New Zealand Pipeband Nationals 2019 - Dunedun

[UPDATED]The Pipeband Nationals was pretty good for our band however the comments on the judges sheets did not really show the improvements we had made from last year.

In saying this some of the comments were valid and will be something that the grade 4 band will need to work on over the next year or 2. We did come third in the street march which means we are doing something right.

Below are links to our performances, however they are part of 2 Youtube videos, clicking the links should start the video at our performance, however you can move them around however you like to watch the rest.

Video Links

Just a note that I have updated the video links to start at the correct performance times.  These are MSR - 1 hour 10 minutes in and the Medley 3 hours 42 minutes in for the day 1 video. Street march 17 minutes in and Mace Flourishing 8 hours 15 minutes into the day 2 video.

Alternatively watch the whole video in YouTube using these links

Day 1 - Friday 29 Mar 2019

Day 2 - Saturday 30 Mar 2019

MSR

The first competition on Friday morning.

Medley

The second competition on Friday 11:30. 

Street March

Street march first thing Saturday morning.  A bit cold during warmup but sunny throughout the rest of the bands providing a good sound.

Mace Flourishing

We are a bit worn out here, as it is one of the last things of the competition and the temperature started to drop a we bit.

Other things to note, most of the pipers and drummers joined the grade 1 bands during their warm up, this produced a massive circle which at one point hit critical mass, and the sound leveled out to one tone.

If you watch 'Scotland the Brave' in the massed bands, the entire group stopped together.  This is unheard of at massed bands, usually get one or more bands continue in a repeat or several trailing drones.  I think the crowd witnessed something that has never been witnessed before, although most of them would not have been the wiser for it.  The video has an echo, which sort of ruins it, but the echo finish is clean if you listen for it.

All and all a good competition, definitely felt better coming off this one then any other. 

Clan Celtica Performance - Medieval Madness

Incase some of you don't have facebook, here are a couple of tunes we played early on in the day uploaded to Youtube.  This was at Kiwi North just out of Whangarei, on Sunday the 27th of January 2019

Upcoming Blog updates

I am planning few updates over the next few weeks to this blog.  Currently the posts have mainly been what I have been upto, but as I am now hoping to add some substance to it via these updates. 

I will be reconsidering updating the blog look and feel, maybe even updating the current logo, as well as how people interact with it.  I will also be adding instructions on how to subscribe and how to automatically get content when it is ready.

This will be in line with some medium to large blog posts.  These will mainly be research posts on people of interest from my family tree that other people may be interested in.  I have some video content from my grandfather that I could also use and put in my posts.

This will be quite a bit of work on my part so I cannot guarantee that the posts will be quick or regular.  I have some people in mind to start with, but if you have any ideas, or would like to see some information on someone specific, please comment on this blog, I will pick it up.

The first people I will look at are;

Donald Cameron and Christina Maclean - These ancestors migrated to New Zealand in 1840

Joseph George Toms - A Whaler and an early settler to New Zealand

Also if you have any information regarding some one specific, a first person reference (if possible), or a story or an important achievement, please let me know.

Another cold night performance for Clan Celtica

I probably should have posted this earlier but I haven't had any time where I can sit down to write events for this blog.  A couple of weeks ago Clan Celtica had another performance at MOTAT, Aucklands Museum of Transport and Technology.  This was for a strange event called WTF and had strange exhibits.

Clan Celtica had a roaming performance starting at 9pm and going for about 45 minutes.  It was cold, there was a chilling breeze that ran through the night.  Frankie had a bad cold, and was coughing and having a bit trouble, but it did not harm the performance.

It was also a night were we had two pipers.  At this stage there were no harmonies, I let Michel lead, and I would play for volume. It went really well considering the temperature.

We also had a stage performance starting at 10:30pm running for half an hour.

