Modern Pipe Band Drums

[imrichmond]

Seems like the most edgy band as far as innovation goes nowadays is Toronto Police.

They did the drum pads in Grade One at the Worlds.

They were playing a medley a couple years ago that, rather than being a medley of traditional tunes, sounded like a through-composed piece. Most of the pipe band world didn't like it.

Yes, Toronto Police have been experimenting, to their detriment at competitions, where they have generally been ranked in last place by the medley judges, despite their superb tone and often exquisite execution. Some of the "medleys" they tried were really suites composed entirely by Michael Grey. In fact, Grey has published these in a 2012 collection entitled, rather cheekily, "Damned Suites". More recently, they have begun to include more traditional elements in their medleys, although these medleys are still edgy enough to virtually guarantee negative reactions from judges. The non-piping public reacts very positively and enthusiastically to them, though.

[TheOfficialBren]

That is how it almost always is with music. What the passionate pursuers, innovators, and virtuosos enjoy and what an audience enjoys are usually two entirely different things.

Bieber makes a gazillion dollars per year while Paul Gilbert plays the Baked Potato for chump change.

[OC Richard]

What the passionate pursuers, innovators, and virtuosos enjoy and what an audience enjoys are usually two entirely different things.

It's a strange thing about Pipe Band music: the finest music is to be heard in competition, and the audience for this music is really very small.

Go to any of several major competitions in the UK where several of the world's top Pipe Bands are playing and the bulk of the people listening are people who play in other Pipe Bands.

Ditto solo piping: the world's best play in competition, and do their best playing in competition, and the audience is quite small, and largely made up of pipers.

There have been a number of threads about this phenomenon on piping sites, with people throwing around ideas of how to get the music out to the General Public.

The top level of Pipe Band music is indeed populated with "the passionate pursuers and virtuosos" but there's a delicate balance between innovation and conservatism, as there is in any sort of "traditional music". The bulk of the people within the tradition define the boundaries which define the tradition, and define the tastes concerning what is acceptable and what isn't. In any tradition there are staunch conservatives at one extreme and people unconcerned about tradition pushing the boundaries at the other extreme, with the bulk of the players being somewhere in between. What it all means is that the tradition is steadily, but slowly, changing.

Pipe band music is quite different in many ways from the way it was a half-century ago, but the change has been quite gradual, sometimes to the point of being imperceptible to the very people living through it.

[TheOfficialBren]

Aye and plus one.

In a way, Richard, this is no different from Rock music (although at a faster pace perhaps[?]). In a world where technology is expanding musical horizons many rock musicians dif their heels into the mud and refuse to move out of the 1970s and 1980s! Are they usually successful? No, but there are lots of Indie musicians who can't and/or won't make music that appeals to today.

The irony is when a stripped down rock'n'roll band wants to sound like Guns N Roses (shudder, I hate classic rock) but they go and track their songs in Pro Tools or Logic and then decry modern music and recording techniques.

Like when the drummer wants to mic up his kit and then use a sound replacement software to enhance his recorded performance (but insists that it has to still sound like his drums) or when a band tracks in a smaller room but wants to make it sound like Mutt Lang or Bob Rock or Rick Rubin (innovators who made 'classic' rock sound modern for the era).
Another one that gets me is when bands want this elusive "live" sound. What is "live" when you are in a studio? Ask a rock band and they never can define it, usually because their notions are undefinable and ill-conceived.

Sheesh.

You can please some of the people some of the time but none of the people all of the time.
Glad I got out of the biz with my soul intact. Lol.

Anyhoo...marching pipes and drums. Seriously talented guys. Walking and chewing gum is enough of a challenge for most. Try walking in-step with a hundred other blokes whilst wrestling with a screeching octopus that refuses to cooperate...you get brilliant musicians in command of some seriously underrated chops. Props!

[Ron Abbott]

It's a strange thing about Pipe Band music: the finest music is to be heard in competition, and the audience for this music is really very small.

Go to any of several major competitions in the UK where several of the world's top Pipe Bands are playing and the bulk of the people listening are people who play in other Pipe Bands.

Ditto solo piping: the world's best play in competition, and do their best playing in competition, and the audience is quite small, and largely made up of pipers.

There have been a number of threads about this phenomenon on piping sites, with people throwing around ideas of how to get the music out to the General Public.

