Piobaireachd Wednesday: Sir James MacDonald of Isles’ Lament
Delving back into the results from the spring 2012 BagpipeLessons.com Online Piping Competition, our tune this week is one of my favorite wee tunes: Sir James MacDonald of the Isles’ Lament. It’s not very long, but it’s very melodic and very enjoyable to play. The player is Soren Larson, and this performance earned him 3rd place in the grade 3 piobaireachd event.
If you’d like to submit a tune to be featured on Piobaireachd Wednesday, please email me.
Piobaireachd Wednesday: I Got A Kiss of the King’s Hand
For our tune this week, I’m again using a video recorded at a reglar match meeting of The Eagle Pipers’ Society. The player is Iain Spiers, the tune is I Got A Kiss of the King’s Hand, and the recording was made on October 25, 2011.
If you’d like to submit a tune to be featured on Piobaireachd Wednesday, please email me.
Piobaireachd Society Releases 2013 Set Tunes
The Piobaireachd Society this week announced their recommended set tunes for 2013 competition.
Senior Competitions (submit four, play one)
- The Blue Ribbon
- Lachlan MacNeill Campbell of Kintarbert’s Fancy
- The Old Men of the Shells
- Ronald MacDonald of Morar’s Lament
- In Praise of Morag
- The Prince’s Salute
- Isabel Mackay
- Lady MacDonald’s Lament
Gold Medal Competitions (submit four, play one)
- The Battle of Bealach nam Brog
- Clanranald’s Salute
- MacDonald of Kinlochmoidart’s Lament (No. 2)
- The MacDonalds are Simple
- Nameless (Hiharin odin, hiharin dro) (Angus Mackay’s MS)
- The Rout of Glenfruin
- The Vaunting
- The Young Laird of Dungallon’s Salute
Silver Medal Competitions (submit four, play one)
- Duntroon’s March
- Fair Honey
- Grain in Hides and Corn in Sacks
- Lady Anapool’s Lament
- Melbank’s Salute
- Lord MacDonald’s Lament
- All the Old Men paid rent but Rory
- The Parading of the MacDonalds
What are your thoughts on the tune selection this year?
Piobaireachd Wednesday: Macintosh of Borlum’s Salute
For our tune this week, I’ve selected one of 2012′s Gold Medal tunes: Macintosh of Borlum’s Salute. The player is Canadian Andy Rogers, playing at a regular meeting of the Eagle Pipers’ Society in Edinburgh in January of this year.
If you’d like to submit a tune to be featured on Piobaireachd Wednesday, please email me.
Piobaireachd Wednesday: Massacre of Glencoe
In crawling the web this week looking for a tune, I once again found myself at Ken “The Captain” Eller’s page: The Captain’s Corner. Ken has been piping for more years than I’ve been living, and is well-known as a teacher and judge in Ontario. He manages to make great recordings of some of the high-profile amateur contests in eastern Canada, and it was one of these that he posted that I’ve decided to share this week.
The tune is the Massacre of Glencoe, recorded at the George Sherriff Memorial Competition in 2010. The piper is Glenn Walpole, at the time one of the top amateurs in the region; he now plays in the professional ranks. I think you’ll agree that he does a pretty nice job with this tune. This performance earned him second place in the piobaireachd contest, and was the overall runner-up.
This tune is one that has some sentimental value to me, for two reasons. First, I played this tune for most contests in my final year in grade 2, and I think it was pretty important in helping me move up from there. The second reason goes back to the years between 2003 and 2006, when I played with the Macdonald Pipe Band in Pittsburgh, PA. Members of the MacDonald clan were on the receiving end of the massacre, and the slow air version of the tune was part of our show repertoire. It was in that band that I got my start as a solo competitor, and I owe a lot of my piping obsession to the time I spent in that band and the friends I still have there.
If you’d like to submit a tune to be featured on Piobaireachd Wednesday, please email me.
Piobaireachd Wednesday: The Stewarts White Banner
For our tune this week, I’ve chosen to present another recording made by my friend John Daggett at the Metro Cup in February. The piper is one of my favorites, and no doubt one of the best on the solo competition scene over the past few years: Stuart Liddell. His tune is The Stewarts White Banner.
