Paying for the Bus, and Learning Along the Road

Part of the job of getting the band to competitions is raising the cash to get there, and paying for accommodations and ground transportation while there. Without a full-on sponsor, the band relies a lot on event fundraising, member inputs, and performances. Our Maxville/Montreal trek involves five nights of hotels, a bus from the airport to Cornwall, buses to the Games, and transport from Maxville to Montreal. Not cheap.

This past weekend, we took a parade job in Moosomin and it was a great day. Up at six a.m. for the 2+ hour drive, arriving in time to meet other band members from Estevan, Brandon and [surprise!] Winnipeg, tune for about 20 minutes, and then go on the parade. Not the most fun kind of piping, but greatly appreciated in the town. For many Saskatchewan pipers, this is the main activity.

When we got back to the starting point after the parade, one of the organizers was there with a cooler full of ice cold beer and pop. Now THAT was a treat! We later played for about 30 minutes for a group of people assembled to hear us in the town memorial park, dedicated to the memory of local veterans.

Once re-tuned, the band started with a couple of 3/4 marches, the first being Major Gavin Stoddart's brilliant tune On the Road to Passchendaele. When we were all done, and having lunch provided for us by the local sandwich shop, one of the local guys came to point out that next to the spot we played was the grave of Passchendaele veteran and hero George Harry Mullin VC MM (August 15, 1892 - April 5, 1963). Altogether a fitting way to start, and well noted by the locals, who are very proud of his memory.

It's not easy putting together the money for a trip to Maxville, and sending a mini band to Moosomin is one way to make ends meet. At the end of the day, it turned out to be a day that was worth the effort. We had laughs as a band, got some practice in, had some fun playing old marching tunes in the parade, entertained quite a few people, made some cash for the Maxville trip, and learned something about a Victoria Cross winner of long ago.

Not a bad day out for any band.

The Breakthrough Weekend
Saturday morning, and I'm working on the upcoming summer school, updating web pages, and waiting for the results from the British Pipe Band Championships in Belfast. I made that trip with ScottishPower in 2007, and it was a really fun trip: staying in downtown Belfast [much different than when I was last there in the early 80s!], a miserable wet, cold day, and then a very late night on the town. Hope the guys have better weather, a stronger play, a good result, and just as much fun after! Anyway, back to topic.

Last weekend the band had what I would call a breakthrough of sorts. Followers of the blog and/or the band will note that from our near-death experience in 2007 to now, we have been rebuilding a band that lost many of its long-time members over a two-year period. Following two Scotland trips in 2005 and 2006, we had a natural exodus of people: leaving to play in Grade 1 bands, putting band aside for work, school, family, and some just packing it in because they were fed up. It's the usual way of things. The band had to miss a whole season of competitive practice and performance in 2007, and we started searching for enough players to make a band. Most of the players came from Grade 4 bands. There isn't exactly a deep Grade 2 talent pool in the area.

Anyway, we survived 2007, and in 2008 started to compete again, taking a serious thrashing every time out, which wasn't often, because we didn't know a 2nd MSR until June 2008! Last year's Maxville trip was a lot of fun with a great group of people, and we were last in an 8-band contest. Coming into this season, we had higher hopes, but still lots to do, and it took us until last weekend to perform the way we wanted to. For the first time in a long while, we were pretty happy with both MSR [#2!] and Medley performances. The exciting part is that neither was our "best possible" by a long shot. For the first time since we started competing again, we took first places from judges against the Winnipeg St. Andrew's Pipe Band [piping and drumming], and it seems that we are once again competitive with good bands at our level.

So, here's to the breakthrough, and hopefully, we can build on that with hard practice, and solid performances. Videos are below. And while I was writing this, ScottishPower came through with a 5th prize in the British, and Grade 2 marvels, soon-to-be-grade 1 Inveraray & District Pipe Band won the British with straight firsts. Well done!

