City of Auckland Pipeband Medley 28/09/2017

Update: Progress on the Taiaha

I have been able to get started on the tongue and part of the face.  Rounding the edges does remove some of the guide lines but there should be enough to continue

Set of bagpipes made by some of the member of the City of Auckland Pipeband.  This set of pipes shows unique carvings, mounts and ferrules on the stocks, drones, blowstick.

Photo of my Grandfather outside Achnacarry Castle, home of Lochiel, Clan Chief of Clan Cameron.  Photo was taken sometime in the 1980s, I will update the date when I find it.

Pt England School performance

City of Sails Pipe Band 2017 from SchoolTV on Vimeo.

City of Sails Practice - 20/09/2017 - Medley

Key finished, on to the next project

I have finished Sophies key with a week to spare, I will travel to Christchurch on the 30th to deliver the key to her.

Mext project is a Taiaha fpr Brian Wilson, should be ready by March when he is here next. The wood used for this is Kauri.

Grandma DNA results are in

DNA results are in 93% European no surprises there

Lesson Practice; The 75th Anniversary Concert

Today's lesson with Willie was mainly with the tunes for the City of Auckland 75th Anniversary Concert next month, Ian McMaster, The Sleeping Tune, Angus' Fluffy Ducks, Out of the Air, New Year in Noosa, Itchy Fingers, and The Clumsy Lover.

Also went through the City of Sails Medley and Set.

I still need to work on memorising The Sleeping Tune, and work on the tunes used in the medley.

I also did a bit of digging on a recording device and came up with a Zoom H2N from the DojoUniversity forum.  I went to the Rockshop and they can order one in for $299, the K Rd store has a Tascam DR44WL for $499, and the other device to look at is the TASCAM DR05MKII for $199.  I think the best bet for this will still be the Zoom.

Planning for Practices

Today I purchased a UE Megaboom to help with practice, mainly to record the Sails grade 4 medley and be able to play it back and play along with it.  This is surprisingly loud enough to hear while playing.

Today's practice was to achieve two things, run through both the City of Sails Grade 4 Set and Medley without making mistakes (no harmonies) for recording, and to make sure that I can get the breaks and tempo changes correctly.  The recording will be up in separate posts.

City of Sails Practice 13th September 2017

Practice tonight as promised was straight onto the pipes, and straight into leading it for me.  The pipe major has put Marion and myself as leaders for each of the two mini bands for next months competition.

I first led the band in the City of Sails Medley consisting of Sails Attack, The Hag At The Churn, Paddy Be Easy, Mrs Joy Cairns, Over the Bows to Ballindalloch, and The High Road to Linton.  Then Marion did the same.  This past between us a couple of times for just the grade 4 pipers.

We also did the grade 4 MSR.  I got some feedback that my Strathspey was a bit slow.  I will need to speed this up as I am used to over expression for solos, and this expression is not really achievable with the band.  Unfortunately I didn't get a chance to remedy this by the end of the night.

As I am also trying to learn the harmonies, I will need concentrate more on leading in the short term and bring the harmonies back in when I have them off properly.

City of Sails Potluck dinner and awards night

The night went well for me, another trophy to add the mantle - most improved piper.  As a result I cannot idly take a backseat in this band; as the Pipe major (Kerry) was describing the person to get this award, mentioned that me to take a more active role in the band including leading one of the mini bands for next months competition.

I got some unexpected praise from other members of the band saying this was well deserved.  It has also got me thinking about my immediate and long term future as a piper and what this means for my development as a band member.

Solo Piping Festival 2017

Last weekend was the Auckland Solo Piping Festival in which I entered C grade 2/4 March and C grade Strathspey and Reel.

I decided to use my new band reed that I got from Kerry on Wednesday.  This reed sounded really good, was easy to control, and didn't squeak anywhere.  I asked Michel to help tune me up the night before, and this made the Pipes sound really nice.

Michel also gave me some advice which was to add more low G on my Grips and Tauraluaths.

I had a strategy for warming up which was to warm up several times during the day to also help with the tunes. I was relaxed and ready.

The audience was bigger than expected and in this environment was a bit daunting as alot of people were watching.  I think this did effect my performance as both were a bit faster that I thought they were after looking at the video after.

The March was ok, but I couldn't get some of the technique.  I think this was due to the fact I had sweaty hands from gripping the stock to tightly.

The Strathspey was good, considering it was a bit faster than anticipated, it did seem like some of the expression was a bit early, but the pace did not speed up as I would expect it would in this case.  I think the expression was good for the first competition of the season.

The reel was a bit fast and I did suffer in the 3rd part with a bit of rushing in the Tachums, I will need to work on this when the tune is at speed.  I did mess up the last line in the last part quite badly, this was unexpected and sort of ruined the tune.

With all this said I still got First in both events and most points overall.  There was only one other person as Dan Chia put a nail through his thumb and Thomas Bennet did not show up.