To see more of why Stuart is one of my favorite pipers, check out this, this, and this.
If you’d like to submit a tune to be featured on Piobaireachd Wednesday, please email me.
Piobaireachd Wednesday: The Unjust Incarceration
I apologize for the late update this week; I’ve switched back to night shift at work and it’s interfered with my sense of time.
Last week I shared an entry from the most recent incarnation of Jori Chisholm’s online competition, and this week I present the next tune in the prize list in that same event. This was the second place performance in the grade 1 piobaireachd. The piper is Bill Peters, and he’s playing The Unjust Incarceration. I don’t know Bill, but he clearly knows his way around piobaireachd. The tune starts around 2:00 into the video if you’d like to skip the tuning.
This tune has one of those most excellent piobaireachd titles, and I did a little poking around to find out the background of the tune. A quick internet search turned up an article (in pdf format) written by Brett Tidswell at the School of Piping in Australia.
This was composed by the famous blind piper of Gairloch, Iain Dall MacKay, who we know lived from 1656 to 1754. The tune tells the story of Neil, the eldest son of the seventh chief of the MacKays of Strathnaver who was incarcerated on Bass Rock a tiny island off East Lothian for nine years from 1427, by King James I. In his efforts to control the Highland Clans, James had called a parliament in Inverness and when they arrived James had many of the Clan Chiefs executed or placed in “safe keeping” in various jails or strongholds throughout Scotland. Neil escaped after James was executed in 1436.
If you’d like to submit a tune to be featured on Piobaireachd Wednesday, please email me.
Piobaireachd Wednesday: McIntosh’s Lament
Our tune this week was sent in by Australian piper Stephen Ross. I featured one of Stephen’s tunes before, from Jori Chisholm’s online competition a few months ago, and he sent me his entry in thee most recent online competition. He’s chosen to play McIntosh’s Lament, which he does quite a nice job with. Except, as he says, for “one big boob at the end of a part,” I think you’ll agree this is quite a nice tune.
This performance earned him third place in the grade 1 piobaireachd. Stephen kindly offered to share his comment sheet, which can be found here. He offered these comments by email:
I would agree with the comments. And I was getting tired by the end – 16 minutes of Piob playing after tune up is actually quite a challenge for blowing and concentration – new found admiration for the Professional – makes light music a breeze
The length of the tune is indeed one of the challenge of playing piobaireachd, but it’s also one of the things that make it great. Thanks again for sharing Stephen, and well played.
If you’d like to submit a tune to be featured on Piobaireachd Wednesday, please email me.
Piobaireachd Wednesday: Beloved Scotland
Our tune this week again comes from the amateur competition at the Metro Cup, held in Newark, NJ on February 18. The piper is a friend of mine, Avens Ridgeway, who hails from Union, Maine and currently studies at Lyon College in Batesville, AR. Here is her bio from the Metro Cup program:
Avens Ridgeway is from Union, Maine and is a sophomore majoring in Psychology and Music at Lyon College. She played with the Grade 2 Stuart Highlanders Pipe Band from Massachusetts during 2010. Avens is currently a Grade 1 solo competitor in the Eastern United States Pipe Band Association. She competes throughout the U.S. and in Canada as well. Some of her accomplishments include winning the Grade 1 Piobaireachd at the Glengarry Highland Games in Ontario, Canada and winning the Piobaireachd at the United States Piping Foundation in 2009. She also has been invited to the Nicol-Brown Challenge where she placed 4th overall. Avens has had Piobaireachd instruction from Jimmy McIntosh and primarily studied with Nancy Tunnicliffe before coming to Lyon, where she now studies with Jimmy Bell.
Avens’ tune for the competition was Beloved Scotland, which has one of the most distinctive opening lines of any tune I’ve ever heard. A further interesting note is that the judge for the contest is Glenn Brown, who played Beloved Scotland to win his Gold Medal at the Northern Meeting in Inverness in 2009.
If you’d like to submit a tune to be featured on Piobaireachd Wednesday, please email me.
