Busy week with meetings of the Piob Soc Music Committee and General Committee. I don't think either committee has ever been stronger and it was a great pleasure for all members to welcome Duncan Watson, Aberdeen, to the ranks. It was the first time Duncan had been in the Royal Scottish Pipers' Society rooms in Edinburgh and was able to take a tour and admire the fantastic selection of photographs they have adorning the walls. These alone are good reason to visit the rooms if you ever get the chance. The Archie Kenneth Quaich is one. Get along if you can. All the great names are there and it is funny how the passage of time confers a mystique on individuals no longer with us.
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A student told me today something that I hadn't noticed before. The CD recordings of last year's Worlds don't have the atmospheric 'By the right. Quick march!' of the pipe majors nor the applause of the audience at the end. Pity that. The roar Shotts got when they turned and faced their listeners should have been captured for posterity.
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Just finishing off CoP Radio for June and as you may have noticed on the Fast News the 'Piob of the Month' is from a recording I discovered in the archives of Donald MacPherson (left) playing for and winning the 1986 Senior Piobaireachd at Oban. I think it was his twelfth win. His tune is the 'Sister's Lament'. I remember recording the tunes in the rather murky Phoenix Cinema on my Sony Professional tape recorder. The quality isn't bad considering. Caught a few of the other tunes as well, including my own. It was the first time I had been in with the big boys and must say I felt a little intimidated - as one should. Great experience though. Just to be there among those titans was a thrill. Anyway, Donald is at his brilliant best. He inhabits the tune. That's the only way I can describe it. The pipe and technique are a given of course and then, in masterful fashion he demonstrates just why he was so imperious when at his best. The other significant thing about the recordings are that they were of a contest where the small tunes minus T & C were set. I played 'Salute on the Birth', Jim MacGillivray the 'Old Woman's Lullaby', Murray Henderson the 'Park No1' and Donald the 'Sister's' to name four. So a suitable presage for 2010 when the small tunes are set again. Only this time we need to play two tunes to get in the money. Things don't get easier do they?
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The briefing note for the recent visit of Prince Charles to the Piping Centre makes embarrassing reading. Why they continue to undermine the good work they do by issuing such spin is beyond me. Here's the opener: 'In 1989 Sir Brian and Lady Ivory (Oona) recognised that the impetus for the future development of piping could pass overseas and that a central focus of Scotland's cultural life was therefore in danger of being lost. They raised £6,000,000....'.
Nothing would be gained by me repeating any more. Suffice to say that the good people who work at the Centre and those who populate its board deserve better. The piping world will be able to read a more balanced version of events which led to the formation of the Centre in due course.
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