Is it unreasonable to suggest that there'd be no nsp if it wasn't for
the NPS and there'd be no NPS as we know it without Colin Ross? Just
what can the poor man do now he has been so thoroughly shafted by the
organisation that was a major part of his life?
There is a fundamental issue here and it won't go away or be alleviated
with the removal of Colin from officialdom at NPS. The problem is that
there are massive holes in the experience and knowledge of the
tradition within the piping fraternity, including, nay, especially NPS
and nsp brethren. On the 10^th October my wife Heather I played a
short set of fiddle duets at the concert at Morpeth in celebration of
the life and contribution to piping of Jim Bryan. Heather is a
competent musician in the sense that she obtained a distinction in
grade 8 violin at school and scored very highly in her pieces with the
examiner's comment some real music here. Despite/because of this
background she felt quite a fraud getting up to play traditional tunes
in that setting. True, she has made the study of the North East style
her main pass-time since 2000 and the last 4 years of that involved
daily practice of the north Northumbrian repertoire. After many hours
of dedicated study she feels she is beginning to shake off the parts of
her formal training that inhibit the traditional process but feels she
is still only barely breaking into the area of natural feel and oneness
with the music. Colin Ross understands these issues and has fought a
losing battle in recent years with dot readers and book-learners who
believe that this music can be picked up like learning history.
I understand he is unpopular because he ran the society like a fiefdom,
what else could he do as one by one committee members with similar
first hand knowledge and experience of the tradition were replaced by
enthusiastic but largely uniformed people who had come into piping from
other areas of the folk revival or the classical field ?
The more people failed to listen to him the more desperate and
confrontational he became.
I understand his predicament and it is well documented that I feel he
has been unsympathetically dealt with but my bigger concern is what
will become of traditional piping itself. The virtuoso Clough type
repertoire has its own worthy proponents and will survive in the hands
of the truly gifted but I'm talking about the everyday tunes that form
the basis of an average players repertoire and were played with such
bounce and verve at Alnwick Pipers and around that locality.
So many people want to cut to the chase and play the tunes before going
through the hours of listening and mental absorption of style and feel
before putting fingers to chanter. It seems to me that our traditional
music is being swallowed up by an unstoppable onslaught from the dots
first brigade. Colin's knowledge and experience of this music are
unsurpassed, wouldn't it be wonderful if people put their differences
aside and took steps to ensure his knowledge and feel for the tradition
was passed on rather than superseded?
As aye
Anthony
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