Here is a short video on facebook from the night. https://www.facebook.com/clanceltica/videos/867542786783500/

Scottish Clans Association AGM and dinner

I have been attending the Scottish Clans Association (Auckland District) monthly committee meetings for about 4 months as a representative for Clan Cameron.  In doing so, I have been active in one of the latest initiatives, the scholarship, I have also discussed with some of the committee members the state of getting young people involved with Scottish culture.

I have effectively put my head up and have been noticed and at the recent AGM I was elected vice president.  I am not sure what this is going to mean moving forward, I don't really want the responsibility of something like this. I already have the Clan Cameron presidency coming up next year so I need to make sure that I am on track for that.

In saying this, there maybe a lot of overlap between the two organisations and it could be beneficial to be in both.  I was thinking about maybe checking out the RNZPBA Auckland centre for similar reasons, so maybe me being here is not a bad idea.  I will give it some thought and observe how the committee interacts with each other over the next year and see where this may take me.

On top of the AGM last weekend I performed the piping duties for annual dinner which was straight after.  This was a lot of fun, not as intense as I thought it was going to be. I had a small piece at the start of the night to get everyone to sit down at the tables, I had come up with a 5 minute piece but was cut short early as it was not all needed.

I then had to pipe the guests to the main table, a short piece with not to much hassle.

The Haggis was a bit late, and I had the piping duties for this.  Malcolm Campbell was running the show for this, he gave the ode and showed the ropes to us who had not done it before.  Christine Binns, the associations represenitive for clan Matheson, was right behind me in charge of carrying the Haggis. 

I was informed that I needed to snake around, so I had already worked out my route, however, when executing my circuit, I came across a sort of roadblock where a woman facing the table didn't see me right behind her while I was trying to get round her.  I pushed through, it was a bit rough however the rest of the party made it upto the front without any issue. Apart from that it seemed to go pretty well.

Final responsibility was to pipe out the main table at the end of the night. All in all a great night, I got to see some Clan Cameron members as well as some other people who I will probably need to keep in my circles moving forward.

 

Tough couple of months

The last couple of months have left me with very little spare time.  Mostly down to new tunes learned for 3 bands and a couple of functions.  I have also been looking after Kintail House, a Scottish shop Kilt rental.

Firstly both City of Auckland Pipeband and City of Sails Pipeband have new tunes in there medleys, some which are challenging. On top of that I was asked to learn the tunes for a tribal band called Clan Celtica for a gig end of August.

On top of all the practice, there was looking after the shop.  It was supposed to be a rental here or there, but ended up being quite busy from start to finish.  It required at least a couple of hours each weekend day and at least one visit during the week.

Clan Cameron
During this time the clan annual dinner was held, which I was organising the entertainment for.  This required Originz, a solo piper to do a piece and pipe the haggis, and also included a five minute piece played by myself at the start of the night.  The following pictures show a clan crest trophy which I carved for Originz, this is because they get people to the annual dinner.  This was Originz third performance, it was very good, and well received by the audience.

Clan Celtica

Over the last couple months was also the build up to the Clan Celtica Performance, it was a paying gig and the most I have been paid for a gig playing pipes.  The owner of the shop was the piper and asked me to take over while he was away.  I took the challenge and a challenge it was, I have played in front of crowds before but not as the lone piper amongst drummers.  There breaks upto a part long which are hard to get back in if not aware where the drummers are.  I had 2 practices on the practice chanter and pads with Frankie, the main drummer, and 2 practices with the band.  The band practices were long and draining but where necessary.

The performance went ok, there were a few too many errors where I was concerned, but the audience did not notice to that level.  I still need to work on things if I want to continue with the band, next gig is in a couple of weeks, but is likely to have 2 pipers.

Tartan Day 2018 Sunday 24th June

Another tiring day starting 9:30 am for the initial practice then getting ready for the main performance at 1 pm.

The practice the week before - When the Piper Plays

Hector The Hero

Photo by Neil Cameron. Possible candidate for the next clan news letter.