Harpenden 2024

[Iain Ruaidh]

Hi All

The Harpenden Highland Gathering this year is on 14th July and I'm planning to be there as a piper in the Nene Valley Pipe Band.

I started on pipes last August so wish me luck playing in front of folk that know what they're listening to!

Anyone else going?

[Iain Ruaidh]

Here I am on my first band job at Hallaton Bottle Kicking. Inside the yellow oval

[Kiltedjohn]

All the best! You must have learned fast, to be performing in public when you only started learning last summer. Well done.

[Iain Ruaidh]

Well...

I can play seven tunes and mime the rest.

And I have a 50 year history in cadet bands as a cadet and instructor! Just not on pipes.

[OC Richard]

Wow playing for less than a year and performing with the band?

That's amazing. Best of luck playing at your first Games!

We have a couple High Schools here with good Pipe Bands. They get incoming Freshmen who had played a band instrument in Middle School. Their first year is intense instruction and practice, and they're ready to perform with the band on the pipes starting their 2nd year.

2024 is 50 years since I got my first Practice Chanter. You couldn't pry that thing out of my hands! I went several years without missing a single day practicing.

I got my first pipes in 1975 but it wasn't until my family moved to a more populated region in 1977 that I joined a Pipe Band.

The first year with the band was just doing gigs. After a year of seasoning they let me compete at a Games. I was terrified. When the band would sit around a table learning a new tune half the pipers were playing Silver Chanters they had won in Open Piping at various Games. I was a self-taught teenager straight from the hills! It was all new to me.

We won that day, and the Pipe Major gave me the plaque, which I still cherish, first place in Grade 2.

About "adult beginners" over the years being around Games and Pipe Bands and Solos and teachers I've seen a few of these get quite good on the pipes.

The ones that I knew personally had these things in common:

-previous musical experience

-fanatical dedication

-situation that allowed them to spend a large amount of practice time on the pipes.

Two of these adult beginners rose to become Pipe Majors of Grade 3 bands and do well in Solos. One had been a Trumpet Major in Uni and as a stay-at-home mom played the pipes for hours a day (once the weens were in school).

The other had been a drummer (pop/rock) his whole life and had an office to himself at work, an office in a far corner of a big complex where he could play the pipes for hours a day (when he wasn't meeting with clients, and his Boss wasn't snooping around).

BTW yours is a very well turned-out band!

Kilts in MacDonald ancient? Or Cameron of Erracht ancient? (They're hard to tell apart in photos sometimes.)

Interesting about your band's hose. Around here bands haven't worn white hose for around a decade. Maybe it's a regional thing?

Let us know how it went!