Grandfather Nicholas Patrick Heade performs for 1924 Ancient Order of Hibernians St Pat’s Celebration, Portland OR

Dateline Seattle, approaching St Pat’s 2021 – While planning for my own brief AOH related performance in 5 days…. didn’t expect to receive this 97 year old notice of my Grandfather doing the same in Portland 97 years ago from my Southern Oregon cousins.  The ‘Irish bagpipes’ mentioned here were actually referred to — in my family’s native Ardee Cty Louth Ireland — as Irish War Pipes back then.  This set of 1900 R.G.Lawrie Highland pipes that referred to as War Pipes then (as I think they still are now quite often in Ireland still).  Those pipes are sitting right behind me as I write this, played at the current A480 pitch a few weeks ago in the snow, up from the A440 pitch I usually keep them at (and that grandpa probably had them them at too).  I’m thinking he would be happy with my piping endeavors today, and might have questions about the full set of Uilleann pipes I’m working to get-up-to-snuff-on as well.  Although, I think he might have had lots of questions regarding my frequent Piobaireachd studies no doubt!

Cheers to you as St Pat’s 2021 approaches.  May it, and the rest of Spring, be a happy & welcome one!

Tyrone performs with Skagit Symphony, Oct 19 2019 – Peter Maxwell Davies, “An Orkney Wedding, with Sunrise” – with Grandfather’s ca 1900 Lawrie Great Highland Pipe, A440; drones are extended in length to achieve Concert Pitch. Photo – Dave Prinzhorn

As with other musical traditions, the Tonal Character of the Great Highland Bagpipe has changed to suit tastes over time. As audiences want ‘more’, pitch has become ‘brighter’ – and we’ve had a sharpening of standard from strings, percussion and other classical instruments. It’s a case of creating options for audience preferences and expectations, and Brighter is usually more persuasive than Lower. Brighter also appears louder.

The Highland bagpipe’s ‘melody gear’ is the Chanter – a conical bore of wood or synthetic, where the instrument’s nine notes live under the pipers fingers, with a covered short double reed resting at the top (unseen unless revealed from it’s protected stock). My grandfather’s 1900 Lawrie chanter is so very smooth at A440, if I have the right mix of reeds.

The standard pitch-character of our chanter currently moves up every 5-7 years. In the 1990’s, it was about every 12-15. Before that, my guess it was about every 18-26. It changes as gear accommodates player preferences, as winning soloists and pipe bands accumulate prizes — the rest of us want to compete with a similar pitch. After all, who wants to stand out all alone in the Low Pitch field.

I was called this September to perform the Peter Maxwell Davies piece, “An Orkney Wedding, with Sunrise” in October. The opening of Skagit Symphony 2019-20 Season, with new conductor Michael Wheatley, who was on the other end of the phone. I performed the Davies piece in 2014 with the Yakima Symphony, so I knew the pitch adjustment from the current standard of A480 to a durable A440 would take 25 hours. Getting my stride back from a bad late summer Pneumonia, I thought it might be a good distraction to help me get back in the swing — which it did (finding an extra 25 hrs of tricky effort by mid October was a good grindstone – I told myself that).

I began resurrecting my Grandfather’s Lawrie’s, which I used in 2014 for my first Davies call.  Same pipe I was handed when 9 by my Grandmother Kathleen. This lovely, prayerful Irish Catholic immigrant grandmother always knew what she was doing – and always had something special for me when we arrived after our long drive to visit. She was mesmerizingly kindful. My four siblings, adults by then, mentioned the same years later. My grandfather passed when I was 4; I’ve come to know him as he looks on from his piping pictures on my Music Room wall – one solo, and one with his pipe band from Ardee, Cty Louth. I had both photos redone early on at Seattle’s Moon Photo. Found them torn and faded in his leather pipe case when she handed it to me.

When my Grandfather played solo and with his band in Ireland, the pipe must have been very close to A440 – his pipe just sings at this pitch. The reeds I used back 2014 now didn’t have the Round Sound I wanted – when his pipe is a Round A440, the drones and chanter wrap around everything like a warm blanket. I worked away nonetheless. Work work work, finally had some stamina, my body and the pipe moving forward (though twice as physically demanding as normal). Work work work. Still, not the Round Sound. It was ‘okay’, but I won’t stop until it’s Right.

Out of the Blue, an email from Eastern Canada – a piper I’d never met asked if I wanted to try his newly designed A440 Highland Bagpipe drone reeds – out of no where. Sure I said. They showed up a few days later, no charge – then another packet, and another. I needed the perfect mix of reeds to foster my Grandad’s 1900 Lawries magically woven Round sounding A440 GHB tone, and suddenly I had them. I was able to mix Old and New for a sublime enveloping roundness for the Skagit Symphony’s home at fabulous McIntyre Hall. Maestro Wheatley’s helpful demeaner put me instantly at ease to creatively solve timing issues from afar as I moved toward the Skagit Symphony from the back of the Hall. We all did superbly, including Grandad’s pipe. I don’t think Davies ever sounded so good.

