Hamish Moore's thoughts on piping and dancing

[neloon]

https://bagpipe.news/2021/02/04/hami...mY7az-oOd29duc

Alan

[Jock Scot]

I am no musician, but as a consumer, so to speak, on occasion, I cannot help but feel that he does have a point.

[MichiganKyle]

It's the old technician vs. performer dichotomy. Something else to think about: I know folks who don't normally listen to bagpipe music but love Clanadonia because of how much general "fun" they add to it.

[OC Richard]

Most of that article is familiar stuff one hears all the time from people outwith the competition scene. The difference here being the eminence of the person saying it.

People not in the Highland piping scene might not know how common such talk is. However it generally comes from pipers and pipe bands of the very lowest level, and other musicians who haven't spent time in the Highland piping competition world and are therefore unfamiliar with it. (I hope nobody comes along and twists my words to say things I didn't say. I've chosen my words carefully.)

The first thing to point out is that the article (without saying it explicitly) might give the impression that the fact that competition exists in Highland piping makes it out of the ordinary. In fact competition in the Arts is quite common: juried art shows, dancing competitions of all sorts, and in the music world competitions for piano, violin, flute, etc in "classical" music and "banjo fiddle contests" all over the USA and Comhaltas competitions worldwide in Irish traditional music and dance, and many more I could name.

Add to that singing and poetry competitions. In Appalachia storytelling is a time-honoured art and the highlight of the Vandalia Festival is the storytelling competition.

So the article's initial suggestion that Highland piping isn't "music" because there Highland piping competitions exist, in the light of the facts above, means that (by reductio ad absurdum) numerous forms of dance aren't "dance" (jazz, tap, ballet, Mexican, Native American, Irish, Scottish) and paintings aren't "art" and singing isn't "song" and poetry isn't "poetry" because competitions in these art-forms exist.

About the inference that the music played in Highland pipe competitions lacks emotive content, while it's evidently true for the author one should be wary of projecting one's personal feelings onto others.

I've spent over 45 years in the Highland pipe competition scene and all the people in that scene I've known have deeply loved the music. These are people who have dedicated their lives to the pipes! You don't do that for things that have no meaning, no attachment, no magic for you. Competition isn't the end-all and be-all of these people, the music itself is.

It's a universal thing with musical genres: people find genres that they don't like and don't listen to boring, repetitive, and emotionally sterile. Yet those very genres have vast followings of people who find that genre compelling and emotionally rich. Once again we have to guard against projecting our tastes onto others.

Personally one of my favourite genres to listen to is Highland piping, both solo and especially Pipe Bands. I listen to the world's top competition bands because they're the world's best bands. They have the best musicians, they play the most interesting music, they create the nicest and most innovative arrangements. As with all good traditional musics they strive for, and usually find, a nice balance between conservatism and innovation. There's a saying I've heard in Irish traditional music "you can only push out the boundaries from within" and it seems to be true in the Highland piping world as well. The greatest innovators, people like Gordon Duncan and Fred Morrison, were brought up in the mainstream Highland piping world, mastering the tradition before turning it on its head.

[Micrographia]

Strangely enough Scottish step dancing and it's interplay with live music cropped up on a new TV show in the UK last night - I'l link to it below but it's on All4, the Channel 4 streaming service which is UK-only. The show follows the former ballet dancer Darcy Bussell as she tours the Highlands & Islands where her grandfather came from. The first show was on Skye and had a segment with local dancer Sophie Stephenson. It described how Scottish step dancing died out here but was preserved in Canada by the Diaspora and has now been brought back. Sophie described how the percussive steps act like an additional instrument, so I can see how it would influence the musicality of a performance. There was also a segment on weaving tartan with a handloom with a weaver called Maggie Williams. A bit lightweight but worth seeking out for the scenery if nothing else .

https://www.channel4.com/programmes/...mand/70743-001

[neloon]

Here are a couple of clips of Sophie.
The first with mouth music.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmNEM57Hso8
And at a festival in the Basque country.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rIjCFmrE8-Y
This is the true traditional Highland Dance as preserved in Cape Breton. What passes as Highland dancing nowadays was largely an invention of French dancing masters who came to Scotland in the early 1800s with further misrepresentation by the SOBHD. Thankfully, the original percussive step dance is making a comeback.

Alan