The top level of Pipe Band music is indeed populated with "the passionate pursuers and virtuosos" but there's a delicate balance between innovation and conservatism, as there is in any sort of "traditional music". The bulk of the people within the tradition define the boundaries which define the tradition, and define the tastes concerning what is acceptable and what isn't. In any tradition there are staunch conservatives at one extreme and people unconcerned about tradition pushing the boundaries at the other extreme, with the bulk of the players being somewhere in between. What it all means is that the tradition is steadily, but slowly, changing.

Pipe band music is quite different in many ways from the way it was a half-century ago, but the change has been quite gradual, sometimes to the point of being imperceptible to the very people living through it.

"the finest music is to be heard in competition".

Not sure I'd agree with that nowadays.....!

I have to say that i detest the present rounded style of playing, the almost constant seconds and harmonies played with almost every tune, hornpipe and jig after hornpipe and jig; some of which sound almost identical and are next to tuneless.

The MSRs may be better but even they lack the swing and pointing to them that was wonderful but in say, the 60s.

And the other problem with the MSRs is that it's always the same old tunes. You just hear one band after another playing pretty much the same tunes. And yet, there is not a lack in good tunes to choose from. Highland Wedding, Susan Mcleod.....blah blah blah......

Your comment about pipe band music being different in many ways to what it was half a century ago is all too true.

Some of the technical innovations may have been a boost, but when it comes to the actually style of playing tunes, in my opinion; not only has there been no improvement but quite the opposite.

[416 Rigby]

I'm pretty new to piping but have played music for a big chunk of my life, mostly drums of one sort or another (rock band and the bodhran) and dabbled in guitar briefly.

I'll never be in a pipe band. There are only a hand full of pipers where I live and half of us are beginners. I haven't the time, money or desire to be in a band or to compete. At almost 50 years old, I play simply because I love the darn things and I realize folks like me are probably firmly the minority in the pipe world. That's ok.

I don't quite know how to say this, and mean no offense to anyone, so here goes...

My observation is that there is quite a bit of what I call "pipe snobbery." I get the sense, and I could certainly be wrong, that there are two camps: the serious competition pipe people (judges and those of influence) and everyone else. I believe the ultra conservative attitude of most of the band people smothers creativity. Your example of the Toronto Police band is a perfect example. "Thou shall play this tune this way and no other way. "

The differing reactions of the judges and the audience bear this out. Heck, if you heard Eric Clapton play "Layla" four times, it would be different each time, but still each rendition would sound great on its own. I don't understand the steadfast attitude of there is only one way to play. The beauty (and, indeed, the artistry) of music is that a piece of music can be played many different ways and still be enjoyable.

We now have bluegrass bands like Iron Horse doing bluegrass tributes to heavy metal bands like Metalicca and you know what? A great song proves just how great it really is when played in a completely different genre and the listeners says "Wow, I've never heard this tune played like this but it's terrific "

My two cents, and worth about as much.

[OC Richard]

I have to say that i detest the present rounded style of playing, the almost constant seconds and harmonies played with almost every tune, hornpipe and jig after hornpipe and jig; some of which sound almost identical and are next to tuneless.

I don't mind the round way of playing jigs and reels, after all, it's the way they're played (more or less) in Ireland, and in Scotland on fiddle or box for dancing. I would reckon the old Highland bagpipe way of strongly pointing jigs and reels as being an aberration, if it weren't for the fact that in Spain the Spanish gaita players traditionally play their traditional native jigs with strong pointing too! (They don't call them "jigs" but it's exactly the same dance idiom.)

I had always assumed that the strong pointing/cutting had originally come into piping with the Strathspey idiom (borrowed from the fiddle BTW, most of the old traditional piping strathspeys were originally fiddle tunes) and that Highland pipers, in the Army, started to apply the same dotting/cutting to everything they played, marches, jigs, reels, and even slow airs.

I myself really like hearing all the harmonies. What I'm tired of hearing are the elaborate transitions that nowadays are put between just about every tune in the medley. It makes me desperately want to hear a good old-fashioned transition, where you just go straight from one tune to the next, the effectiveness coming from the choice of tunes themselves and not from contrived segues.

About the tunelessness of many of the modern compositions, yes! Some bands play new tune after new tune in their medleys, which appear to be composed with the goal of having neither a rhythm nor a melody that's engaging to the ear.

The MSRs may be better but even they lack the swing and pointing to them that was wonderful but in say, the 60s.

