Locating the Kilt Pin

[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

[PiperPadre]

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

I was referring to the title which means “let no one sleep”.

[OC Richard]

...make the pipes sound like a cello, or a cello sound like the pipes...

We had a large family next door, they had at any given time a half-dozen kids learning a like number of different instruments. We got to hear what absolute beginners sound like on every orchestral instrument.

What was amazing was how, at the very start, they all sound more similar than one might think.

One day I was listening to one kid making his/her first noises on something, and for the life of my I couldn't figure out what. Oh, not only what instrument, but whether it was string, brass, or woodwind!

...don't bother linking if you're not an orchestral music lover...

It's cool to see an orchestra do that.

Stuff like that can happen with Studio musicians (doing film scores, playing on albums, etc.)

Usually you show up and there's a music stand with your part written out.

But sometimes there isn't. You might have a Lead Sheet. Or not even that, and the songwriter/composer will hum something so you have a general idea of what he's after, especially if he doesn't read music.

And sometimes there's no guidance at all, and you have to create something out of thin air on the spot.

They'll play what they have on the track already (maybe a "scratch" rhythm track and "scratch" vocals) and you listen in your headphones and improvise something.

Of if it's a film they'll run the scene and you just make something up you think fits.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3aXK...&start_radio=1

I've done all of those permutations. That's the thing, when you show up at the Studio you never know what you're in for.

[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.