Many (perhaps most) people talk about going back to “the Bob’s of Balmoral.” That would be Bob Brown and Bob Nicol, who both died in the 1970’s, or a few of their contemporaries. The history of all those gentlemen are well documented, so no one bothers to recount much past there. Brown and Nicol were prolific teachers.
I don’t think anyone knows the names of but one or two pipers who learned at the famous MacCrimmon “college” that closed in the 1700s. The last MacCrimmon piper was John, IIRC, an officer in the King’s army who fought against the colonists in 1776. From what I’ve read it seems he was always more interested in his military career than in piping.
Many of the professional pipers of the 1700’s (frequently called “hereditary pipers”) emigrated to Nova Scotia. Unfortunately things are somewhat murky there. There was a living, vibrant piping culture, but it was a hard life, and not so well documented.
One of the things that is really nifty about highland piping is that when we play piobaireachd, we are playing music that has been passed from teacher to pupil from the 1500s. It has been kept alive as part of the culture all that time, which might be unique in Western music.
In the liner notes to one of the Greentrax compilations there was a lovely, and instructive quote from one of Bob Brown’s students, Dr. Jack Taylor, on his piobaireachd teaching:
I remember leaving and walking back through the forest thinking I now knew exactly how the tunes should be played…later when I tried things at home I realized the ease was his, not mine.
Life is arbitrary. If my mother had not gone out shopping one day in 1978 with a friend who happened to be Irish and if they had not come back to our house with a Bothy Band album they happened to find in an Irish tweed clothing / knick knack shop, I likely wouldn’t be playing this crazy, maddening excuse for a musical instrument today. That’s my bloodline. It’s a crazy universe.
Man! No wonder there is an “infestation” (meant In a nice way though!!) of pipers around that area! I used to live in New Brunswick as a kid, there was a piper around every corner. Heck! My uncle who plays pipes lives there! There is even a bagpipe maker in Nova Scotia!
Yes this is true. So, what can the isolated “Piper without Teacher” do ?
I suggest two things ; firstly record your playing and listen to the recordings critically. This can be horribly demoralising but also very usefull.
Secondly; listen to yourself whilst you play, listen to your instrument and what you are producing musically, not the Tape that is playing in your head of some fine piper you are trying to emulate. Perhaps this one is not so easy but it is similar to listening to the other musicians whilst playing in a group or session… and we all know people who obviously are not listening to their neighbours at a session.
I think 20 years ago that was probably the best that one could do, along with occasional interaction with others. In fact, I use recordings of myself to improve my playing, and they can be a great help.
But it takes a lot of time. You have to make the recording, then you have to play it back and alternate it with the reference recording. Eventually when you get some experience you can just listen critically to your own recording, but in the initial stages you probably really need to go back and forth between the two in order to hear the difference. It’s not enough to hear that there is some sort of difference though – you have to be able figure out what the difference is. This can be really hard (at least it was for me). It would be much easier for someone who is already an accomplished musician who was adding pipes.
Anyway, today there is instruction via skype. I would think that in person is best, but that skype is still way better than completely alone. It seems like the biggest disadvantage to skype is that you can’t play with someone because of the lag.
Are you speaking of playing the ABC text directly, or using programs such as ABC2WIN and ABCExplorer to create, edit, store, and print notation? I think I had an easier time learning to pick up tunes by ear than I would have trying to learn to play ABC raw notation, and I come from a classical music background where reading and memorizing from notation is the standard.
I agree that if you convert the notation from the ABC file, and consider it a complete set of directions of where the tune should go, you’ve missed the point. But it is a handy, compact way of storing what jazz players call the “bones” of a tune, so long as you know how to “flesh it out”.
Welp! Guess I’m gonna have to meet pipers like Ronan Browne or Liam O’Flynn!
On a more serious note I think I will subscribe to Joey Abarta’s mailing list for his Skype. He does do some tutorials on youtube I think.. Pat D’arcy too…
