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Wednesday 9th July
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Denver's Back!
Chatting to Denver Cardwell today and he was very chipper and almost back to his best form after his recent stroke. Denver spent nine days in hospital after his bad turn but says he has been given the all clear to man the clipboard at the European Champs. at Lisburn at the end of the month. Denver said: "You know it says in the RSPBA rule book that the aim is to create a fellowship of like minded individuals dedicated to piping and drumming? Well I can tell you a fellowship it certainly is. I have been inundated with cards and get well messages from all over the pipe band world. My mobile phone and the phone at home hasn't stopped working. It's just what you need when your mind is playing tricks on you and your confidence is at a low ebb. It fair picked me up and I want to thank everyone who took the trouble to get in touch.
"So I'm planning to be back in the circle for the next major championship. I've cleared it with the doctors, incidentally the same brilliant team that cared for Richard Parkes when he was ill.
"When I posed the question they said they thought it would be all right. One of them asked if it would would cause me any stress - but I said not to me but maybe some of the bands will be a bit stressed at my being back. They got a good laugh at that."
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13 days ago
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Thursday, June 19, 2008
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~Band Music~
To free up space on the PT Extra page I've decided to create a new blog page via Google with a simple link from the Extra page and the Fast News page. PT Extra is getting fuller all the time and I hope you are enjoying the new features. Check out the PT Archive for example. In it you will find just about every article stretching back to 1948 the year of our first publication. Truly a fantastic resource for anyone interested in piping history.
PT Extra content will be linked to the main PT magazine of course and I see the page as enhancing rather than substituting for the magazine. Choice Tune for example is a case in point. Read about the tune in the PT, get the score there and then hear how it should go via the PT Extra page.
The main topic of this blog is pipe band music and I would urge you all to get your next PT where you'll read a hard hitting interview with P/M Robert Mathieson of Shotts. Timely this given what I've just heard on YouTube - Toronto Police's new medley. Not a melody in sight I'm afraid and I found it very hard to enjoy albeit that it was well played with good harmony and ensemble effects. We shouldn't judge a pipe band from YouTube right enough, the sound quality is weak. But considering the performance as heard I cannot say I was impressed.
Take melody out of the musical equation and we are not left with a lot are we?
A similar medley was attempted by David Urquhart Travel a few years ago and met with disaster at the main competitions - for the same reason. There was nothing apart from the execution of the 'stuff' that caught the ear. As I said on the CoP Radio show recently once we get too far away from the basics of bagpipe music we are in deep trouble. It is a simple instrument with nine notes and produces a glorious sound in the right hands. There are thousands of fine tunes to play on it. Take a few of these, arrange them in a progressive fashion, add some well chosen harmonies, good dynamics from the drums and there you have it. It is not astrophysics.
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33 days ago
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Date June 13, 2008
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~Masters of Piobaireachd.~
Well that's volume 10 in the bag. Spent all day yesterday with Norman Matheson going through the tunes and getting them edited down for the next CD. Thanks to our engineer Dave Fisher all went very smoothly and there are some cracking tracks on it. I must say that having been involved with the project from the start I get more from the playing and singing of Bob Nicol then I do from Bob Brown. Nicol seems to be able to focus down onto the phrases and nuances. He doesn't have as good a voice as Bob Brown. Brown knows he can sing and I get the impression he enjoys it so much he can get a bit slow at times and self indulgent. Still great instruction mind - as I've said before, the authentic voice of a genuine tradition passed on orally by masters of the past. You can keep your book learning and musicological pontifications. Listening to the Bobs (and to wee Donald and other masters of the past) is where the true heart of piobaireachd lies, not in the endless chit chat and theorising over this school and that, who played up and who played down, who played a C for a B and why. I feel another Editorial coming on! The CD should be available on Greentrax by the end of the summer. A bit late for those wanting some pointers for their tunes at Oban and Inverness but Norman has been ill. Good to see him back and raring to go. He tells me he is on the bench at Aberdeen this weekend and at many other games over summer.
Big night at the CoP tonight with the start of the West End Festival and a concert from Allan MacDonald. Good luck Allan.
Don't forget to click on to CoP Radio for June from the 15th onwards. Lovely 'In Praise of Morag' from Stuart Liddell.
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40 days ago
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