This year MacSanta brought me a lovely sterling kilt pin, 6 paid piping lessons and a nice new pair of trews for my upcoming competition year.

Over the coming year I will start assembling the rest of my Highland attire, all I need now is "everything else"!  Kilt, Glengarry, broques, hose, flashes, sporran, Sgian dubh, oh and of course a Prince Charlie jacket. 

Whew, that is a lot of stuff!  Good thing I have a wedding anniversary, birthday and another Christmas before the 2008 competition season!

This was my last lesson of 2006!  My instructor is headed to Italy for the holiday and won't be back until January 6th. 

The first WPA mini-event is January 6th and I plan on going to observe but not compete, the first event is "Any March" and I don't have a march ready to go, but I'm doing great on my slow air.  I should be in good shape for the February event.

Last week I was able to play my pipes every night of the week.  What a good feeling that is, and it does wonders for stamina and keeps the pipes in good working order.  All that playing allowed me to play off Highland Cathedral by memory on the chanter, but not quite there yet on the pipes should be soon though.

My 2 year old daughter caught a cold and passed it on to me, so I haven't been able to practice the last two nights, sigh, just when I had a good system going.  Oh well, maybe tonight, or tomorrow I'll feel up to it.

Tunes of Glory

1960 1hr 46min

A little of both.

This 1960's movie was pretty well written and filmed.  The acting at times was a little overly dramatic, but the piping was good and the pipers were actually pipers! 

This was on the DVD sleeve:

Lt. Col. Jock Sinclair (Alec Guinness) briefly takes over control of a brigade until the new man for the job, Col. Basil Barow (John Mills), becomes available.  When the elitist and aristocratic Barrow takes over, he's instantly displeased with his lower-class predecessor.  The conflict between the two men jeopardizes the harmony of the company and escalates after Sinclair roughs up a solider he finds with his daughter.

A couple weeks ago my piping instructor was over to my place and while here we overhauled my pipes.  We threaded the drone reed seats, changed the bridles, basically did a number on them.

The change was pretty dramatic, the drones tune lower on the pin, the reeds are a lot more efficient and strike-in's are much easier, well maybe not easier, but different.

Sadly I have not been able to play my pipes much the last two weeks, which is a real bummer because you really NEED to play your pipes on a regular basis.  Not only is it essential for your playing ability, but your pipes need the moisture from your breath to keep the hemp and various components in good working order.

Even though I have a synthetic bag (Bannatine with Hide cover) the wood is African Black wood and the hemp, is well "hemp" and it dries out if you don't play.  When things dry out the drones get loose on the tuning pins and it leaks air, etc.

Today at my lesson I never got the chance to actually play the pipes, after my chanter lesson I was going to try out Highland Cathedral on them. When I struck in the drones were howling and all out of whack, it was so bad that Helen couldn't even tune them while I was playing the scales.  She tried it too and it was still wonked, so we took them apart and started messing with the outside tenor reed and the bass reed.

It was getting better but more work needed to be done, so we swapped reeds, raised the chanter reed and adjusted the bass reed so the drone would tune lower on the pin.  Finally Helen was able to get things back on track, but it was too late and it was time for me to head back to the ferry.

Tomorrow I will get on the pipes, and Sunday.  No more excuses, mah pipes need me, An' Ah need mah pipes!

What you say when someone asks, "what's worn under the kilt?".

At some point in the future I will need to get my Highland attire together for when I graduate to competing on the pipes.  For now in chanter class I can wear pants and a nice shirt.  Sadly my current stock of blue dockers and button down shirts are a size, or two, to small.  Sigh.

In the meantime I have been doing some research on Scottish and Irish Tartans.  I'm not Scottish (as far as I know) but I am Irish, and part Sicilian.  My fathers side is the Irish and English, and my mothers side is Sicilian.  Most of the Irish district tartans I don't care for.

I started doing a search for tartans using my Surname "Greene", I didn't have high hopes but oddly enough I found a tartan designed in 1999 for a fellow called "Robert Dodd Greene", aptly named "Greene" better yet I liked the color and pattern.  Below is a small image of the Greene tartan.

Since this wasn't a Stewart, MacCrimmon or Black Watch et al, it was very unlikely that this tartan could be had off the shelf.  Not a problem really, I had the the technical specifications of the tartan from the Scottish Tartans Authority and have contacted a smaller weaver that could do a short run of the tartan.