Seriously Fun Piping

The past couple of weeks have been a flurry of piping performances of various kinds, starting with the contests on the May long weekend [solo/band] and then moving on to the Conservatory of Performing Arts BRAVO! Gala Event, at which the Conservatory of Performing Arts Pipe Band performed. The event raised serious cash for the programs at the Conservatory, celebrated the instructors, and showed off everyone in their party dress finery. Among the regular two sets of band practices and lessons, seven new pipers at the Conservatory got their new pipes last week, and that was an exciting time for them, if not [yet] for their neighbours! Then last week, the CRPB and CPA bands combined to provide a small band each day for the University of Regina Convocation June 3, 4, and 5th. There seemed to be a real response from the 2000 or so in the audience each day when the curtain was raised as the pipe band started. Friday was a great day for Kenna Whelan, who graduated with her BEd, and got to be piped out by the band to which she has contributed so much.
Today, the bands got together at the Legion just after noon for the annual Decoration Day, at which the Legion places flags on the military graves at the cemetery, and a small service of Remembrance is conducted. The band piped in the colour party, and stood in today's cold rain while the service was underway. After, lunch at the Legion, and then a quick pint at O'Hanlon's. Among the pleasures of all this piping, we got to welcome back Graham Schmidt for the summer, and we're looking forward to having him back in the line-up for upcoming contests.

In the midst of all that band activity, I got a call from Moose Jaw native Scott Benson. I remembered Scott as having attended a fiddle workshop at the MWCF years ago with Antigonish siblings Kendra and Troy MacGillivray, and this was Scott looking for some piping as part of his CD release concerts. So, a week or so later, Barb and I played three shows with Scott on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, in the midst of all the convocation gigs.

It turns out that Scott is a great player, and he brought together some very fine people for the weekend, including Troy MacGillivray, Patrick Gillis and two excellent guys from Moose Jaw: Jared Dormer and Josh Carley on percussion and keyboards. What a pleasure to play tunes with such talented and down-to-earth people. The Thursday show in Regina was small, and gave us a chance to get things going, and then on Friday in Moose Jaw at the Mae Wilson Theatre we re-did the show in front of 300 enthusiastic and appreciative folks, and it was pure piping fun. I got to play some great tunes on the reelpipes with superb musicians, and when I wasn't playing, I got to take in the great music from the side. We did the show again at Bobby's Place in Moose Jaw on Saturday night, again to a full house of enthusiasts, so it was a great finish to the three. Check out Scott's CD HERE.

Benchmarks of Progress ~ Success is in the Details

A week has passed since the Moose Jaw and Regina Highland games, and after recovering fully from the effort, have had time to think about the progress since Brandon, and especially last year. In 2008, we elected to "perform" at Regina and Moose Jaw Games because we only had one MSR fully operational, and people were still memorizing the medley! This year, we had all the music going, and are making a better job of it than in some time. We even managed the band's first event win since 2006! Still, a long way to go.

Band members should take some pride in what has been done so far, and they also need to prepare themselves for what is coming. We are at the point where we have accomplished a lot of good things. We have three solid contest sets, and people are performing pretty well, on good instruments. What has to happen now, is all those "deal-breaker" details need to be sorted: wee note errors, corping and unison issues, sketchy Ds and Fs in the jigs, blowing on Low A. Missing and incorrect execution equals unison issues. It all counts. It can all be heard.

As we prepare for the big contests this summer, we need to make an extra effort to work on the small stuff, to get to as many practices as possible, and to take the devil out of the details. It's our next big challenge.

Keeping It All in Perspective
When you're part of a competition band, and you seek to win competitions, it can be a bit disheartening when you don't. As Andrew Berthoff pointed out in a recent blog, one thing that you need to learn to do is lose contests, because you lose a lot more than you win, on average. In the past two years, the CRPB has learned a lot about losing competitions, because we have lost more than at any other time in the band's history. At a time when the overall Grade 2 standard is rising, ours fell drastically, and it has been a long road back, and the journey's not done yet.

One thing the digital age does for pipe bands, is put every performance into a context—how you compared to last time out, how you compare to the competition, and how you compare to the world standard. The most recent recording of the CRPB shows that we have come a very long way since this time last year, and that we have some distance to go yet. See for yourself.



There's a lot to criticize here, and no one is ripping it apart more enthusiastically than us, and you can bet that we'll be working to get this into what we hope it can be, and get people performing to the level that it will take to be more competitive in the grade.