“If you ask me what I came to do in this world, I, an artist, will answer you:  I am here to live out loud.”

—Emile Zola

Novelist Emile Zola might have snickered about bagpipes in Seattle after his thought above.  And Mark Twain (who lived about the same time) had a thought that he and Zola might have agreed with, “The human race is a race of cowards, and I am not only marching in that procession, but I’m carrying a Banner.”

I don’t know if it takes Twain’s “courage”, or if it just takes a step of human forcefulness to live “out loud”.  But Bagpipers, and artists of all types — need to prepare to live out loud.

Bagpipers live “out loud” with a unique instrumental voice (we all sound a little different from each other — pipes in unison playing means months of separate prep beyond being a soloist).  It needs to an instantly, instinctually, and consistently, harmonious musical sound — in any physical environment.  Whether you’re on the roof of the Space Needle, or processing an archbishop, astronauts, or a couple to their wedding (at sea level or a mile up); or university faculty with students a mile to ritualize opening studies for the year.  Or, as documented in another blog post —  taking a 99 years young Grandmother out the door for some piping on her birthday (when she’s 80, 90, then 99).

All this, with an instrument that’s made out of some technologically delicate ingredients.  [I’ve never been let down by my instruments for a performance — I love the maintenance prep of my instruments of all my pipes, a great application for my creativity and intuitive notion).  Let’s look at the ingredients of the Great Highland Bagpipe, and see where my Minor in Engineering Physics comes in daily….

• Number of reeds: 4
• Airtight valve that gets wet: 1
• Highland Bagpipe structure:  tubes of air encased in wood, held with twine & wax.
• Age of the Highland Bagpipe:  For me, daily driver is 130 yrs old, Grandad’s is 118 yrs old, bellows pipes are young at 10-20 years.
• Highland Bagpipe maker around to answer questions?  No – perhaps I should have a séance.
• Primary resonate chamber:  1 sheepskin bag, made in Glasgow, replaced every three years.
• Primary energy to produce music with the Highland Bagpipe:  air from my lungs, with moisture controlled.
• Opportunity for air leaks:  Infinite.
• Finally, the Great Highland Bagpipe is in tune with:  Itself, if all the above are maintained to a high standard.

Not to bad over all.  Throw in wind, rain, sun, cold, snow, hail — prep for that, Pipers, and you’re ready to musicality live “Out Loud”!

Kids:  They dance before they learn there is anything that isn’t music.  — William Stafford

 

6 year old Marie O’Connell, and myself, on our way to dance/play for her Grandfather’s 80th Birthday, Lincoln Park, Seattle 2006

Reprising our stance 12 years later – Marie, now 18, just after performing with dancers at Elliott Bay Pipe Band’s annual Father’s Day Concert, Ballard Locks, Seattle 2018

I first met Marie O’Connell when she was 6 years old.  It was her grandad’s 80th Birthday celebration in Seattle’s Lincoln Park, and I was called to help with the festivities.  Little did I know there would be a wee Irish dancer along to help.  It was a hot Seattle day, and the celebration was a good one.   But the memory had been buried underneath so many others.

Fast forward to 2018 — The pipe band I direct, Seattle’s Elliott Bay Pipe Band, was performing our 22nd Annual Father’s Day Concert at the local Hiram Chittenden Locks.  It’s always a lovely outing of music with the Band giving back to the community, our audience filled with families that grow with kids each year — a true annual Father’s Day trek for families near and far.  Irish dancers join us too, most recently Seattle’s Tara Academy of Irish Dance, providing a lovely visual accompaniment to Elliott Bay’s jigs and reels, swooping in whenever dance tunes are played.

Sara Williams leads Tara with the rest of her family, a 3rd-generation Irish dance teacher who’s students include champions and principle dancers in international shows of Riverdance.  After the concert last year, Sara told me one of her dancers recognized me from a 2006 family performance — with photographic proof!  Marie O’Connell has been dancing with Elliott Bay for a few years, and little did I know we had met so long ago.  We took a matching photo to celebrate our ‘ongoing collaboration’.

The longer you live your passion, the more new beginnings keep coming at you.  Couples I’ve helped marry now have children and special anniversaries they want me to play for.  Young students I taught from 9 thru college have me and the band perform at their weddings.  And, after nearly 100 compositions, I’ll be adding more this week — a march for Rod McKenzie, in honor of his being the 10th Chieftain of the Skagit Valley Highland Games; my first Piobaireachd; and hopefully a short suite for Scottish instructor (and friend!) of mine, that penned the 2/4 March “Pipe-Major Tyrone Heade” (gobsmacked with that one, so turnabout is fair play I think…).