives you a different view.  You can see different things from fiddle mountain.

There's me in the back with the blue hat.

We should all thank Joanie Blanton for putting together a great weekend.  I hope she gets more Cape Bretoners down soon.  Next music weeked for me:

Maine Pipes and Fiddle Workshop

I'll be bringing both fiddle and piping student hats to that one.  Everyone should come!

Just a quick note.  Here's a photo of me when I was trying to find a light source for helping me scrape a reed for Ms. McPhee's pipes.  Not ideal, but it worked!

Helper #1

I'm not making pipes fast enough, I know.  Life tends to get in the way, and I just can't increase my wait list fast enough.  Everyone wants a set of my pipes!  It's a great problem to have.

But I seem to have found a solution:

Meet Tony, a fantastic musician and the drummer with my favorite New York band Roosevelt Dime.  He doesn't play pipes (yet), but he's picking up all things bagpipe making quickly.  He's going to help me get caught up with my orders and hopefully even reduce that pesky wait list a little.

Thanks Tony!

Nice Article by my Alma Mater's Alumni Magazine

Here's the online version.

And here's the photo from it.  I love the 70's look.

D Chanter Clips

Finally!  I have D chanter sound clips up on the website.  Thanks again to Tim Cummings of Beithe Publishing for doing my pipes such justice.

Here's a sample:

The Calling

And here's a picture of Tim playing his pipes at the Vermont Bellows Pipe School in August.  It was sent to me by Christian Haerinck, fellow attendee and piper for the Quebec band Crepescule.

 

Tim is the bearded fellow.  The Piper between the two fiddlers is Ryan MacDonald, and the fiddler to her right is Sarah Hoy.

Big Sound, Smallpipes

Making a set of Smallpipes for Timothy Cummings may have been one of the best business decisions I've made so far. Tim has agreed to supply elbowmusic.com with a series of recordings made on his Plum and Antler A/D set. The focus of the recordings will be drone tuning possibilities. Since each of the drones on an A/D set of Smallpipes can play at least two different pitches, the possibilities for what drones to play are many. Tim must be excited about these possibilities because he's already sent me nine tracks and he's only had the set for three weeks.

For example, try "Breton Air". Here Tim plays a tune on the A chanter in Em with two E drones (alto and baritone drones) and on the repeat he kicks in the bass drone tuned to B. Not your Mother's drone tunings!

Or "Ebenezer" in B minor with just the Bass tuned to B.

Or "Passion Chorale" which uses the alto tuned to D and the tenor tuned G.

The first batch of tunes are up here. Keep checking in, Tim hasn't even gotten to the D chanter yet.

Piper's Gathering 2009

After driving back to New York from the Vermont Bellows Pipe School, and then up to Maine for a few days, and back down to Massachusetts and then back up to Vermont, I finally arrived at the Piper's Gathering on Friday evening, rather on time.

I'd had mixed feelings about attending this year's PG, as I didn't make any sales at PG 2008. But I'd signed up because my friend Ellen  would be teaching smallpipes. However, I was quite excited when I arrived having recently heard that Ellen was dragging down Ward, of Prince Edward Island, to play piano for her and that Tim Cummings of Vermont would be attending as a vendor. I could feel an unclosed circle closing.

Ward and Ellen were, or course, the two friends who have been coming down to teach at the Smallpipes and Fiddle workshops I have helped run in Maine twice a year for the past four years. It's a lovely time for Smallpipers and fiddlers, please feel free to email me about it. The next weekend will be at the beginning of November.

I got to know Tim Cummings through the Vermont Bellows Pipe School 2008 and 2009 and while working on his custom set of Plum and Antler Smallpipes. Tim runs a small Tunebook Publishing House in Moncton, VT called Beithe Publishing that puts out lovely tunebooks of "innovative reportoire for Scottish Pipes". He recently published a new book of tunes that includes one tune by myself, and a couple tunes by Ward called "An Ift of Efts". (Check it out!) Tim had met Ward at a Vermont folk event, and Ellen through some other obscure way (possibly when he was teaching at the College of Piping in PEI.) But we had not yet all been together in one place. It's a fun and rare thing for a group of friends who all know each other to get together for the first time all in one place. It's a little like magic.

