I watched your film , Laddie. A nice pipe, fine fingers and a grand sound. That's all that should matter. I competed for over 20 years. Never played without either winning or getting a place. I found that judges expected me to win ,so I did. I gave up competing as I didnae require the affirmation of clowns. I see that you got judged on your shoes. I rest my case. You play well enough! Respect your tune and play on.
To me, what struck me about the piobaireachd was the setting. I never heard it before, and at first, I wasn't sure that I liked it. Then as it progressed, I really came to appreciate it. It's hard to say if I agree or not with the result because we didn't get to hear the other performances. My only critique (as if it means anything, HAHAHAHA!) was that the doubling movements could have had just a gentle lift in tempo and a little longer pull on the themal notes. Other than that, I enjoyed it. Hope all's well with you!
Great video, great playing and story telling. If i'm right Andrew went on to win the Silver Medal in KC after this...so. Great message at the end about keeping right motivation for competing. ANd the camaraderie with other competitors so nice to see on video.
John Schofield, metronome is the last thing you want to use in pibroch. The tempo should vary throughout in order to bring expression to the piece. Andrew, I would suggest cutting your shorter notes a little to lift the pibroch.
Hi Andrew. I play this tune and have played it at the Dunvegan Medal in Skye. I noticed an unusual anomily with the Fosgailte ?? This is Donald MacDonald's setting but in his setting it is written with an open Fosgailte and i was taught that the closed is not accepted in this setting. Judges just need an excuse so don't give them one as it was once said to me by a premiere Judge on the Benches at The Northern meetings that if that closed Fosgailte was played in this setting it would not be considered a Donald MacDonald setting and would be judged accordingly
+pipinghotpiper I think technically it is the Donald McDonald setting as played by John McDonald of Inverness, hence the modern playing of the fosgailte.
The setting that was very well played by Andrew, should have no need for an open fosgailte. Both styles of fosgailte are correct. Robert Nicol and Robert Brown were very clear that over the past several decades, it was a matter of style preference on the part of the performers. They were also taught to not play a fosgailte followed by an "A Mach", i.e. ,t he additional "open fosgailte", stating that they were taught to play one or the other as they preferred, but not both. If the logic is applied re- Donald MacDonald's notation of the the fosgailte and the necessity to perform the variation as printed in his MS, then we should also be playing redundant A's in leamluath, taorluath and crunluath variations of most all piobaireachd as notated in most of the ancient MSS. In all piobaireachd, we draw the themes and interpretive information from the ancient MSS, but play embellishments in "the contemporary style" unless the format of the event insists on re iteration of the old notation....e.g. MacGregor-MacArthur, etc.
My question is.... how are you recording this without the pipes overwhelming the mic. on your recording device ? Pipes sound good, a little pitchy, not that I'm qualified to say so.
Andrew, a request. Pibroching away there, presumeably timing comes into it. It escapes me. A talk on working with a metronome would be appreciated. Ta.
Personally I find the idea of piping competitions to be a horrible idea. It takes so much effort to learn the art and technical skill of piping, and then you subject yourself to people judging whether on not you play it similarly enough to what they think the music should sound like. In fact the highland bagpipes are the only instrument I have learned where playing a piece of music differently than the way everyone else plays it is wrong. Changing what ornaments are used can make a song sound better, but "it simply isn't done". Competitions are fine for the military where you want people to be playing in unison, but it is a bad idea for individuals. If one constantly loses due to judges not liking an artistic choice it can cause some people to quit piping. Which is a shame. Sorry for the rant. I just wanted to make my opinion known.
I watched your film , Laddie. A nice pipe, fine fingers and a grand sound. That's all that should matter.
I competed for over 20 years. Never played without either winning or getting a place. I found that judges expected me to win ,so I did. I gave up competing as I didnae require the affirmation of clowns. I see that you got judged on your shoes. I rest my case. You play well enough! Respect your tune and play on.
To me, what struck me about the piobaireachd was the setting. I never heard it before, and at first, I wasn't sure that I liked it. Then as it progressed, I really came to appreciate it. It's hard to say if I agree or not with the result because we didn't get to hear the other performances. My only critique (as if it means anything, HAHAHAHA!) was that the doubling movements could have had just a gentle lift in tempo and a little longer pull on the themal notes. Other than that, I enjoyed it. Hope all's well with you!
Great video, great playing and story telling. If i'm right Andrew went on to win the Silver Medal in KC after this...so. Great message at the end about keeping right motivation for competing. ANd the camaraderie with other competitors so nice to see on video.
John Schofield, metronome is the last thing you want to use in pibroch. The tempo should vary throughout in order to bring expression to the piece. Andrew, I would suggest cutting your shorter notes a little to lift the pibroch.
Piobaireachd*
piobaireachd
I thought it was a great performance. I was interested in the different setting. I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Hi Andrew. I play this tune and have played it at the Dunvegan Medal in Skye. I noticed an unusual anomily with the Fosgailte ?? This is Donald MacDonald's setting but in his setting it is written with an open Fosgailte and i was taught that the closed is not accepted in this setting. Judges just need an excuse so don't give them one as it was once said to me by a premiere Judge on the Benches at The Northern meetings that if that closed Fosgailte was played in this setting it would not be considered a Donald MacDonald setting and would be judged accordingly
+pipinghotpiper I think technically it is the Donald McDonald setting as played by John McDonald of Inverness, hence the modern playing of the fosgailte.
The setting that was very well played by Andrew, should have no need for an open fosgailte. Both styles of fosgailte are correct. Robert Nicol and Robert Brown were very clear that over the past several decades, it was a matter of style preference on the part of the performers. They were also taught to not play a fosgailte followed by an "A Mach", i.e. ,t he additional "open fosgailte", stating that they were taught to play one or the other as they preferred, but not both.
If the logic is applied re- Donald MacDonald's notation of the the fosgailte and the necessity to perform the variation as printed in his MS, then we should also be playing redundant A's in leamluath, taorluath and crunluath variations of most all piobaireachd as notated in most of the ancient MSS. In all piobaireachd, we draw the themes and interpretive information from the ancient MSS, but play embellishments in "the contemporary style" unless the format of the event insists on re iteration of the old notation....e.g. MacGregor-MacArthur, etc.
That was a great set ! F--- the haters
I loved it.
I thought you were amazing! If I could play half as well as you then I would be winning two firsts and a second. I did not find it boring.
Beautiful kilt
I was bored a wee wee bit at first at the start of the piobaireachd but before long, I really enjoyed it.
My question is.... how are you recording this without the pipes overwhelming the mic. on your recording device ? Pipes sound good, a little pitchy, not that I'm qualified to say so.
Andrew, a request. Pibroching away there, presumeably timing comes into it. It escapes me.
A talk on working with a metronome would be appreciated. Ta.
John Schofield metronome is beats piobaireachd is pulses. You don’t get certain specific pulses on metronomes.
Personally I find the idea of piping competitions to be a horrible idea. It takes so much effort to learn the art and technical skill of piping, and then you subject yourself to people judging whether on not you play it similarly enough to what they think the music should sound like. In fact the highland bagpipes are the only instrument I have learned where playing a piece of music differently than the way everyone else plays it is wrong. Changing what ornaments are used can make a song sound better, but "it simply isn't done". Competitions are fine for the military where you want people to be playing in unison, but it is a bad idea for individuals. If one constantly loses due to judges not liking an artistic choice it can cause some people to quit piping. Which is a shame. Sorry for the rant. I just wanted to make my opinion known.