Pipers & Drummers Workshop II – March 25, 2017
A follow-up Piping and Drumming Workshop for Kenora Scottish Band members was held on Saturday, March 25, 2017 at King George School, Keewatin, Ontario. Instructors were Wes Sheppard, Dave Chorney and Sean Johnston the same as the one held in November 2016. Last year was such a success that the Band decided to do it again as a follow up.
The focus of this workshop was on getting the best sound out of our band; both piping and drumming. Wes began the piping portion reviewing how each piper’s bagpipes were set up and how difficult they were to play. Most pipers were struggling with some aspect of playing their pipes and Wes worked with everyone to systematically troubleshoot what was happening with each set of pipes. He showed the pipers how to check for air leakage (the main culprit) in not only pipe bags, stocks and joints but in drone and chanter reeds as well. By noon, nearly everyone’s pipes had been rejuvenated and were much more playable. He then demonstrated how to get drones and chanters tuned in a relatively simple and straightforward fashion.
Dave and Sean worked with the drummers and showed them how to breakdown and re-build their drums and helped them install new heads. They focused on helping the drummers understand how to tune the drums to get the best and brightest responses from the drums. They wrote a bass score to accompany the new 4/4 set, as the tenor and snare section received their new scores during the last session. Dave helped the bass with proper timing and technique, while Sean provided tips to the snare line regarding stick height, balance, grip and roll technique. One of our major takeaways was learning the proper part of the drum head to hit and the rationale behind it. As a result of their encouragement, Liam will be participating in a solo competition in May.
After lunch (great food everyone – big thanks to Macy for making those marvellous biscuits) Wes, Sean and Dave worked with the combined band to help understand what was happening with the sound of the band. Attacks and endings were stressed and both pipers and drummers came away with a better feel for “Good” versus “Bad” attacks and endings. The instructors also included comments on the musicality of play and how the band could make the music sound even better. By the by, it’s safe to say that the entire band sounded much better than it did at the start of the day.
After the workshop, the instructors, the band and some of the band family members headed over to HoHo’s for some Chinese food and a lot of pipe band stories. There were lots of reminisces of the old days of the Kenora Scottish as well as many other pipe band related stories from Wes, Sean, Dave and everyone else in the group. The stories could easily fill a book! Tentative plans for more get togethers this coming summer are in the works.
