Glasgow, Part II

I am posting narrative that I wrote Thursday of last week. I have been busy touring the Highlands. I am posting from my hotel, the Isles of Glencoe. The loch below my window gently laps the shoreline. The peaks of the Nevis range are shrouded in clouds. If time allows, I will post narrative from the past several days.

It’s midweek. The schedule here is very similar to the schedule of the faculty’s North American school at Shenandoah University. There are three or four lessons daily, each lasting an hour, with the expectation of three or four practice sessions daily, each also lasting an hour. The instructors, except for one, are different.

I was sorted into the D group. E is beginners, A is advanced pipers. D is for advanced beginners. C is intermediate pipers and B is advanced intermediate pipers. I was pleased. In a year’s time, I have moved from beginner to advanced beginner. There are five students in our group, three adults and two teenagers. The nationalities include two Scots, one English, one French, and me, the American. The Frenchman is a sixteen-year-old boy from suburban Paris. A five student to one instructor ratio works nicely.

We have worked hard. We are introduced to a tune a day. The tunes to date are The Old Rustic Bridge, The Weary Maid, and O My Love, which is a very nice Hebridean slow air. Bridge and Maid are marches. My technique is progressing. My timing is admirable, most of the time. The memorization of tunes that is expected in a short period of time needs work. I have been assured that once I have memorized upwards of 20 tunes or more that memorization will come more readily because I will be in the habit of doing so. We’ll see.

There seems to be two schools of thought on taking up an instrument as demanding as the bagpipe in adulthood. The one school is the “are you out of your mind” school and the other is the “go for it” school. Locally, there are some pipe majors who will not even bother taking on adult students. I am glad I have not run into any personally. I don’t need the discouragement.

As for transitioning from the practice chanter to the pipes, it’s coming. Slowly. I had a good lesson today on maintaining bag pressure. Very helpful.

The Piping Centre has a lot of steps. It’s a converted cathedral, formerly St. Stephen’s. It houses a piping store, museum, administrative offices, library, classrooms, practice rooms, auditorium for performances, restaurant, and hotel. My room is quite comfortable. The meals in the restaurant have all been as satisfying as they are expensive. The expense is a function of a lousy exchange rate and the fact that the Centre is located in the theatre and university district of the city’s centre. The fare is thoroughly Scottish – bangers and mash (sausage and potatoes), fish and chips, meat pies, and a lot of different soups.

One of the instructors, Paul Warren, is highly enthusiastic. His love of music and the highland bagpipe is contagious. His philosophy of music is instructive. For him, a musical score is one person’s idea set down so that others can enjoy it. A person’s chosen instrument is his or her tool for expressing the idea. The idea should be internalized. After all, music is not something on paper. It is ultimately something in the musician’s heart. It’s passed from heart to heart by way of a score. Once in the heart, it has to come out and be shared with others. There is a sermon in there somewhere. All of this is something most of us know, either wittingly or unwittingly. However, it’s nice to be reminded of it now and again.

The family – Lisa, Molly, Patrick, and Lisa’s mom and dad – arrive in Edinburgh on Friday. They are taking an overnight flight out of Dulles. I will be taking the train over midmorning on Friday. Glasgow, one the west coast, and Edinburgh, on the east coast, are only 46 miles apart. It will be nice to see everyone after two weeks away.

That’s it for the moment. Peace.