-Original Message-
From: brimor
To: theborderpiper
Sent: Wed, Feb 29, 2012 3:48 pm
Subject: Re: [NSP] Re: March 2012 TOTM: "Adam a Bell" selected by Julia Say
It certainly is also useful to read in G and play in F, if you are a fiddler
and want to play along with NSP &q
I seem to be unable to pick up any of the several slots, those with Alice and
those of Emily alone. Is anyone else having the same probl;em? Can anyone
suggest a way of seeing and hearing them?
Sheila
-Original Message-
From: Francis Wood
To: Anthony Robb
Cc: Dartmouth NPS
Se
In our search for "the correct way" to play a piece, I think that we are all
overlooking the point that composers tend to make minor (occasionally major)
alterations in a lot of their pieces (embellishments, dynamics and even notes
and whole phrases) each time they perform, depending on their m
Hi Chris,
I am sure that you will be finding Anthony Robb's suggestions most helpful.
He is a most practical person as well as being a very good player. No doubt
you have his two CDs, "Windy Gyle" and "Force 6"
I don't know what other instruments you play. At some point I think you said
Hi Alan,
In connection with the question of intonation and the perception of
"in-tune-ness", your quotation is very interesting. Violinists have the
problem of having to decide whether to tune their "A" to whatever has been
decided as the pitch for the ensemble with which they are playing 44
What really got me interested was the gift of Kathryn's first cassette, "On
Kielder Side". Wonderful music! It was given to me by friends who live on
Orkney and heard her at the Orkney festival. At that point I was trying to
learn to play the Highland chanter. The teacher had just received
Sorry, Anthony, but that's the way we 're hearing it also. I know that it
sounded interesting when you combined Windy Gyle Slow Air and fast Jig, but
"interesting" is not the adjective I'd use for this combination.
Sheila
-Original Message-
From: Anthony Robb
To: Chris Almond
Greetings friends,
Can anyone send me the current e-mail for David Burleigh? I would indeed be
most grateful.
Hoping you all are enjoying the last days of summer, in the northern
hemisphere, and the approaching spring in the southern hemisphere. Here in
western PA we are having some per
Dear piping friends
I am sure that to many of you these few questions regarding the competitions
are going to seem ridiculous, with very obvious answers, You no doubt find
the rules that are set out in the last Newsletter are all that is needed.
Those who live in Northumberland and have
Hi Edric,
So glad to have a reminder of this museum. It certainly is one of the most
fascinating for musical instruments. We have not been back to it for several
years, although we were in Brussels this spring (staying with some good
friends). I am sure that many of the NSP members do no
In Trinidad there is a tradition to only cut bamboo on "Dark nights', otherwise
it will quickly be destroyed by insects. Research shows that more
photosynthesis occurs when the moon is shining so that there is a greater
accumulation of starch ( a favourite food of insects) when the moon is
La Grande Chaine seems to be a very popular tune on both east and west sides of
the Atlantic, so I was most surprised, when looking through "The Fiddler's Fake
Book" , published in 1983, which lists almost 500 of the most played tunes, not
to find it there. Does anyone have any idea when it b
When the bags are going through the scanning cameras I always say, "These are
bagpipes, they probably look peculiar,". Frequently the reaction is, "oh,
we've never seen bagpipes," Then, turning to the rest of the security crew,
"Come and take a good look at them". Occasionally it involves
Hi John, Steve and all,
Would you say that this conforms to the limits of the list?
Hopefully,
Sheila
-Original Message-
From: bri...@aol.com
To: dir...@gmail.com
Sent: Sat, Feb 6, 2010 6:51 pm
Subject: Re: [NSP] NSP duet with other instruments
Hi John,
Yes, as Matt commented
Yes, Chris, you are absolutely right both about amatuer orchestras and that
among the enormous amount of people who took "music lessons" in the 20th
century the arts of playing by ear, improvizing etc did appear to have been
lost. However, I remember that in one section of the final exam for
I'll give my half-pennyworth and then shut up.
I admire and respect quite a lot of folk musicians who play only by ear., I
also admire and respect quite a lot of classically trained musicians who play
from the dots, and it seems that many who are damning the classically trained
on this ns
This is to other pipers who have been to Germany to any of the piping events or
workshops and have probably met the excellent pipe-maker, Uwe Seitz and his
charming wife, Rosalba. She also played the Norhumbrian pipes, and other
pipes, and helped Uwe in both his pipe-making and teaching. She
Hi Anthony,
Windy Gyle is such a beautiful CD, we play it over and over.? If anything ". ..
Appelbo" is maybe a trifle too slow but, as Colin said, you can play a tune any
way you like it best and, after all, maybe?the walkers were?admiring the view
as they went.??
Could you send me the d
I absolutely agree with you, Colin.?There are many ways to play a tune.??
I find even with music I myself have composed, that a lot depends on my mood -
a piece I wrote as a slow air can, some days, suit me better as a lilting
hornpipe or a waltz.?? In fact some of my duets have different "se
Hi Julia,
Margaret has spellt it out perfectly for you.?? My "Word"? and "Open Office"
have all of the accents for the vowels but I have not found a way to access
them for e-mail.? Incidently, the area from which the tune comes, Dalarna, has
the stress on the first syllable.
Do you have t
I really hate to prolong this discussion, but just want to point out that in
the mid '90s I persistently begged and pleaded, in person, by e-mail and?by
snail mail, ?with the NPS chairman and committee members to organize a
week-long piping course such as Susan is now doing, and was told it was
This "word stuff" is interesting. We tried a similar "test" on our
then 6yr old grandson and he had no problem reading it aloud straight
away. Similarly with music, people find that as they continue with
reading not only do they pick up the bar/phrase at a glance, but they
also hear the mu
I just had to pass this on as a change from some of the current threads.
