My friend stopped playing his Colin Kyo bagpipes long enough for me to have a crack at them for the blog. We were running all Canning (old worn out ones) but the bass reed fell in the bag like, I don’t remember how long ago at band practice, and I didn’t notice until I couldn’t blow up the bag that my friend hadn’t fished it out yet (tsk tsk, I can’t get the middle tenor out either, it’s spinning in the stock, tsk tsk). So the Canning carbon bass is not acting right (maybe got a bit of seasoning on it?) so I’ve got a Rocket bass in there now. Anyways, the Canning in the tenors are the important part. Good volume on the overtones but not harsh, which is nice. There are some crazy harmonics going on on B and especially low G, listen for it!

I am sorely out of practice, if you hear any spitting in the last track due to loss of lip seal, DANG IT, the microphone picked it up, lol. So, like the idiot I am, I figure I’m out of practice, so I should play fast tunes. Duh. The first set the drones start out all right but then go out a bit as I’m getting warmed up still, so I recorded it again but at the time I was trying to fix the D tuning and forgot about the drones. So…here’s the first set of tunes twice. The first one the drones are in tune (at least at the start); the second one the D is in tune (I think).

Me Clootch is Awee (x2, Mark Saul) and 1st Hype Cowboy Division (Murray Blair)

Me Clootch is Awee (Mark Saul) and 1st Hype Cowboy Division (Murray Blair)

Then I tuned my drones ;o) and played some jigs. I was digging through “Gordon Duncan’s Tunes” and ran across Rory Gallagher which is a neat tune; I don’t play it like it is written but how I remember hearing it on a World’s album from a while back. That’s followed by Rob’s Shower Shabang by Murray Blair, a tune I learned a long time ago and played with a fiddler friend and then again I played it with Lyon College as it was in our Medley at the World’s in 2001 (2nd grade 3B). Lastly, since these are my friend’s pipes, I played his favorite jig o’ the day, Leisa McCord by Ebert (better known as EJ) Jones.

Rory Gallagher (Gordon Duncan), Rob’s Shower Shabang (Murray Blair), and Leisa McCord (EJ Jones)

Lastly, I figured I better play some slow stuff so you can hear the drones better so here is a waltz that I learned off of EJ as he plays it on a Clandestine album (I think I have the title right?) followed by a waltz written by myself which really doesn’t go too well with the first one, and then I finish with a jig I wrote after I remember how it goes.

Kate Martin’s Waltz (?), Calista Anne McLaurin (Patrick McLaurin), and Latisha McLaurin (Patrick McLaurin)

To conclude, below are three great books that you should definitely have in your collection from which a lot of the tunes I played in this post can be found.

To actually conclude, here are some pictures of the pipes I was playing. Drool away! Why yes, it is fully mounted in moose antler.

This is just a quickie since it’s been so long. A quick tune up of the Atherton chanter (Husk reed) in a new set of Keith Jeffers’ pipes in cocobolo (Selbie reeds) to introduce a new tune (sorry the E is a little off). I’m a big fan of Battlefield Band. The pairing of non-bagpipe instruments with pipes really brings the pipe tunes to life and they always have great musicians that make it just sound great. An older album of theirs, “There’s a buzz” has quite a few traditional pipe tunes that can be found in the old collections, most available via ceolsean.net. One of my favorite tunes on the album is a 6/8 called the Quaker. So, I made my own arrangement from the ceolsean versions paired with what’s on the album. Below it is played with Mrs. Lily Christie to start. Also linked is the YouTube video to stress how important having decent audio equipment is. It is the exact same recording. The MP3 was done with a Zoom H2, the YouTube video with my iPhone. No, YouTube isn’t that bad, it’s the iPhone.

Mrs. Lily Christie and The Quaker

Mrs. Lily Christie and The Quaker