Piobaireachd Wednesday: Lament for Patrick Og MacCrimmon
This tune was sent to me by Sean Regan, who is a friend of mine and rather a piobaireachd fan. He recently represented the Ohio Valley branch of the EUSPBA in the Pipe Major George M. Bell amateur competition at The Metro Cup, and placed third in the piobaireachd event with this tune. Lament for Patrick Og MacCrimmon is a classic, and I think you’ll agree that Sean does a fine job with it.
If you’d like to submit a tune for Piobaireachd Wednesday, please email me.
Piobaireachd Wednesday: Desperate Battle of the Birds
Last weekend was the Metro Cup, one of the premier piping events in North America. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to attend, but from all reports there was some fantastic piping to be had.
Our Piobaireachd Wednesday tune for today was recorded at that event. The player is Bobby Durning, a young piper from New Jersey, who has competed at the Metro Cup several times as an amateur and this year made his debut in the professional competition. His tune was Desperate Battle of the Birds, one of my favorite tunes, and I think you’ll agree he had a pretty good run at it.
This performance earned Bobby sixth place, which is not too shabby if you consider the rest of the prize list, who you may be hearing from a bit later: Angus MacColl, Stuart Liddell, Alex Gandy, Chris Armstrong, and Bruce Gandy. Well done, Bobby, for rounding out such a distinguished prize list, and congratulations on a great performance in your first Metro Cup as a professional.
Thanks to my friend John Daggett for recording the video. He sends his apologies for the poor video quality, but the sound is what matters here on Piobaireachd Wednesday, and that came out pretty well.
If you’d like to submit a tune to be featured on Piobaireachd Wednesday, please email me.
Piobaireachd Wednesday: My Dearest On Earth Give Me Your Kiss
This is the final tune from the Gold Medal competition at Winter Storm 2012, and it was the tune that won the contest. Alex Gandy is the player, and he’s a pretty well-known player in the North American piping scene. He is the son of Bruce Gandy, an excellent piper himself, and Alex has established himself as a top-flight soloist. He’s also recently taken over as the pipe major of the 78th Highlanders Halifax Citadel Pipe Band, making him one of the youngest ever to hold that position in a grade 1 band.
His winning tune was My Dearest On Earth Give Me Your Kiss, which is presented without further comment.
If you’d like to submit a tune to be featured on Piobaireachd Wednesday, please email me.
Piobaireachd Wednesday: Lament for Captain Donald MacKenzie
Continuing our trek through the prize list from the Gold Medal at Winter Storm 2012, our tune this week comes from Jori Chisholm. Jori has made quite a name for himself as a player, both as a soloist and with the world champion Simon Fraser University Pipe Band, and also as a piping teacher. He’s the piper behind BagpipeLessons.com, and I believe I am correct in saying that he was the first piper to offer lessons over the internet. In 2011 he launched a series of online piping competitions that attracted entries from pipers and judges all over the world; he has also announced another one for spring 2012.
His second place tune at Winter Storm was Lament for Captain Donald MacKenzie, which was the same tune you heard in the last installment by Alastair Lee. That’s one of the drawbacks of having limited choices of tunes, but it’s a good chance to compare how it’s played.
If you’d like to submit a tune to be featured on Piobaireachd Wednesday, please email me.
Piobaireachd Wednesday: Lament for Captain Donald MacKenzie
If you haven’t had your fill of Winter Storm piobaireachd, you’re in luck. After working through the Silver Medal prize list, I’m please to offer you the top three finishers in the Gold Medal. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to see all of the performances, but a friend of mine was able to record them and has shared the recordings with me to use for Piobaireachd Wednesday.
Be prepared for a good sit, because the Gold Medal tunes are pretty substantial this year.
We start today with the third place tune, Lament for Captain Donald MacKenzie, played by Alastair Lee. Alastair is, I believe, the son of Terry Lee, pipe major of the Simon Fraser University Pipe Band. Alastair plays with that band, and has distinguished himself as a solo competitor as well.
If you’d like to submit a tune to be featured on Piobaireachd Wednesday, please email me.
Piobaireachd Wednesday: The Bicker
This is the first of the series of Piobaireachd Wednesdays resulting from my visit to Winter Storm on the weekend of January 13-14, 2012. I was able to watch the U.S. Silver Medal almost in its entirety; I heard and recorded 17 competitors. I won’t post all of the recordings here (as I mentioned before the tune selection was not widely varied), but I will post the prize list. The top five players ended up playing four different tunes, so I figured the repetition would be minimal there.
