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.