Sheila
-Original Message-
From: schenk2...@windstream.net
To: John Bridges
Sent: Fri, 5 Jun 2009 3:59 pm
Subject: piper
THE IRISH BAGPIPPER
As a young bagpiper, I was asked by a funeral director to pla
For heaven's sake, don't let us get back to all the back-biting and
bitching of the previous messages - making unjustified allusions to
people, without mentioning names etc. If classical music had remained
"in the tradition" Mozart would have been shot, Beethoven would never
have dared to exp
Hi Valerio,
Probably you have already received replies about "Wet Monday". In
case you have not done so, herewith:-
Composed by Fiona Davison in 1993. It was written on a wet Monday
morning as part of a portfolio of compositions for Fiona's "Advanced
Level" Music examina
Matt,
My husband, being interested in boats as well as in music, was
intrigued by the words, and by the comment which someone made about
"keels" being the sea-going boats as well as those used on the Tyne.
Evidently similar boats were used on rivers and canals, at least in
"gre
Many thanks to the members who, so very promptly, have sent me the
lyrics of Maa Bonny Lad.
Most gratefully,
Sheila
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I urgently need the words of "Maa Bonny Lad" Can anyone come to my
rescue?
Please e-mail to[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Thanking whomsoever in advance.
Sheila
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Going back to your initial e-mail, Barry, that many solos used to be
played at NSP gatherings in the "early" days - at least before 1990,
and now very few choose to stand up on their own before the
"gang". -
At that point in time there weren't many "expert" pipers
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Thank you for the reminder, Colin. That explains why my C# , and
therefore A major tunes sound better than the C naturel and A minor
tunes. I had forgotten that bit!
Sheila
__
It's only a deal if it's where
Allan,
As you have noticed, the small pipes are not tuned to a tempered scale
and the "E" is frequently deliberately tuned so that it is correct
when playing in A major and a minor i.e. a perfect fifth with the "A"
(as Colin already mentioned). This means that it is not going to
Obviously everyone has there own opinion regarding what is good form
and what is not.However, as a person who is on the periphery of the
field, I find it difficult to know what indeed is correct, and what is
considered WRONG and to be DAMNED apart from the fact that it should
bas
As you can probably well imagine this altering of names has occurred
very frequently with immigrants whose names seemed quite
unintelligible to the immigration authorities. A good friend told us
the other day that his father and his 2 uncles (father's brothers)
all arrived in New
Neil,
You omit any mention of the places to which you travel. I'm sure that if
you would say where you might be likely to be, you would find that people
would be very happy to offer some help. My pipes have coped with climate
changes from country to country as long as they are packed c
Probably you have already had replies, in case not - this is usually played
as a transposing instrument when playing the traditional NSP tunes. i.e.
you read G but it sounds D (the note above middle C on piano).
It is up to you what you do when playing any other music.
In other wor
Klaus,
You have made the right decision!Apart from Dick Hensold, who has a
special love affair with the D chanter, (even though many of us do know how to
transpose, and can and do when necessary) my guess would be that 100% of us
use
the G chanter when playing the NSP with concert pitc
I forgot to add that Andy May's suggestion to do any of the staccato
exercises with a metronome, beginning at a fairly slow speed and gradually
increasing the tempo, is a good way to encourage oneself, over a number of
weeks, that
one is actually improving. Likewise, to tape record onesel
The final strain of Madame Bonapart is good arpeggio practice.
Sheila
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Greetings Roger,
I have found Dick Hensold's exercises very helpful
([EMAIL PROTECTED] (mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]) ) . Although he is not a
Northumbrian, he does play the NSP very well and is an excellent teacher.
Sheila
** See what's free at http://w
The only times I have had a SSP in my hands I have noticed that the reed
seems to need a lot more pressure than does my NSP.Is this always the
case?
Or is could it be that the ones I have tried have belonged to either GHP
players, who seem to like high pressure, or to certain NSP owne
1. I am obviously one of the few illiterates on the nsp list who do not
know what an 'ABC reader" is. I would be most grateful if someone could
enlighten me. Tunes seem to come through in letters which I can then sit down
and
translate into notes/"dots", but is there no way of sending th
As most people have already said, the written note is most useful, does show
the pitch of the note and its duration, and is one of the best ways of
preserving compositions for future generations. However so much more is not
conveyed.I know that the discussion is mainly related to folk m
I agree with Matt that is a very interesting discussion. However, I don't
think that those of you who live at the centre of the NSP world can realize
how difficult it is for those of us, who live many thousands of miles away, to
know what the true Northumbrian tradition is. To us there ar
Presumably the "Traditional" tunes for the NSP would be among those included
in the basic tune books. However I have reason to believe that many of
these started life as fiddle tunes and many more, which lie beautifully on the
pipes (such as Madame Bonapart) came from other parts of what u
It sounds rather like George Formby who had a collection of banjos - each
tuned in a different key, thus he got tonal variety but used the identical
fingering on all of them.
Sheila
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Hi Sam,
As a player of several classical and folk instruments, for many of which I
also compose in what many people might consider not the "strictly traditional
style" for a given instrument - I really appreciated your common sense, broad
minded comments.
Sheila
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Yes, Hamish's talk was very interesting. Perhaps he could be persuaded to
write an article for the newsletter.
What I found most interesting at a workshop on playing for dances, was the
comment that you also bore the age of your dancers in mind. If the majority
were elderly the music shoul
With reference to the speeds at which music should be played I am most
grateful to Julia and Adrian for including the metronome marking in the "Billy
Pig"
book. Those of us not living in Northumberland do not have the advantage of
having heard the repertoire played repeatedly at every session
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