Re: Rory - too much noise!

[rob <rob@eteast.com>]

        I have long had a thesis that Bagpipes sound best on top of a
mountain five miles away...in 1992 or so I set up an office that I shared
with Ian McKinnon of Rawlins Cross...Ian is the piper in this popular band
that began in Newfoundland - although he is a Cape Bretoner...I must admit,
at the time, my musical affinity ran more towards a local grunge band by the
name of Sloan who rehearsed in our office and were eventually signed to
Geffen Records in L.A....although I was working with the Rankins as well...

    It wasn't just Ian's practicising, it was the other pipe music he was
constantly listening to...Pipes are definitely an acquired taste that I had
not yet acquired...I was just getting used to fiddles and gaelic...for a
Cohn, it was a little much...

    Two summers ago I was asked to re-organize and help manage the venerable
137-year old Antigonish Highland Games - the oldest continuous highland games
outside of Scotland...Pipes everywhere...Antigonish would have a great claim
to being the Piping Capital of North America...if they'd pipe down long
enough (wow, there's an expression! "pipe down" says it all...)...

    The Highland Society Pipe Band rehearses over the Society Office...some
of them are...well, young and inexperienced...The then Society President Ron
Chisholm, kept saying that I hadn't heard anything till I heard the music of
Piper's Glen of Columbus Field on Sunday morning, as Games participants from
around the world warmed up for their individual competitions...I couldn't
wait...

    Piper's Glen (not far from Piper's Pub) is a enchantered green enclave
between the main field and a river that winds nearby...Numerous paths wind
through the glen giving us four or five natural and at least visually
isolated small stages...Even ten years ago there were dozens of stately
centuriesw-old elms in the Glen, they also ringed the main field and dotted
the town...All are gone and only their huge stumps remain - Dutch Elm Disease
felled them all...

    Anyway, on the Sunday morning of the Games I found myself wandering
through the glen, with hundreds of Pipers warming up - individually...the
cacaphony was amazing...but somehow, really for the first time, the divergent
tunes all came together in my mind into one music - and it was indeed the
soundtrack of the Games and the Town and the people...As I had been warned -
I could hear that sound clearly in my head, unbidden, for weeks to follow and
can still call it up at will...

    As I pensively walked out of the Glen to go check on the Heavy Events the
first person I encountered was Ron Chisholm with a smile on his face and a
twinkle in his eye...he knew what I was experiencing...



    "Well...?" he asked, "what do you think about that?"



    "Well...," I replied, "I think I know what really killed the Elm
Trees..."



                                                   be well all,
                                                                rob






Gordon Holmes wrote:

> Cousins..
> Speaking of the pipes, we had a lone piper playing on the roof at the
> comunity centre where the Robbie Burns celibration was being held. I had
> to go across the river on an errand and it soundeded so beautiful on the
> water...Gordon
>
> rob wrote:
> >
> > no - I'm willing to bet it was the pipes... : )...or some cats reciting
> > Burns...
> >
> > rob
> >
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