The following was placed in the guestbook by someone called Timothy Simpson. He writes,

"Please consider these comments as constructive to all pipe band drummers I mean all of them. I drummed for over twenty years in pipe bands. And let me tell you its Boring plain Boring. Its the same drum rudiments same press rolls. A friend of mine saw that I was in a rut playing the same press rolls and same drum licks that my grand daddy and your grand daddy played hundreds of years ago. Joined a great drum and bugle corps and now play in a world championship drum line. Lots of new drum rudiments out there . New drumming ideas for snares and bass drums and quads. The pipe band drum lines are old fashioned and out dated. If you want to improve your drumming skills get out of pipe band drumming. Really and truly I have improved and learned much much more. The pipe band drum instructors are all the same . They are in a time warp. Eight Track Tape Decks are Gone and So Are Rotary Telephones. People dont send telegrams any more. Get Modern. Get your self out of pipe band drumming. Its Boring and you will never ever learn anything new or modern. Sorry But thats a true story. Ask any serious drummer and they will agree. Pipe Band drumming is really Boring."

Your thoughts?  

The following is information was obtained from the Kinnaird Bagpipes Site which is well worth a look at www.kinnairdbagpipes.com

Most of us in the band use the KORG CA-30 tuner which can be calibrated and used as follows.

Sound the low A on your chanter and look at where it is tuning on the meter. then use the calibration buttons up or down until the low A is reading zero on the meter. The green light will also come on when your meter is in tune with low A.

To tune your drones

All you have to do is hold the meter at the end of each drone (easier if someone else is doing this whilst you play your pipes) and then adjust the tuning slides of each drone in turn so that the drone sound also reads zero on the meter.

To tune your chanter

You can use the meter notes and offsets from zero in the following table to tune the other notes of the chanter. You should ensure that the meter is reading the correct "note" which will show up in the top right corner of the tuner. Notes "C" and "F" show up on the tuner as "C#" and "F#" respectively.

If the top hand is sharp compared to the bottom hand, lift the reed slightly out of the chanter to bring the pitch of the top hand down. Add some hemp to raise the reed if necessary. If the top hand is flat to the bottom hand sink the reed further into the chanter. This will bring up the pitch of the top hand relative to the bottom hand.

To make further adjustments see the previous article on the use of tape.

Mark mentioned moving tape about on your chanter on Monday night so I thought I'd put up a few notes (get it!) on the rationale behind the use of tape.

We all know that sinking the reed, or pushing the reed further into the chanter will raise the pitch of the reed and make it sharper. Conversely, raising the reed up from the chanter seat will lower its pitch and make it flatter. So what does the addition of tape to a hole on the chanter achieve?

If you put tape over the top of a hole it will lower the pitch of that note. This is because by placing the tape over the hole you have increased the distance between the reed and the top of the hole, you've effectively lowered the top of the hole. i.e. flattened the pitch. So for instance if you put tape further down the F hole then the pitch of your F will be lowered.

If you then raise the piece of tape to a higher position so that it covers less of the hole you have raised the top of the hole and in doing so decreased the distance between the reed and the top of the hole. i.e. sharpened the pitch. So, if you move the tape further up towards the top of your F hole then the pitch of your F will be raised.

So that's what tape does to each individual note. What about getting the whole chanter in tune?

Well I would say at this point that this is really the Pipe Major's job and as you know a substantial amount of time is taken up when setting up the band with getting this right. However its much easier for the pipey if the chanters are all close together.

The easiest way to check that the notes on your chanter are in tune is to tune a tenor drone to low A, turn off the other drones and play low A. If you hear some wavering you then need to move the tenor in the direction which slows the wavering down until it eventually stops. This requires some concentration but will get the low A and the drone in tune.

Now check the other notes relative to the drone. In general, if a note sounds flat to the drone decrease the amount of tape covering the top of the hole of that note. If it sound sharp increase the amount of tape.

I hope this all makes sense. Enjoy your taping!

It's the second last day in October. If my memory serves me correctly Association's AGM was supposed to be in November. We are all supposed to have a month's notice of the AGM. Is it my maths that is out or is there something else going on, or not going on as the case may be?

Anyway in preparation for the next AGM (whenever it may be) I have put the minutes of the last meeting together with a copy of the current constitution on the Members Only page which can be accessed by going onto the Band News Page and clicking the link for Members Only. You will need the password which is case sensitive.

It should be noted that these minutes have not been accepted as the official minutes of the last meeting but we need an AGM to carry this forward. The constitution is also based on what was recorded in the minutes and again this has still to be accepted by the next AGM.

As for changes to the constitution or matters for the agenda...................................................?

Well, it's that time of year again when we have a pile of music thrust upon us and we are sent away with the task of going through it until we are at least familiar with the content prior to sitting down at the practises and perfecting our new sets. For the long term members of the Grade 2 and 4 bands this process shouldn't be too painful as you should have most of the sets off. 

The Grade 2 band has a new four part strathspey, a hornpipe, a slow air and two jigs to learn for the competition field. The Grade 4 band has a new set of MAP tunes. That's not a lot to be concerned about for the established members of both bands.

However, I would suggest that there is still a lot of work to be done on other parts of the band's repertoire. There were too many occasions last year when we were limited to playing family favourites because some of the band coudn't play all the music.

We play 3 sets of 6/8's. We have a set of 9/8's. We have 3 sets of 4/4's (over and above the grade 4 Medley). We have 2 sets of 3/4's.

Now would be a good time to look at the music for these and spend some time (that may not be available at the practises) to get these tunes into your heads so that we can play them as a band when the opportunity arises at engagements and during the coming season.

Anyway, I better climb down off my soapbox and discuss development.

There should be an AGM coming up in November and now would be a good time to have a think about where the Denny and Dunipace Pipe Band Association should be going in the future. I would like you to have a think about the following.

What would you like to see the bands achieve?

How do we get there?

Do we currently have the resources available to reach these achievements?

If not, how can we obtain these resources?

Are there obstacles in the way and if so what can we do to remove them?

Sorry to start sounding like some sort of business development coach but I think that the Association needs to start looking forward and that it might be beneficial to take on some business planning and development ideas.

We want to have success on the competition field. However that success will not happen without planning and developing an organisational structure that is robust enough to deliver everything that is required to put a band on the field at the start line with the opportunity to achieve that success.

We have done well in the past. I am sure that we want to do better in the future. So lets all think about how we can achieve this aim and improve what we do as an Association. We all want to make both the Pipe Major's jobs easier so that they can concentrate on winning. After all taking part is all very well, but winning.............

(I should probably point out at this stage that the above views are those of the author and are not the official policy of Denny and Dunipace Pipe Band Association although the author thinks they should be!)

28th September 2007 - Sandy

I thought that I'd start the blog off with a wee bit about the music book. We published this in 2007,and gave it the snappy title of The Denny and Dunipace Collection, Volume 1. It just rolls off the tongue, doesn't it? Anyway, this was a project that took about a year to put together with a view to raising some money for the Association but also to showcase the talents of the individual composers who either have been members of the band or have been associated with the various bands.