Despite not having time to just play tunes together, I had a great time with everyone. And it was great to see and hear Ellen, Ward and Tim play one of Ward's G compositions, "the Ballerina" (found in "An Ift of Efts") at the concert on Sunday Night.

Another bonus of the weekend was finally getting to meet EJ Jones. EJ is a great piper, pipemaker, and now I know, also a great guy. I've long admired his work and have hoped we could meet and bemoan the troubles and trials of being a little pipe maker in a land of big companies like MacCallum. EJ was even more friendly than I could have hoped. You can see EJ playing some tunes with Tim below.

I even did a fair amount of business throughout the weekend and have had to up my wait list to 10 months (1 year wait here I come!). Thanks to everyone that runs the PG. It is a huge event that certainly doesn't run itself.

Ryan MacDonald Photoshoot

So while I was at the Vermont Bellows Pipe School two weeks ago, Ryan MacDonald asked if she could snap a few shots of me to possibly use in her critically acclaimed Pipes|Drums Series "Photographing the Art". Above is one of the shots from that session. And check out other notable subjects on her website such as Vermont based Piper and Tunebook creator extraordinaire Tim Cummings (with his Banton Plum and Antler Smallpipes) and the always in tune Fin Moore.

Vermont Bellows Pipe School

There are few things that I look forward to more than the week spent Smallpiping, Border Piping and camping at Matt Buckley's home in Richmond, Vermont. And this year's week was no disappointment. Imagine a beautiful old house, your tent staked outside under gnarly old Apple trees (the sound of the river the best lullaby), two most gracious and patient hosts, and two most gracious and patient piping teachers, Fin Moore of Scotland and Ryan MacDonald, originally from Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, teaching you 25 of the best tunes you've ever dreamed of hearing. That's the Vermont Bellows Pipe School.

Strangely, the week is at once the most relaxed and the most intense week of the year for me. Work is, mostly, forgotten (what's a lathe?). But the tunes! I thought they'd never stop.

At 9:00am, more or less on the dot, the teaching starts and somewhere around 4pm it stops (with a mad rush into town for lunch in the middle). Things are low key until dinner (communal) and after the always delicious meal a session eventually comes together with sleep happening somewhere between midnight and six in the morning. Rinse and repeat until friday.

Notable non-piping (strictly speaking) events of this week were the beer bottle bagpipe choir (you had to be there) and the Mabou Square set I danced with Ryan, Fin and Sarah at three in the morning with Fin as my dance partner.

Once again I took almost no pictures at Matt's (too busy being relaxed and/or frazzled by tunes). But maybe it's for the best. If you want to see what it's like you'll just have to attend yourself.

Jerry Holland dies at age 54

CBC news Article

What can I say? He was the greatest Cape Breton fiddler and Composer of his time. And we've lost him way too young.

Blue Mahoe

A special order set of Border Pipes has been added to the gallery page of my website:

Gallery

The wood is Blue Mahoe, the national tree of Jamaica. It's a very interesting wood, and made a lovely sounding set of border pipes. The coloring is very strange. As the pictures show, depending on the light, the set can look, blue, purple, brown, or very light gray.

The customer who special ordered them had seen a set of pipes made from them in Europe somewhere (he's from Germany), and asked if I could make a set from the wood. I tracked some down from:

Tropic Ventures Rainforest Enrichment and Sustainable Forestry Project.

"Tropic ventures . . . is located on 1000 acres of spectacular rainforest land in the southern central highlands of Patillas, Puerto Rico. The project's mission is to research and demonstrate the economic use of rain forest land using methods that do not destroy the forest ecology."

A fun group to work with. The woman I corresponded with calls herself "3T".

I enjoyed working with the wood, which had a slightly sweet/spicy smell when turned. They're mounted with Water Buffalo.

Noteflight

I just discovered this site and I think it's going to be huge.