Our tune this week is the tune that won the Silver Medal: The Bicker. The player is Colin Clansey, who is from Kingston, Ontario. Colin has been a consistent prizewinner in the Ontario piping scene for at least several years, and according to what I was able to turn up with a few minutes on the internet is that he is the pipe major of the grade 2 Glengarry Pipe Band. This was really a great tune, and I thoroughly enjoyed hearing it person. I hope you enjoy it as well.
If you’d like to submit a tune to be featured on Piobaireachd Wednesday, please email me.
Piobaireachd Wednesday: Lament for Donald of Laggan
This is the next of the series of Piobaireachd Wednesdays resulting from my visit to Winter Storm on the weekend of January 13-14, 2012. I was able to watch the U.S. Silver Medal almost in its entirety; I heard and recorded 17 competitors. I won’t post all of the recordings here (as I mentioned before the tune selection was not widely varied), but I will post the prize list. The top five players ended up playing four different tunes, so I figured the repetition would be minimal there.
Piobaireachd Wednesday Bonus: You’re Welcome, Ewan Lochiel
This is the next of the series of Piobaireachd Wednesdays resulting from my visit to Winter Storm on the weekend of January 13-14, 2012. I was able to watch the U.S. Silver Medal almost in its entirety; I heard and recorded 17 competitors. I won’t post all of the recordings here (as I mentioned before the tune selection was not widely varied), but I will post the prize list. The top five players ended up playing four different tunes, so I figured the repetition would be minimal there.
Piobaireachd Wednesday: Catherine’s Lament
This is the first of the series of Piobaireachd Wednesdays resulting from my visit to Winter Storm on the weekend of January 13-14, 2012. I was able to watch the U.S. Silver Medal almost in its entirety; I heard and recorded 17 competitors. I won’t post all of the recordings here (as I mentioned before the tune selection was not widely varied), but I will post the prize list. The top five players ended up playing four different tunes, so I figured the repetition would be minimal there.
Working up the prize list, our fist tune is Catherine’s Lament. The player is Jamie Troy from Victoria, British Columbia. Jamie is also an accomplished drummer, having played snare with the Spirit of Scotland Pipe Band when they competed at the Worlds in 2008. As you can tell from this recording, he knows a few things about piobaireachd as well; this solid performance earned him fifth place. Enjoy!
If you’d like to submit a tune to be featured on Piobaireachd Wednesday, please email me.
Winter Storm piobaireachd update
I’m writing this from the lobby of the Marriott Country Club Plaza hotel in Kansas City, site of the world-renowned Winter Storm event. Most people would never guess that the center of the piping world on a particular weekend in January is in the US midwest, but it is indeed here. Lots of big name players are here, and it’s living up to its reputation of being a stunningly good time.
If you’re a regular reader you’re aware that I kinda like piobaireachd, and I spent most of Friday morning listening to the US Silver Medal piobaireachd competition. I was able to record 17 of the 20 competitors in the event, and it was definitely worth getting out of bed for. Look for a few of those tunes to be posted on Piobaireachd Wednesday over the next few weeks; especially look for Colin Clansey’s winning performance of The Bicker, and Ben McClamrock’s second place showing of Catherine’s Lament. The prize list shaped up as follows:
- Colin Clansey, Kingston, ON, The Bicker
- Ben McClamrock, Baltimore, MD, Catherine’s Lament
- John Lee, Surrey, BC, Lament for Donald of Laggan
- Dan Lyden, Baltimore, MD, You’re Welcome Ewan
You can’t tell from looking at the prize list, but the tune selection was pretty repetitive. If I had heard one more version of Catherine’s Lament I would have had it memorized; it was played five times. There were three each of The Bicker, Lament for Donald of Laggan, and MacGregor’s Salute, and only three tunes that weren’t repeated. That’s my only issue with set tune lists: there is some repetition when you listen to a contest all the way through. That sounds like a topic for another post, and for now I have to get to the registration table where I’m volunteering my time today.
