More Music - Day 9

 An alarm went off!! Early start to the day as we have a piping event with Richard Parkes MBE this morning. He is the former Pipe Major of the grade 1 band Field Marshall Montgomery. He will explain how to create a good band intonation across a pipe corp. It will be interesting to hear the deep secrets of Field Marshall :-)

We hoofed it up Buchanan Street to the Piping Live Venue and quickly entered the festival. It was early so not much going on yet. One thing for sure....  it was certainly going to be a warm day with highs of 28ºc!    

Before entering the hall, we had a great conversation with Big Rab and thanked him for keeping the piping community together through COVID. We listened to endless podcasts during that period and always enjoyed the conversations. He is playing the pipes for the first time with Tullylagan PB in Grade 4B. Best of luck to him and his band.

It begins...

We sat down inside the Piping Center 's main hall and really enjoyed Richard Parkes  explanation of reed handling, set up and band routine both before a season and contests. Lots of nuggets in his methodology. Kelly took several notes and will return these to her band at home.  

A few nuggets in here....

Several members of the Warwick Pipe band sat near us…. This is where we spent time for the 2023 FAI F3A World Championships.  Had a good chat with them as they are just doing performances and taking in the Tattoo in Edinburgh.  Maybe compete here someday!!

Been there!!!

We also met some of the MacCrimmon clan in Callum’s wife, Laura Beth who works at the piping center. We hope to see Ian and Charlotte at some point over the weekend. (FYI Ian was the musical director for Edmonton's Big Rock PB when we both played with them in the early 90's when I was based there with AirBC.)

We purchased a couple hamburgers for lunch. Ouch!! 12£ each... and no fries! Do the math! We met an older fellow from Australia as we ate. He had immigrated 60 years ago from Scotland and he knew several people we knew. He also competed years ago at the worlds. Very interesting chap. 

We walked over to the Cowcaddens subway station and headed to Kelvinbridge Station. A short walk through the car park area and on to Kelvingrove Park to watch Field Marshall's practice. 

It’s 28ºc so it won’t be a long practice. 

 

Tune up time in the shade.

Post practice gathering... sounded good.

 

 Peel Police from Canada was there practicing along with several other bands. Interesting to see how FM warmed up… exactly like Richard had mentioned at this talk earlier!

 

Here is an "attack"..... which is simply the starting sequence of the set of music, be it a MSR or Medley.... PM starts the beat and then the drummers execute 2 -Three Beat rolls, the pipers strike their drones on the left foot and on the next left foot sound an  "E" on the chanter. The perfect attack features a solid drone sound and the "E" notes all sounding like one single piper. 

We started to watch the practice but park security showed up and had a chat with the pipe major…..   they didn’t move 😂

We watched for an hour or so and then planned to go over to Victoria Park to watch Inveraray and District practice. We needed to get an uber over to the park as it’s a bit further west than the subway runs. Time ran out so we will just meet up with them at the Worlds site on Friday. 

 

We stopped at the university of Glasgow and grabbed a geocache. The building is spectacular so we had a good look around. 

 

We went back to the subway station and grabbed the train to Enoch station and "home".  We relaxed for a bit then dressed and went back up the street to the Ask Italian restaurant for dinner. It is located right across the street from the concert hall.

 

Pre-concert crowd.

 The evening finished off with a huge concert hosted by Shotts & Dykehead Caledonia. They put on a great show with lots of piping & drumming, singing, and both Highland and Irish dancing. The centerpiece was a tribute to former Pipe Major Robert Mathieson who wrote many famous tunes.... and in a surprise move, he showed up to play with them!  Crowd loved it! 

 

Concert

The show ended and we went back to our flat. A bit of blogging and off to bed after a dram or two of Coal Ila Scotch. My new favorite :-) 

 

Steps: 11,650 

 

Sunny with 28ºc temps.... crazy for Scotland.. it's a heat wave!