Noteflight

I wrote out a tune and I'm going to embed it below. It's a six part tune called Willie Cummings that I've been meaning to learn. I wrote it out in Sibelius the other day. And just wrote it out on Noteflight:



Cool right? The non-embeded version looks much better:

Wille Cummings

I think this website is going to be pretty darn big.

Andrea Beaton and Troy MacGillivray

A couple weeks ago I attended the NYC Barndance. Anyone in New York interested in the various cultures of the US and Canada that dance to Jigs and Reels (or similar) should check out the Barndance. This could include Quebecois music and dance, or old-time from Virginia. And lucky for me, it sometimes means the music and dance of Cape Breton Island.

What's interesting about the NYC Barndance is that it's essentially just a Contradance. But Dave Harvey, who runs it, gets musicians from all over to come down to Manhattan and play us their style of music. While most of the dances done are New England style Contradances, two or three times a night, the dances will be appropriate to the visiting culture.

So, on June 11th, Andrea Beaton and Troy MacGillivray graced the small hamlet of Manhattan to drive some lively Cape Breton tunes for us. I've been contradancing for years, so I had fun with those. But it was especially nice when we twice ran through the Mabou Square set.

After the dance was over I had a nice chat with both Andrea and Troy. Like everyone else from Cape Breton, they were very friendly and welcoming. I told them I recently started playing the fiddle, and Andrea confessed she recently started in on the practice chanter!

I hope Andrea and Troy make it down again soon to NYC. New York may be one of the most culturally diverse places in the US, but it's pretty much completely devoid of anything to do with the Maritimes of Cananda.

This Weekend

Another smashing success with the Maine Pipes and Fiddle Workshop. Ellen MacPhee and Ward MacDonald met us all in Mariaville and Blue Hill Maine to teach us the glory and honor of PEI and Cape Breton Style "good scotch music".

I showed up on friday night for some late night fun. Then Saturday was classes, then getting my car stuck in two feet of Mud (ah, I miss Maine). Then we had a great house concert.
Which finished with some lovely tunes had by all.

Sunday was more classes, a quick bite to eat with Ellen and Ward and then the weekend was over! Next one is scheduled for the weekend of october 23rd.

Future Piper Liam Pearson.

Now for a Reed . . .

Here she is. Robert Moulard's Pastoral chanter made by Chris Bayley. Supposedly this bad boy can be reeded to be fully Chromatic and get two full octaves, AND go from low A STRAIGHT to high A. We'll see what we can do. I should have a reed next week . . .



And here it is next to an A smallpipe chanter for comparison. The stretch is pretty BIG. But if you notice, the stretch from right ring finger note to the tonic (pinky finger note) is about the same as the smallpipe chanter.

First Step on the road to Pastoral Pipes

As I've mentioned before, I have an interest in making pastoral pipes. I'm now taking the first real step toward that goal. Robert Moulard has agreed to send me his pastoral chanter, for which he does not currently have a working reed, to see if I can successfully reed the thing. I won't be charging Robert of course. And hopefully he'll get a free reed or two out of the deal. This will be my first opportunity to examine a pastoral chanter. And my first opportunity to try my hand at making a reed (or twenty) for one.

It should be interesting. Although I have a fair amount of reedmaking experience, including making reeds for the pastoral pipes's offspring, the uilleann pipe, I will be working almost blind. I have never played a pastoral chanter before, and have only a vague-ish notion of how it's suppose to sound. Knowing how a chanter should behave is probably the most important thing to know when making reeds. Luckily, Ross Anderson has given me some tips on what sort of length and width the reeds that work in his pastoral set have. Apparently they're similar to a narrow bore D reed with a shortened staple.

The chanter's in the mail. We'll see what happens soon . . . .

Thanks to Andreas Hartmann-Virnich, for some great pictures of his ca. 1800 Border pipes. These pipes are up and running and being played. Here's what Andreas had to say about them, "They have very slender proportions, as slender as my David Glen miniature pipes, and they produce a somewhat thinnish drone sound with rich overtones. The tenors are both authentic but have different lengths (like several of my early GHB’s) and are difficult to reed. I believe that this difference was intended to produce a combination of two different sounds instead of a mere addition of two identical drones. Sadly this feature was disused after ca. 1850. I find the style of the ferrules particularly beautiful as they combine both bone and black horn. The button mounts and drone tops are marine and elephant ivory. Hugh Cheape suggested that it might be a Hugh Robertson set due to the tulip style of the bass. The difference in style to the tenors is intended."

