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 . . . .