Piobaireachd Wednesday: Sir James MacDonald of the Isles’ Lament
Piobaireachd Wednesday is back on track this week, with another tune from the most recent online competition from Jori Chisholm at bagpipelessons.com. The player is Owen Capon, playing one of my favorite tunes: Sir James MacDonald of the Isles’ Lament. This tune landed him in the prize list of the grade 2 piobaireachd competition, placing 5th out of 12 competitors.
If you’d like to submit a tune to be featured on Piobaireachd Wednesday, please email me.
Piobaireachd Wednesday: Lament for MacSwan of Roaig
Our tune this week is a little gem I dug up from YouTube: Pipe Major Gordon Walker playing Lament for MacSwan of Roaig. I don’t know where or when this was recorded, but definitely worth a listen.
If you’d like to submit a tune for Piobaireachd Wednesday, please email me.
Piobaireachd Wednesday: My King Has Landed In Moidart
I must admit that I’m very disappointed in you, the readers of Piobaireachd Wednesday. For many weeks now, I’ve had to comb the internet for tunes, and that’s not the intention of this feature. If you have a tune that you’ve been working on, please consider recording it and sending it off to me. Remember, no judgement, no criticism, just music.
Anyway, our tune this week is from Jori Chisholm, a professional piper who lives in Seattle. He’s made a name for himself on the competition circuit, and was also one of the first pipers I was aware of to incorporate the internet into his teaching. This video of My King Has Landed In Moidart was recorded at Winter Storm in 2008, and this performance won him the U.S. Gold Medal that year. I think you’ll agree that it was indeed a fine tune.
This video is split into two parts, so be sure to catch the ending of the tune in the second video.
Part 2:
If you’d like to submit a tune for Piobaireachd Wednesday, please email me.
Piobaireachd Wednesday: The Rout of Glenfruin
Our tune this week comes again from the author of this blog. For the sake of diversity I’ve tried to not include a lot of my own playing, but this week I make an exception to present my submission for Jori Chisholm’s most recent online competition. This ended up being the winning tune in grade 1 piobaireachd.
The tune is The Rout of Glenfruin, which is one of the tunes I learned this fall in the Dojo University piobaireachd class, taught by Bruce Gandy. The tune was written to commemorate the Battle of Glenfruin in 1603, which was a rather lopsided victory (hence the title).
If you’d like to submit a tune to be featured on Piobaireachd Wednesday, please email me.
Piobaireachd Wednesday: Black Donald’s March
Tomorrow is Thanksgiving here in the U.S., and I present a very interesting tune for the occasion. Andrew Bova is a recent graduate of Carnegie Mellon University, where he earned a degree in Bagpipe Performance. He competes at the professional level, plays with the 78th Fraser Highlanders Pipe Band, is an excellent player, and a good friend of mine.
While he was at Carnegie Mellon, he worked with Maestro Denis Colwell to the compose a piece entitled Variations on Black Donald’s March. He sent me the recording for Piobaireachd Wednesday, along with these notes from the program.
The Variations on Black Donald’s March is an experiment in using the traditional Highland Bagpipe alongside Western classical musical instruments. Here the bagpipe is featured, in fact, as the solo instrument, its line excerpted from the ancient piobaireachd Black Donald’s March (Piobaireachd Dhomnuill Duibh).
Black Donald’s March has been linked to the first Battle of Inverlochy (1431) where the MacDonald leader was Black Donald Balloch, a kinsman of Alexander MacDonald, Third Lord of the Isles. Clan Cameron has also laid claim to the tune, as MacDhomhnuill Duibh was then the patronymic of Lochiel
Cameron Chieftains.
Since the Variations on Black Donald’s March uses excerpts from an existing set of traditional bagpipe variations as its solo line, the resulting piece is a set of variations on a set of variations.
The piece was premiered by the Carnegie Mellon Wind Ensemble on February 10th, 2011 in Carnegie Music Hall, Pittsburgh PA. The ensemble was under the direction of Maestro Denis Colwell featuring soloists Andrew Bova (bagpipes) and Adam Hill (tenor).
If you’d like to submit a tune to be featured on Piobaireachd Wednesday, please email me.
