Tune of the Month – November 2016

Tune of the Month

I love new tunes. The Tune of the Month for November 2016 is Murdo MacGill(i)vray of Eoligarry (I’m told pronounced Yoligarry). This is a 4 part reel that’s pretty easy overall, with a beefy 3rd part that incorporates 2 low A taorluaths and 1 bubbly note from C to B. For Grade IV players, I’ve got a 2 part reel for you: Kate Dalrymple.

Why don’t you learn either of these two tunes with me this month and once you get it down, record it and I can post it to the blog (either with attribution or anonymously)? You can be sure I’ll be posting my progress. I would like to see other people take on the challenge of learning a new tune each month along with me. I think, too often, we get bogged down in perfecting 1 tune for competition, that we forget to get better by playing other tunes. I find my playing gets better the more different music I try to play, not more of the same. Part of this probably has to do with not getting bored with the same old thing over and over again. And, if you don’t finish it within the month, that’s cool; keep at it or not, and I can always add your rendition at a later date. No critique will be made of any recording, it’s just to share. I can link to YouTube videos as well.

Murdo MacGillivray of Eoligarry can be found in Donald MacLeod’s book 3, which you should buy if you haven’t already, or can buy it from Jim McGillivray’s pipetunes.ca. Here’s a link with all the details of where the tune can be found.

Here’s an “instructional” video of the tune on practice chanter:

Kate Dalrymple is a great little 2 part reel that reinforces common reel basics. Here’s my sheet music, although there are many variations available:

Kate Dalrymple -pdf of sheet music

Here’s an “instructional” video of the tune on practice chanter:

Submit your recordings to me via email. Just take my website, patrickmclaurin.com, and stick a @yahoo before the .com.

Happy Piping!

My Progress (I’m only going to critique myself, ABC notation has a scale of GABcdefga and anything in {} are grace notes):

Murdo MacGillivray of Eoligarry 2016-11-06 – need to hold the C note in the “{g}c{d}A{e}A” phrase at the end of lines, need to clean up “A{d}c” movements and watch for crossing noises.

Murdo MacGillivray of Eoligarry – 2016-11-08 – 7:16 and 10.5 MB of me fine tuning the tune; trying to hold the 2nd low A in “A<{d}A” in the 1st and 3rd bars of the 1st and 2nd parts; trying to hold high As in the 2nd part; trying to hold F and E in the 4th part; still trying to hold the Cs at the end of lines; need to not come off the end of the line so quick; bubbly note a bit mushy; grip in the 2nd part a bit labored

Jeannie Carruthers, Susan MacLeod, Murdo MacGillivray of Eoligarry – 2016-11-21 – Need to omit the pickup into Eoligarry and break right into it.

Kate Dalrymple – Patrick

Kate Dalrymple – David Glen – don’t let those taorluaths sneak up on you, haha!

Kate Dalrymple – JR Glen – this version is AWESOME, I think there’s a typo in the music = the 1st ending of the 2nd part should be “d2 fd” instead of “d2 fe”, it sticks out in the recording something awful.

Contributed Recordings:

None so far!

Colin Kyo pipes tied into an “old” L&M bag

Drone Sounds of the GHB, Great Highland Bagpipe Solo

When I first acquired my Colin Kyo bagpipes from a friend they were “tied” into a grommetted Gannaway bag. At the time this did not bother me. On a tangent, I’ve longed neglected my old Henderson pipes due to difficulties with reeding the drones. With X-treme tenor reeds, a short, inverted Ezeedrone bass reed, and a new bass bottom with a bigger bore the Hendersons have been singing tied into an old L&M bag I got off of someone for $50. So, I’ve been playing my old Hendersons a lot. In addition, my Glencoe and Terry sets are also both tied into old L&M bags. I LOVE THEM. Anyways, my Colin Kyo pipes weren’t being used much due to the bag issue as I came to dislike the bulk of the grommets on the Gannaway. So, on the hunt for old L&M bags I came across one that never even had the holes cut. Sweet! So, I’m set to go now. And they sound fantastic with their new bag.

The problem started when I thought a live Facebook broadcast of a practice session of me playing my newly set up Colin Kyo bagpipes was a good idea. Lots of people tuned in, but when I went back to listen to it, there was a lot of audio quality loss. This was a Facebook thing as I guess they think video is more important. The source of the audio was my Zoom H2 recorder wired into the lightning port of my iPhone via a Blue Mikey Digital. So, this post is to offer the audio simultaneously recorded by my Zoom H2 during that session so you can hear what the pipes really sounded like. I haven’t included all the recordings because the first few were during warm up and had me sorting the chanter tuning. I last played the chanter with the bag unseasoned and so it was setup for a wet reed (pushed farther in the seat), but the bag having been seasoned since then left the reed dry and therefore sharp, and then flat because I pulled it out too much, and then just about right.

Colin Kyo drones + Colin Kyo chanter + regular Ezeedrone reeds + 5+ year old Gilmour chanter reed that just won’t quit.

Kind of Laois & Rakes of Kildare

Mo Ghile Mear, Neili’s Polka, & Ger the Rigger

Angus MacKinnon & Frank Thompson

The Big Yin & Picnic in the Sky

Patrick O’Connor’s & Tom Billy’s Polkas – picked these up from Jerry O’Sullivan at the Spanish Peaks Piping Retreat