Hi Folks, at the teaching weekend last year I was one of only 5 border pipers at the bash. It was a fun and informative affair and helped provide me with direction, material and, more importantly, inspiration to get going with my new instrument. I would have loved it to have gone on longer and to have been more involved but you can't have everything, particularly in one wet weekend in Stirling with a good 20 or so other folk all wanting to get on with small pipe things too. Although I will probably do it again if time and cash allow It did feel predominantly a smallpipe weekend though and I notice in the listing published on this site for next year's do the border pipe appears only really as a foot note to the event.

This is completely understandable from the position of simple logistics if an event is attracting 5 or 6 times the number of small pipers to border pipers. It also allows for the organisation of classes according to ability which is not possible when numbers are so low without it basically becoming 1 to 1 tuition.

According to pipe makers' websites the number of border/reel pipes being sold is increasing quite steadilly so I am wondering what gives and why so few border pipers are attending? Is it that the folk buying border pipes are more likely to be competent pipers and as such are not really interested in this kind of event (personally I think that would be a shame but...) or is something else going on? If you are a border piper are you going or what will it take to get you to an event like this?

Interesting stuff in the Border pipe and the Aspen tree article posted on site. I find myself agreeing with a lot said there. I do wonder though what point of forcing a tradition onto border pipers, why and to what end do we actually need it? So we can have more professional positions for the few deemed worthy upholders of the cause? I agree with the need for proper instruction and good playing standards but why limit the scope of what is being played? It will never work anyway as the audience will decide and so much of the stuff played doesn't stand for an audience. That which does will become part of the genuine tradition, the living one.

I love Irish tunes, Scottish tunes and don't really know many others, I really don't like a lot of the stuff I hear that is supposedly traditional. Partly because it is badly played on badly set up instruments and partly just out of personal notions of taste. Being a musician is an aspirational effort to express yourself through mastery of an instrument, not an exercise in history and politics.

Just in case you were taking this too seriously or thought maybe I was



Still interested in answers to my original questions regarding border pipe tuition and the teaching weekend though...

Hey there steve

I'm new to the whole Border pipes scene after taken ownership of my new set of garvie border pipes early this year, I am interested in learning about the old styles & techniques and I am open to most contemporary styles. I come from a GHB background (pipebands mostly) would you say the teaching weekend would be worthwhile? I would be interested to here from you before I decide about going or not.

cheers
Andy

Hi Andy

That's put me on the spot hasn't it? It sounds like you are following an almost parallel timeline with me of last year. Well never one to stop digging when I found myself in a hole...

The event last year was primarilly a smallpipe weekend, probably simply because of numbers, but the impression was reinforced when at the first night session on pulling out my pipes I was immediately invited to swap for a set of smallpipes. Probably an inclusive gesture but sadly one that backfired a bit, I was after all a newbie struggling with bellows technique and the fingering of a new instrument, the last thing I wanted was to familiarise myself with a different bit of kit at the expense of my new toy.

There wasn't any specifically border pipe training to mention, put a practice chanter in everyones' hand and it could have been a GHB tune swap event. There wasn't any instruction on technique (bejond a general invitation to hook up some pressure gauge and so develop steady bellows technique) just tune learning. In the border pipe class as there was only 5 of us the ability range was very wide and I say that from the perspective of someone who went there with an instrument just 2 months in his possession. At times we were definitely trying to run before we could walk.

All that said I do think I got something from it, though what is quite hard to pin point as I have dropped the tunes we tried to learn for others that grab me more. It was inspirational to be in the company of so many other players (even if they were all smallpipers) and of course John, Angus and Finn were good to be around and listen to. And that is probably the rub, it was that contact I think that was the most valuable and hard to quantify. I already had folk tendancies from many years of solo piping but listening to these guys helped me formulate a direction for my journey with the border pipe and this last year has been one rapid persoinal development on the back of that. It was also a bit boozy (that might have just been me of course) and fun at times and the evening meal recital was a nice touch too.

So in summary I learn't nothing that couldn't have been done with a practice chanter in my kitchen but was free to make a racket doing it and free to socialise with others doing the same. It was the stuff that seeped in by osmosis that made the event work for me rather than time spent working on stuff and inspiration that I took home rather than a load of new staples.

Of course this was just last years bash, this year their are different instructors and who knows what in the way of border piping, as you have probably seen I have been attempting to use these boards to try and quantify the number of border pipers that might be attending. These boards are very sparsely frequented but so far you are the only one who has registered an interest. Not that I'd let that put me off either.