It was an epic weekend at the 12th Pipers’ Gathering. To be able to finally meet and play tunes with Dan Houghton was like finding a long lost brother, a slightly older, smarter one you know, who’s better looking and can pull off feats of piping skill like an effortless “E” hornpipe shake. Dan and I played together with flute titan John Skelton on Saturday, getting some of the audience up to dance the An Dro with the pipes, bombard and guitar and we were rapt by John’s set of flute, bombard, and Galician pipes at the Sunday concert. I spent a lot of the weekend hanging out with my arch-nemesis Nate Banton, the smallpipe/border pipe maker who had some beautiful instruments on display and on stage. It was very distracting in a nice way to have one of his instruments pulling my attention towards the player at some of the group lessons. I’ll get you next time, Banton! There were many tables laid out with an abundance of bagpipe making artistry this weekend and another of the instructors, Jon Swayne, knocked me out with his playing at the Saturday evening concert and by the elegance of the pipes and flutes he makes. Across the path were the gorgeous multi-denominational bagpipes and leather work of Michael MacHarg. I think every Irish pipe and most of the smallpipes were outfitted with his expertly made pipe bags and I wish I had had an hour or two to take a good look at his wood-turnings for inspiration. There just wasn’t enough time to take in all the interesting, amazing playing, pipe-making, and education to be had there. I got the new Tim Cummings tune book and was blown away by some of the tunes on the accompanying CD. He led us in song at the Sunday concert with his smallpipes. One of the modern piping gods, Jim McGillivray was there teaching smallpipes and I wish I had been able to see one of his classes as well as the afternoon workshop of the smallpipe player/ singer Laura MacKenzie. It was such a treat to have so many of my customers there with their pipes. I did a lot of little tuneups and some reed tweaking on those instruments and got to re-connect with customers I hadn’t seen in a while. The weekend really could not have gone better and I am driving home today reeling in gratitude for the friendships that were struck and deepened over this weekend. I’m only mentioning a really tiny fraction of the magic that happens for pipers at this event. A cross-pollinating, enriching, challenging, and inspiring time, that Pipers Gathering.
They’re a 501c3 nonprofit by the way, so if you’re looking for a bagpipe-supporting tax write off they would do great work by your contribution!
Here’s the notation of the first tune I played in my set Saturday night: big-spring-awakening-hp
I just had a fantastic weekend at the Pipers Gathering meeting with some amazingly talented pipers and wonderful people. I caught four of them here for a Tidy Cottage smallpipe reunion photo.
The folks at the Sunday session at Jack of the Wood Pub were nice enough to let me put their music on youtube. I play a lot of flute at the sessions but when there’s a new smallpipe about to leave the workshop I try to go out and play it in public as much as possible. These pipes are the ones in the last two posts made of mopane, key of A. The fiddle player in the video is named Beanie, that’s Vincent on the bouzouki, and Quinto on the Uilleann pipes. There’s another bouzouki player off to the side but I don’t know his name, and a bodrhan player named Kila just out of the frame. Beanie and Vincent have a band called “The Red Wellies” that put out a great CD a couple of years ago and they play in the area from time to time. Usually there’s a fantastic guitar player named Sean (on his honeymoon) and an lovely adept tenor banjo player named Jeanne. Maybe they’ll be in town next time. Thanks everybody at the session including Leanne for taking this video! Next stop: Piper’s Gathering in Vermont.
Again, the set below being played before sending them out to Colorado. The A chanter this time and a tune I wrote back in May the day after a very beautiful wedding in Big Spring Tx. The wedding party and I were staying in this luxurious cabin with a view of miles of beautiful Texas. Everyone left that morning and I was all alone to write tunes in the cabin. It’s called “Awakening Big Spring”.
Just before sending the set below I went to the Asheville session and heard these two tunes played by the Uilleann piper. They make nice D chanter tunes for the SSP’s.
I try to do a lot of playing on every set of smallpipes and tonight this tune was coming off the fingers so I turned off all the lights and hit record. It’s one of the tunes for the Winter Storm contest in Kansas City in January.
Being home for a few weeks before the Piper’s Gathering has me practicing a lot and getting pipes made. Here’s the latest set out of Blackwood and Olive.
I’m just getting back on schedule after a long series of gigs and festivals with Teribus and Clandestine. It is so good to be back in the workshop and a regular practice schedule too. The set tunes for 2011 just came out and I’m happy to have spent the last couple of days getting my competitive axe going with the vintage Lawrie drones and Naille chanter. “Battle of Auldearn No 1″ was a tune I played as a kid and it’s a beautiful pibroch to revisit after more than 20 years.
A couple of weeks ago I had the pleasure of working up a set of tunes with Jamie Laval to play at the Swannanoa Gathering teachers’ concert for fiddle week and Celtic week. Jamie is a fellow Ashevillain who plays some cracking Scottish violin and we spent a few evenings in very deliberate rehearsal. Jamie thinks like a piper when he wants to and practicing tunes with him is like being back in a competitive pipe band. He plays like every note counts.
While I was waiting for our time slot to come up I ran into my friend Jack who’s just on summer vacation from college and I asked somebody to take a video of us playing some session tunes off the cuff. The light was perfect for human eyes but not so good for iphone cameras. I was playing this set of smallpipes made of Tx Ebony, a tree not in the Ebony family at all but really related to the mimosa tree. It’s a knarley wood that grows down in the “Valley” of Texas near the border and makes a great sounding pipe if you can manage to get past the twists and turns in it. The antler on the set came from my piper friend MB who lives near Kerrville Tx. It’s knarley too. Axis dear and more mottled than usual.
