The two primary facets of the band's summer activities are public performance and pipe band competition. Our performance season begins now and runs through the end of June. We'll pound the pavement for Memorial Day parades and furnish the pomp and circumstance for college commencements. In July, we switch gears, traveling 'round the scottish games circuit, competing against our peers in pipe band competitions. In September, we do a bit of both, performing at events such as the Capital District Scottish Games and Irish 2000, and we travel to a couple more pipe band contests as well. By the end of the summer your kilt can stand up by itself from all the sweat soaked into it.
This past weekend there wasn't much sweating going on though. The temperature never rose above the mid-fifties. Skies were grey and drizzle fell periodically. Good Scottish weather, I suppose. Many of our pipers tried to master the art of playing while wearing gloves. The band performed at The Celebration of Celts at the Columbia County Fairgrounds in Chatham. The event is a somewhat random amalgamation of highland games, horse show and medieval fair. I didn't envy those poor souls who were trudging about on damp grass and mud in full suits of armor. I thought our uniforms were a challenge! The assorted Knights and Ladies in Waiting had built small camp fires to huddle around at least. And I suppose once the metal from your armor heats up, it probably radiates for a while. In any case, any frustrations they may have accumulated from weather woes were certainly vented during the various jousts and other forms of mock mortal combat that ensued.
I've never really understood the perceived connection between pipe bands and medieval reenactors, but it may have something to do with our common love of setting up camp. Our band has a yellow-and-white-striped tent, maybe 15' by 15' square, that serves as our base of operations whenever we take a day trip to a gig. We've had the tent as long as I can remember, at least since the 80's. It's our home, the equivalent of a rock band's venerated tour bus. Once erected, I think you can see our bivouac from space. Certainly, you can spot it from across a large field, which is pretty helpful when you're searching for our band amongst 30 other bands at a scottish games. I consider our method of setting up and organizing the tent to be something of an art form at this point. It displays a degree of team coordination comparable to that of a space shuttle launch. As the tent is raised and secured with stakes, a collapsible camp table is set-up in the center. The table is then surrounded by the band coolers. Coolers are color-coded; blue for beer and red for soda and water. Snacks are set up on the table (oh, the snacks!) and the day's schedule is posted on the center tent pole. Finally camp chairs are placed around the perimeter, like circled wagons preparing for an attack. Garment bags, spilling forth uniform parts, are hung from the other tent poles. The whole process, when we're on our game, can take less than five minutes. It's a thing of beauty.
On Saturday, at A Celebration of Celts, we competed in 'Piping Outside the Box.' Events like this are increasingly popular at scottish games, the concept being pioneered, to my knowledge, by our own Beers and Cheers contest at the Capital District Scottish Games. The idea is to allow pipe bands to present an unconventional program of music, free from the constraints of the usual pipe band competition format. The use of additional instruments, beyond the scope of the traditional pipe band arsenal, is encouraged. More importantly, from the spectators' point of view, these events are often held under big tents, as opposed to out on the field. The audience is in a better position to see and hear the performance. Of course, one can perhaps get a little too up close and personal with a pipe band! I had one woman tell me that she enjoyed the show very much but that she thought she'd be hearing the echo of pipes in her ears for the next week and half. (I wonder which tune?)
'Piping Outside the Box' is great fun for us. The opportunities for our band to perform in a concert setting are comparatively few, so it's pretty exciting. At the same time, however, this gig is quite challenge for us and affords not a little anxiety. The two aforementioned roles of street and competition pipe band monopolize most of our time. Our repertoire is designed largely to meet the demands of these contexts. To assemble a concert program for an event like Piping Outside the Box, we usually call heavily upon the latent talents of our band members. I'm always impressed by our band's resourcefulness in developing a solid program with little time to prepare.
Among the highlights of the performance, to my mind, were the following. One of our pipers, Barry Smith, and his wife, Fran, opened the program with a duet of Amazing Grace. Barry played acoustic guitar and sang harmony and Fran sang the lead. We added some small pipes, too, for flavor. The entire band then joined in for a final verse. This was cool, not only because it sounded so good, but because we didn't know Barry's solo had become a duo until the morning of the show. Serendipity.I enjoyed playing a set of jigs on small pipes, with two of our snare drummers, Iain and Matt, accompanying with two types of hand drums that have names I cannot pronounce. For those who aren't familiar with the assorted species of bagpipes that exist, the small pipes to which I refer are, well, a smaller vers
ion of the great highland bagpipe that you encounter in pipe bands. This particular type of small pipe has three drones, a bass, alto and tenor, and a chanter that plays in the key of A. It is, of course, a much quieter instrument than its larger cousin, but you use the same fingering technique for both instruments. The small pipes are well-suited for a concert setting and they enable us to add a little variety to our program. The drum Matt played is noteworthy too. It's shaped like a box and you sit on top of it while playing. The drum has guitar strings running beneath the drum head. It generates a very unique sound. Anyway, one spectator told me that she liked this jig set because it clearly mixed celtic music with drumming from other cultural backgrounds. If you happen to know any drummers, you'll appreciate that they have a tendency to start banging out rhythms on anything that will produce a a decent tone and this set was a good chance to let them really let loose.
I thought our closing set pretty was cool as well. The band played 'Scotland the Brave' and 'Wings', incorporating Matt's electronic drum kit for added panache. Nothing beats a drum kit for getting the crowd's interest. Last Thursday, at practice, when we were rehearsing this set, we had the electronic drum kit set-up so that when you hit one of the drum heads a James Brown-esque computer generated voice shouted "Funky!!!!" And you could belt out a barrage of rapid-fire "Funkies" as fast as you could shake a drum stick. There can be no doubt that the perfect embellishment to a stirring rendition of 'Scotland the Brave' is the liberal application of a soulful "Funky!!!!" at crucial points along the melody line. The one danger to this approach is that you may inadvertantly choke from laughter while trying to blow your pipes, but this comes with the territory. Alas, on the day, we forgot to add the "funkies" to Scotland the Brave, but in our hearts we all knew they were there anyway.
Our fellow competitors for Piping Outside the Box were our compadres in the Oran Mor Pipe Band. Oran Mor put on a great show and then continued to entertain everyone with some top flight solo performances for a grand finale. When the results were tallied, Oran Mor won one event and Schenectady won another, although neither of us were exactly clear about the method by which the performances were evaluated. In any case, all went home as winners. Not a bad kick off to the season.
- JSS
*Added Info*
The hand drum Jeff is talking about is called a Cajón. It has a great range. More info here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cajon
The other hand drum is called a Djembe</FONT>. More info Here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Djembe
~M.J.K~
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