The idea of two different tenors makes perfect sense to me, and is something I'll try out in the future. Also, the contrasting black and white "ferrules" is something I've never seen before, maybe worth a try on my pipes.

Pastoral Pipes

Just wanted to post this interesting talk about Pastoral Pipes. I've been working on offering pastoral pipes for some time. Unfortunately I've had very little direct contact with any sets. If anyone has a set they'd like me to reed for them for free I'd much appreciate the chance to spend time with one.

chalumeaux

The idea of regulators for smallpipes came up again on Bobdunsire.com. The idea has spent a lot of time in my mind over the years. But I've long been against the idea of simply using uilleann style regulators, but with smallpipe bores, with a set of smallpipes. It would mean changing too much of the fundamental essence of smallpipes for it to work (for me). But this time when the idea came up, I thought about the Musette De Cour and it's "petite chalumeau". The Musette De Cour is a baroque (I think?) bagpipe of the french court. Basically a smallpipe for playing classical music with. And the petite chalumeau is kind of like a little northumbrian chanter, in that the pipe is stopped, which sits next to the chanter, and is activated by the free right thumb, and left pinkie. It usually plays about six notes, but apparently they are all very high pitched notes, most of them going above the range of the chanter.

With this sort of set-up in mind, it would be fairly simple to make a stopped second smallpipe chanter, the same length as the first (or not, it could be a D with an A or vice versa), that sat next to the first, that could play two or three notes activated by the thumb, and two or three activated by the pinkie. It would allow a smallpipe player to add simple regulator-like harmony to his or her playing. I think it would work very nicely. Imagine playing Hector the Hero, with baritone drone a-blazing, and throwing in seconds, all by yourself.

Unfortunately, this is one of those thoughts I have that makes me wish I had a rich patron that encouraged me to pursue this wild ideas. For now, I'll file this away for things to do when I retire. ;)

The Set That Got Away

I've posted four new pictures of a set of border pipes to the Old Pipes Gallery. Paul Roberts sent them along. They were a set of pipes being offered for sale some years ago, possibly in Australia. Apparently Paul just missed purchasing them, and never saw them in person. They appear to be 18th century. If anyone has any information about these pipes. Pipe up.

Bagpipediscs.com

The great Ian Lawther of Bagpipediscs.com asked if I was interested in putting up a banner ad on his website. And all I needed to do was put a link on my website. So check out my new Banner Ad on Bagpipediscs.com.

It's on the first page. Just hit refresh until it appears.

Old Pipes

Over the past week I've exchanged a few emails with Jeff Cullen from the West coast. Jeff sent me some great photos of two vintage sets of Border pipes.

The first is "late 1700’s, but the chanter (with horn sole) is probably late 1800’s or later." The huge chalice tops are a lot of fun. I hope someday to get a chance to measure this set.

The second set is a 1830’s Perth MacDougall Border Pipe. I'm particularly pleased with these pictures. I've been looking for a set of MacDougalls for a while. I had heard the MacDougall firm made a nice set of border pipes, and my Grandmother is a MacDougall. I love the style of these drones. I'm strongly tempted to make a set of border pipes in this style. If anyone is interested in a set like these, let me know. I'll be making a gallery page on my website of historic instruments soon. I'll leep you posted.

Redesigned Website

Almost forgot. My website redesign is basically done. Please take a look: www.elbowmusic.com

Upcoming Events

I plan to attend the Smallpipes and Border Pipes Workshop being held by the Vermont Institute of Celtic Arts March 14th and 15th: http://www.vtcelticarts.org/ Should be fun. Iain MacHarg, of Prydein, and Dan Houghton of Cantrip will be instructing.

Welcome to my Blog

I've been meaning to have a place on my website to share the lastest news about products and to talk about events I attend and other bellows piping fun. Now I have one.