There's a rant by Rab Wallace online somewhere, a videotape of a panel discussion he was part of, where he plays old recordings against new ones and points out just what you're saying. I know I pulled out a couple old 78th Frasers cassette tapes from the 1980s and the swing and rhythmic drive was amazing.

And the other problem with the MSRs is that it's always the same old tunes. You just hear one band after another playing pretty much the same tunes. And yet, there is not a lack in good tunes to choose from. Highland Wedding, Susan Mcleod.....blah blah blah......

Yes indeed every year at The Worlds, when Bob Worrall is doing the commentary, he decries the repetition and conformity of MSR tune selection, and has (repeatedly) proposed that the RSPBA actually come up with a list of overplayed tunes, and that these tunes be banned from competition.

The great thing about the MSR is that it's the last bastion of traditional tunes. Most of the strathspeys and reels played are traditional, that is, going back to an unknown composer, tunes which have been around forever as far as we know. It's fairly rare for a modern tune to break into this idiom, Susan MacLeod being by far the most popular.

Yes Highland Wedding/Susan MacLeod/Mrs MacPherson of Inveran... sometimes it seems that half the bands are playing that set.

I did go back and look over the tunes played in the Grade One Finals at The Worlds over the last 30 years and there's much more variety in the March than in either the Strathspey or the Reel. But there needs to be more variety yet! As you point out there are loads of wonderful 2/4 marches that rarely get played.

Another thing that annoys Bob Worrall is the proliferation of parts in competition tunes, reels in particular. These traditional reels show up in 18th/early 19th century collections as 2-part tunes, by the end of the 19th century have expanded to 4-part tunes (that having become the standard for new compositions) and nowadays bloated to 6 or 8 part tunes, including modulating from A to B minor and back to A. Yikes!

[HootinHoller]

Great thread!

The question of electronics put an image of LED encrusted belts and fiber optics in feather bonnets. I think the look would be, um, stunning. LOL

[OC Richard]

The electronic thing that comes to mind, with bagpipes, which would greatly improve the sound of 'lower grade' bands, is to have a tiny mic at the top of each drone, and have the tuning slide have a little motor, and have a little computer chip that reads the pitch of each drone and constantly adjusts the drones to stay in perfect tune with whatever pitch is pre-set by the band.

A more complex thing would be to have the chanter reed set in a little motorized device and a mic reading the chanter's Low A, moving the chanter reed to keep the chanter in tune to the pre-set pitch.

Even more sophisticated would be having the computer read all the notes of everyone's chanters and choose the pitch that best balances the high notes and low notes of the band as a whole, and adjust everyone's chanter reed and drones accordingly.

[Ron Abbott]

"The electronic thing that comes to mind, with bagpipes, which would greatly improve the sound of 'lower grade' bands, is to have a tiny mic at the top of each drone, and have the tuning slide have a little motor, and have a little computer chip that reads the pitch of each drone and constantly adjusts the drones to stay in perfect tune with whatever pitch is pre-set by the band.

A more complex thing would be to have the chanter reed set in a little motorized device and a mic reading the chanter's Low A, moving the chanter reed to keep the chanter in tune to the pre-set pitch.

Even more sophisticated would be having the computer read all the notes of everyone's chanters and choose the pitch that best balances the high notes and low notes of the band as a whole, and adjust everyone's chanter reed and drones accordingly."

.........LOL, it's still another ten months until April 1st !

I hadn't seen the rant or the comments of Rab Wallace, Bob Worrall et. al.
But if the 1980s recordings of the 78ths may reveal (in my opinion) far more tuneful playing than today, but if you want really, really pointed, tuneful playing....it's back to the 60s and the likes of the Edinburgh Police.

"What I'm tired of hearing are the elaborate transitions that nowadays are put between just about every tune in the medley. It makes me desperately want to hear a good old-fashioned transition, where you just go straight from one tune to the next, the effectiveness coming from the choice of tunes themselves and not from contrived segues."

Wow, I forgot to mention that!! Well said. They are indeed, in the most part; bloody awful.

I can't recall when medleys first came in to the competition scene. Circa 1980s (?)
I can only recall playing MSRs in the early 80s but in the latter half of that decade, I certainly remember playing a medley at competitions. But the tunes certainly weren't being played in that awful rounded style of today, I think only one or maybe two tunes were played with seconds and there was no more than one hornpipe and one jig in the set.....and they were good tunes. Certainly not the 'finger-exercises' that are given names and referred to as tunes nowadays.