Tartans can come in single width or double width.  A traditional kilt is made from single width tartan, about 8 yards. It can be more or less than that depending on the depth and type of pleats and your physical size.  Double width tartans are cut down the middle and the kilt maker puts in a hidden seam, generally deep inside a pleat.

The weaver emailed me this morning with the prices.  Oddly enough the single width tartan is 28.50 GBP, or about $57.00 US per yard, the double width tartan is 29.00 GBP, just slightly more.  The catch is that there is a minimum of 20 yards of double width tartan, and only 4 yards for single width.

Yard for yard it is cheaper to get the double width, you just have to commit to more of it.  So for 10 yards of single width it would run about $520 or $1200 for 20 yards of double width.  If I were to go with the double width  would have enough material for at least five 8 yard kilts, way more than I need, or want.

So, it looks like I'll probably just pop for the 10 yards of single width, with tax duty and all that jazz I'll probably be looking at about $600 for just the tartan alone.

Quality kilts generally run from $425 to $500+ and there are some kilt makers that can weave a special pattern for you, and possibly for not that much more than the cost of a standard off the shelf tartan would cost.  I'm going to look into that as well because if I have to spend over $1000 for a kilt I'm going to look for something that is more common and close in design and color to the "Greene" tartan but won't cost an arm and a leg.

Researching tartans is quite a bit of fun though, there are thousands of them.  It takes time to look at them all and as a member of the Scottish Tartans Authority I have access to some of the back ground information on each tartan, makes for very interesting reading.

As for interesting and informative reading, check out the e-publication from a leading Kilt Maker in Scotland, it is a free download and has a lot of great info. You can access it from the link box on the left.

Or, what you shouldn't do when your students 2 year old is present.

My instructor came over to my house last Saturday. She had a piping gig with some fellow Keith Highlander's at one of the local resorts.  It was an evening gig and there were no late night boats home, so she spent the night at our house.

Instead of me going to her place on Lopez Island for my regular Friday lesson we decided it would make more sense to have the lesson Saturday afternoon before her performance.

It just so happened that my wife, 2 year old daughter, my Mom and sister and our two dogs were all present during my lesson. Even if they were in the living room and Helen and I were in the kitchen, it still made for an interesting lesson.  Lots of distractions!

Timing is my hangup in piping, I see the notes and know the time value they are supposed to have but my brain and fingers go in different directions.  Once I get it though I'm pretty solid.

Tonight was no exception.  I was really having a hard time with the music. The way the tune was written also was new to me.  For example; an eighth note and a 16th note were tied, I'm use to seeing that written as a dotted eighth and so visually it was throwing me off. 

Any how, Helen grabbed a wooden spoon to beat the time and occasionally would whack me with it (to get the point across I guess).  My daughter Hannah saw her do this and got pretty upset, she came to the door and tossed her binky at Helen.  You have to be doing something pretty serious for Hannah to toss a binky at you. Well, Helen, not to be intimidated by a 2 year old, playfully kicked the binky back at Hannah. Hannah didn't know what to make of that so she got down on her knees in the doorway, started to pout and then cry.

Poor Helen... (I was laughing)

I went over and picked up Hannah and she put her head on my shoulder and cried some more, sigh. I was able to calm her down and left her on the couch with the rest of the family so I could get back to my lesson.

Needless to say the lesson was full of interruptions and distractions, but it was still good and we made great process with the new slow air I'm learning (Highland Cathedral).

Helen then started in on my pipes, getting the drone reeds adjusted and the fussing with the stocks.  I had a tap set so we threaded my drone reed seats, it was a piece of cake and now those reeds are firmly in their place.

All of the adjustments did make a big difference on the pipes, it doesn't take much effort to strike in now, before I had to punch the bag pretty hard, now it is just a light press with the finger tips.  Definitely will need to get used to that, also the bass drone comes in easier but if I shut it off I can't pop the drone top with my finger to start it, I have to let off pressure on the bag to get it come in.

It will just take some getting used to, overall I'm happy with the changes.

Oh, one last thing.  Helen came back from her piping gig with a bottle of some great Syrah (sp?) red wine.  It was like a dry Merlot, we drank the entire bottle!  Oy, my head the next morning was not happy.