World Pipe Band Championships now!

[OC Richard]

I was really hoping our local lads & lasses, the LA Scots, would get through but no...

A strong showing from Canadian bands (SFU, Triumph St, 78th Frasers) so North America is well represented, though neither USA band went through.

The combined limitations of hearing rather fuzzy sound over the internet and my own lack of perception/discrimination meant that most of the bands sounded nearly universally good to me. The obvious 'big boys' of course have a sound that sets them apart. Once again I found myself enjoying Glasgow Police's medley more than most.

[Tim Little]

Thanks for sharing, Richard.
I had similar hopes for our locals, Stuart Highlanders of Wilmington, MA, competing for the first time ever as a Grade 1 band, I believe.
I'm sorry I missed the live stream.

[Ron Abbott]

I ended up missing most of it and will now have to go back and watch it knowing the results in advance.......I got to go shopping with my wife instead


I'm glad that they showed the juvenile grade this year because that is a fantastic grade and contains the pipers of the future. Bands like George Watsons, George Heriots and Dollar Academy have done so well over the years. In my day it was Craigmount, Craigmount and Craigmount....

Have to say that I rarely listen to the medleys any longer as I don't think of the music as 'bagpipe music'.

In fact, I absolutely detest the breaks between tune after tune, the hornpipes and jigs which sound more like something appropriate for an Amsterdam barrel organ than a set of bagpipes and the roundedness of the playing. Not to mention harmony after harmony, tune after tune.

Give me MSRs any day. Although, could they not just choose some tunes other than Highland Wedding, Susan Macleod, Athol Cummers, The Sheepwife, Mrs. MacPherson etc. etc. just for once?

[Lodrorigdzin]

I liked the grade 2 finals too, sometimes more than grade 1.

Bagad Brieg from Bretagne were outstanding, I thought.

[OC Richard]

Have to say that I rarely listen to the medleys any longer as I don't think of the music as 'bagpipe music'.

In fact, I absolutely detest the breaks between tune after tune, the hornpipes and jigs which sound more like something appropriate for an Amsterdam barrel organ than a set of bagpipes and the roundedness of the playing. Not to mention harmony after harmony, tune after tune.

Give me MSRs any day. Although, could they not just choose some tunes other than Highland Wedding, Susan Macleod, Athol Cummers, The Sheepwife, Mrs. MacPherson etc. etc. just for once?

I fully agree! I got up at 3am to watch the MSRs both on Friday and Saturday and only caught a few of the Medleys.

I will say that, at least in the Medleys I saw, the number of those gimmicky transitions you speak of has been greatly reduced. Another gimmick which (finally!) seems to run its course is the switching, in the middle of an ordinary tune which has four-pulse phrases, to three-pulse phrases (the so-called "waltz" variants). It was kinda cool the first thousand times I heard it, but after that I just wanted to scream.

Yes Bob Worrall himself bemoans the repetition in the MSRs every year, with band after band playing the same oldies but goodies. Good for Inveraray to play a rarely-heard March!

Bob has repeatedly called for the RSPBA to call an outright ban on the ten or so most-played Marches, Strathspeys, and Reels in order to force the bands out of their box and play more interesting and obscure tunes. He also has called for tunes to have no more than four parts... he's not a fan of the thirty-part tunes the top bands always play.

Did you catch Power's piobaireachd? It was amazing.

[pbutts]

Did you catch Power's piobaireachd? It was amazing.

I wonder how that went over with judges. I've listened to that set several times now.

I like both the MSR and Medley components for different reasons. It's probably a good thing there are two different sets so that both technical and artistic elements are equally represented.

[OC Richard]

Yes I love all pipe music!

But a really good 2/4 march, well played, has a gravitas that, for me, nothing in a Medley can match.

About much of the stuff bands play in the Medley nowadays, I am reminded of the old Appalachian fiddler who was brought down out of the hills to hear a Banjo Fiddle Contest.

After hearing several "young guns" blast though complicated technical fiddle tunes, the old fiddler was asked his opinion. He said

"Them tunes didn't come from nowhere, and ain't goin' nowhere."

[Ron Abbott]

The first time I heard a band playing piobaireachd was on the Dysart & Dundonald recording of their live concert in Ballymena in 1983.

Superb and I still have the recording of that album on my iPod. One of my favourite recordings.

This is it :-

http://www.allmusic.com/album/live-i...3-mw0000239603