A Rookie Mistake Ordering Another Kilt

[Jacques]

Yes and no, you can have two sets of Highland pipes, the instruments themselves the same, however one is set up for playing in a pipe band and the other is set up for doing Concert Pitch gigs.

In the old days Highland pipes were tuned around Concert B flat so your pipes could sound good to piping judges and also be in tune for playing with brass ensembles, pipe organs, etc.

But the pitch of the Highland pipes kept creeping higher and higher and now they're tuned a quartertone sharp of Concert B flat.

The new sharp pitch is ingrained with piping judges so serious competition pipe bands have to be tuned that way.

Which means the pipes are too sharp to "play well with others".

So it behooves pipers who play in competition pipe bands, who also do gigs requiring being in tune to Concert Pitch, to maintain two sets of pipes, one dedicated to the sharp competition pitch and one dedicated to Concert Pitch.

For several years now I bring both sets to every gig just to be sure!

The alternative, which I did for many years, is to maintain only one set of pipes, and constantly be switching that set back and forth, which can be a hassle.

So it's the pitch of the reeds? One set of pipes tuned for use in a pipe band, and another set of pipes tuned for solo, as examples. Dunno if "tuned" is the right word, but i think i understand.

Thanks Richard

[Katia]

Aka: “ vanity sizing”

I am completely unable to wrap my head around this. I get that they can get away with it in women's sizing, since we don't have the benefit of buying trousers sized by the waist measurement and so our "sizes" can be very variable, but how on earth do they pull it off by selling clothing advertised as one measurement when it's actually another? That would be up there with Google Maps telling me I need to drive 10 miles when it's really 15.

The worst for me is plain forgetting stuff:

-showing up at a wedding without my kilt hose

-showing up at a memorial service without my kilt

-showing up at a memorial service with the wrong pipes

I showed up to a dance competition without my kilt once (actually really the whole kilt outfit). It was when we were in Scotland... the day before, I had hung my kilt and waistcoat to dry after another competition (when I've been sweating into it all day, I'm not packing it directly into a closed garment bag). We were all running late to get to this one and I grabbed my garment bag and ran out the door. We arrived at the competition... I pulled my stuff out of the trunk of the car... the next thing you hear from me is a semi-panicked "Where's my kilt???" Yup. That was the exact moment when I remembered it wasn't in the garment bag (I have NO idea how I missed seeing it hanging in the small dorm room I was staying in). There was nothing I could do... we were a 45-minute drive away from where we were staying and maybe only an hour until the competition started (and I couldn't ask my friends to drive all the way back, anyway). The only outfit I had was my hornpipe outfit, the only dance in that competition that wasn't done in the kilt. There wasn't anyone I could borrow an outfit from as all of my classmates were in the same category as I was and would either be on the platform at the same time as I was or right before or after.

In the end it turned out for the best; I turned my ankle badly during hornpipe and if I'd had my kilt, I probably would have tried to finish the competition anyway, which probably wouldn't have been a good idea (considering the ankle didn't get better for days even as it was; luckily it did get better just in time for me to get one more competition in before we left. Then again, on the way to that competition, I left my hornpipe hat in the rack on the train... and luckily that turned up at the lost-and-found in Glasgow; otherwise I would've lost it since it was the weekend and ScotRail's lost-and-found was closed and I left on Monday... I have never left behind so much stuff as I did on that trip!).

[OC Richard]

That's a great story Katia! Well except for your ankle, sorry about that.

Somehow in Scotland nobody in our band ever forgot anything, which is good because except for The Worlds the contests we went to were a few hours' coach-ride away from our Glasgow rooms.

Apropos to nothing here we are playing in George Square