The thing that makes this recording so great, is that you can see and hear a definitive change from previous recordings. It's getting better, and we're not half done yet. And if you're looking in from afar, keep in mind that very few of these players have ever played in a grade 2 band, and none are coming from great Grade 4 or 3 bands. These players are mostly coming from very basic Grade 4 bands, and they are working very hard to improve their game.



On the way home from Brandon, we turned in to Wapella, Saskatchewan, weaved through the town, and headed 10 minutes south to St. Andrew's Church, which was the heart of the Gaelic community that immigrated to Saskatchewan from South Uist and Benbecula in 1883 and after. They are known as the Lady Cathcart Settlers. In the late 1970s and early '80s, I was in close contact with Alan McDonald of Wapella, who was a descendant of the settlers. He used to bring a group of us out to the parish hall at St. Andrew's to perform each St. Andrew's Night in November, and in the summer, we organized a piping and drumming competition there for several years in conjunction with the annual summer sports day. We had solo piping, drumming, quartets, and even bands some years, and there was a group of Highland dancers from Moosomin who performed each year.

Over time, the games there faded. I moved to BC for a few years, and Alan moved on to other things. Sunday I stood at his grave, and Eilidh played "Lament for Mary MacLeod" in the churchyard, while we thought about Allan and Margaret McDonald, and all those pioneering Scots who left the Hebrides for life in Saskatchewan.

While we were putting the pipes back in the car, and getting ready to leave, another vehicle pulled up, and a family got out with some flowers for the graves. We struck up a conversation, and as it turned out, this was Alan's daughter and her family, out to tend to the family grave as a spring ritual.

And so, all the contest thoughts fall away. We'll be working hard to make a better job of the music that we play. At the same time, we'll be keeping in mind that there's more to this whole thing than the winning and losing.

Lessons Learned in Time
Back when this photo was taken [April 1993] this was an excellent turnout at a band practice. This was actually the band's first competition performance. We took five pipers and played four [as the rules stated we should for a mini band event], and we played all the drummers we had. In those days, we were elated to be able to field a band, and over the years, we gradually built on that, adding players, real uniforms, better instuments, etc.

The band had quite a few years of relative stability, especially in the pipe section, and we could often count on a good turnout at band. When there wasn't one, we tended to not really practice, go for beer, or just twiddle the time away.

When the band fell on hard times a couple of years ago in terms of player numbers and experience, it would have been easy to walk away from routinely dismal practices, where the numbers were low, and the energy even lower.

Last winter, I made the decision to use every practice to play hard with the people who were there, and mostly we have stuck to that. Today, we had a number of regular people away on other things: provincial volleyball, family meeting, daughter's violin recital, etc. and it's always tempting to give in to the "oh whatever," and instead we played hard. An hour of detail work on chanters [with a few jokes and stories] and then an hour or two of piping: setting chanters, working with reeds and pipes, and finally playing through all the contest music with the small number of drummers.

The cool part was: it was a really good practice, and we had some very good sound, and made progress on several fronts. Too bad that there weren't more there, but today's practice is going to make a difference. And in the end, that's why we go in the first place. Well, and for the jokes and stories too.

Part of the excitement for me are recent changes we have made to the music. Can hardly wait to get the whole team playing it at Brandon.

The Sign of Spring
This past weekend the CRPB once again went south to usher in the new season. We performed to an appreciative audience at the Moose Lodge in Minot, and then that night played a few times at Ebeneezer's Pub, where the band received a very positive reaction, and quite a few pints. The pub has a great house band, so there was good music all night.

The next day, we drove the almost three hours west through the snow-covered hills of North Dakota to the historic Fort Buford area west of Williston, ND. The Missouri-Yellowstone Confluence Interpretive Center is a beautiful location overlooking the rivers, and strongly associated with the Lewis and Clark Expedition. The place was packed out with people for the band concert on Sunday afternoon, and despite worries all week about the weather, it was a gorgeous day, and warm enough to have a pretty good sound last for the hour or so we needed. [Pitch was 478, for those who track details!].

That outdoor concert is truly the first real sign of spring for us, and playing outside was great, even at a lower temperature than we like. The oncoming season promises to be a lot of fun as the band progresses musically and socially, and we send thanks to our friends in North Dakota for organizing these events, and for turning up to support them so enthusiastically.