Locating the Kilt Pin

[jsrnephdoc]

When I was at Perth and The Worlds last August yes the pipes & drums of 2SCOTS was there at both.

The pipes and drums of 3SCOTS and 4SCOTS also compete at various Highland Games when they can. Obviously they're sometimes deployed overseas and not available. Ditto the pipes & drums of The Scots Guards and The Royal Scots Dragoon Guards, which are London-based Guards regiments, not Highland regiments.



There are TONS of apps and standalone handheld tuning devices designed specifically for the Highland pipes.

Yes they work for the chanter and drones both.

How can you tune two different notes on the Chanter? Or, is it a matter of finding the best compromise?

There are tons of Highland Games across Scotland (and the rest of the UK) all summer. Most larger Games have pipe band competitions.

The biggest one of course is the Worlds, with over 200 bands each year. But Perth, the weekend prior to the Worlds, is nearly as big due to the fact that overseas bands generally arrive a week and a half before the Worlds so they can compete at Perth as well.

Perth did happen this year, and most of the bands at the Worlds were there. It's sort of the "warmup" for the Worlds.

My mistake. It looks as though it was the "British" championships that have gone into Limbo. And, I think the event in Perth is called the "European" Championships.

Apparently, there's also a separate "UK" Championships, which (at least this year) took place in July in Edinburgh. It might be delightful to be in Scotland that long, but I cannot imagine how I could afford to do so. I'm also wondering how the bands who come from other CONTINENTS can afford to come to Scotland TWICE, a month apart. But then, I was AMAZED to see what organizations managed to send bands (even High School bands!) from Scotland to NYC for the Tartan Day Parade…

But, a trifecta of the European, Worlds, and the Edinburgh tattoo might be all my spouse would be willing to sit through, and that could all be done in a 10-14 day interval.

And, I think my wife might be more interested in the trip if I could find another venue in addition to Lochcarron that offers tours of a historic tartan woolen mill. (I'd love to visit them again).

[PiperPadre]

[QUOTE=jsrnephdoc;1412404]How can you tune two different notes on the Chanter? Or, is it a matter of finding the best compromise?


Tape is your friend. If you look at the pipe chanters at your next Highland Games visit, you'll see most of the chanters have tape around the uppermost part of the holes on the chanter. To be honest, my own praxis is to have tape on every note. I get a bit nervous if there's no room to move further up on a hole - especially on the top hand.

It's a question of physics. The tape serves to lengthen the distance of exit of air from reed to a particular note hole. The longer the distance, the flatter the sound.

[OC Richard]

How can you tune two different notes on the Chanter? Or, is it a matter of finding the best compromise?

This video shows the process of tuning the chanter https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0TjjqKR8T4

In the old days the fine-tuning of the various chanter notes had to be done through expert reed adjustment. There's detailed lore as to where to carve on the reed to fix each note.

But then adhesive tape came along! So you didn't have to know all that lore.

I remember when, say, McCallum came out with the chanters with huge oval holes, the idea being that you had the upper portion of each hole covered with tape as a matter of course.

I'm wondering how the bands who come from other CONTINENTS can afford to come to Scotland TWICE, a month apart.

Generally overseas bands just come for the Worlds and whatever contests are the weekend prior.

Unlike the USA where most Highland Games are two-day, over there they're usually one-day events.

So bands customarily attend two different Games on the Saturday and Sunday prior to the Worlds.

In the past when our band went to Scotland there was no "Major" that weekend, so we would go to, say, North Berwick on Saturday and Bridge of Allan Sunday before the Worlds. Both Games were crawling with overseas bands.

But now that Perth, the Saturday prior to the Worlds, has been declared a "Major" the overseas bands will want to go there.

The whole system of five "Majors" (Scottish, British, UK, European, World) is inherently unfair to overseas bands because for years the vast majority of overseas bands would only be attending one, the Worlds, due to the massive expense (in the neighbourhood of $100,000) of a good-sized band from Down Under or North America making the trip.

Now with Perth being a Major long-distance bands can conveniently attend two Majors back to back.

About non-pipe band people attending these things, I think for most attending just one of these things, either Perth or the Worlds, would be more than enough piping for a holiday.

The Edinburgh Tattoo would be far more entertaining for a non-pipe band person, I reckon. It's pipe bands packaged into a cohesive "show".

Edinburgh during Festival season is packed with tourists and there are so many concurrent events that nobody could see more than a fraction of them. I love the energy and craziness of it all but I'm sure a lot of locals either hunker down or get out of town.

[jsrnephdoc]

About non-pipe band people attending these things, I think for most attending just one of these things, either Perth or the Worlds, would be more than enough piping for a holiday.

The Edinburgh Tattoo would be far more entertaining for a non-pipe band person, I reckon. It's pipe bands packaged into a cohesive "show".

Edinburgh during Festival season is packed with tourists and there are so many concurrent events that nobody could see more than a fraction of them. I love the energy and craziness of it all but I'm sure a lot of locals either hunker down or get out of town.

When I was a small boy, while my friends were listening to Buddy Holly, and a bit later, the Beatles, the music coming from our living room primitive stereo was either Harry Lauder crooning about the "Gloamin'" or the High vs. Low Road, or the Black watch or Royal Scots Guards (all from my Dad's scratchy "78s,") or on Saturdays, with my mom leaning in to the console because of the poor radio reception in Michigan's VERY remote UP, Puccini or Verdi (the Matinée broadcasts from the Metropolitan Opera).

My Ring Tone is the Skye Boat Song

I will admit I'm having a bit of difficulty convincing my wife that being a piping groupie for two weeks is the best way to spend precious vacation dollars…

[PiperPadre]

[QUOTE=jsrnephdoc;1412420]When I was a small boy, while my friends were listening to Buddy Holly, and a bit later, the Beatles, the music coming from our living room primitive stereo was either Harry Lauder crooning about the "Gloamin'" or the High vs. Low Road, or the Black watch or Royal Scots Guards (all from my Dad's scratchy "78s,") or on Saturdays, with my mom leaning in to the console because of the poor radio reception in Michigan's VERY remote UP, Puccini or Verdi (the Matinée broadcasts from the Metropolitan Opera).

My Ring Tone is the Skye Boat Song

Oddly familiar!

That was exactly the dynamic in my own house, although my dad wasn't such a Harry Lauder fan, more along the lines of old, scratched pipe band LPs, and some Jacobite folk groups (Corries, Livingstones, et al.) while my mom listened to Baroque music. Consequently , I became a piper and Baroque cellist. My ring tone is Nessun Dorma.

[jsrnephdoc]

My ring tone is Nessun Dorma.

On the cello, or on the pipes

[jsrnephdoc]

On the cello, or on the pipes

Just kidding, of course. No one can make the chanter warble a la Pavarotti, let alone mimic his Nessum dorma while limited to 8 notes!

[PiperPadre]

On the cello, or on the pipes

On the pipes - at least that's what my neighbors are thinking when I practice: nessun dorma....

[jsrnephdoc]

On the pipes - at least that's what my neighbors are thinking when I practice: nessun dorma....

Are you saying you can make the pipes sound like a cello, or a cello sound like the pipes?

Music apparently has no limits, as demonstrated by THIS (don't bother linking if you're not an orchestral music lover; prepare to be amazed if you are):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TURkB9zqxa0

[Jock Scot]

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I will admit I'm having a bit of difficulty convincing my wife that being a piping groupie for two weeks is the best way to spend precious vacation dollars…

I am afraid that I can't help but agree with your wife.