Hibiscus trionum (modesty): First bagpiping lesson with PM Stuart Liddell in Scotland, Th May 13 2021 ~ Scottish small pipes with singing * Any pipers here who might be interested in Stuart's Topical (group) Lessons beginning toward the end of the month (which I hope to participate in with private lessons as well)? Know of any pipers who might be interested? Stuart is the best ! :) * Regarding riffing with Yo-yo Ma's and Wynton Marsalis's 'Guidelines for Practicing a Musical Instrument':) ~ "Guidelines for practicing a musical instrument" ... http://scottmacleod.com/GuidelinesPracticingMusicalInstrument.htm (And, now for something completely different, - and how to explore with bagpiping, and Stuart's extraordinary piping in particular - "Guidelines for practicing loving bliss vis-à-vis practicing a musical instrument" ... http://scottmacleod.com/GuidelinesPracticingLovingBlissvavMusicalInstrument.htm ?)

First bagpiping lesson with PM Stuart Liddell in Scotland

Scottish small pipes with singing

Ma, Sandy, Rees, Taylor, Pin, Ed, Tym, Matt, Peggy, friends, Cuttyhunkers, and Scots' esp.,

In the vein of a letter home to Mom: :)

Wow, I had my first lesson with PM Stuart Liddell in Scotland this morning, whom I think of as the greatest living GHB bagpiper, and he's very connectable in a great Scots' way, and humble too. (And due to the coronavirus pandemic, in Scotland, and no Worlds - World Pipe Band Competitions, in Glasgow - his Inveraray and District Pipe Band, which won The World's in 2019, won them by default in 2020 :) While Stuart is modest, he's also a Champion Piper, and keeps tabs on his trophies and winnings - https://www.stuartliddell.com/about - (which seems to have been great structure to focus his extraordinary playing over the decades too). Am appreciating his fundamental Scottishness, having lived 2 full years in Scotland.

Amazing to be able to record the lesson too, -

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1xDeuJtcwVu8i0ubW2sgDfey3zm5WtAEX/view - and am grateful that Stuart listened to me play the Urlar of "The Desperate Battle of the Birds" Piobaireachd, and was appreciative.

Any pipers here who might be interested in Stuart's Topical (group) Lessons beginning toward the end of the month (which I hope to participate in with private lessons as well)? Know of any pipers who might be interested? Stuart is the best ! :)

More about Scottish small pipes and singing below. :) Will Stuart become my coach in a sense for my next album of Piobaireachd, and will he also give me feedback about my first album of Light Music, such that I might even re-record it, and play these tunes informed by his musical expressiveness? This could be great :)

Am curious regarding the World Univ & Sch Music School - https://wiki.worlduniversityandschool.org/wiki/World_University_Music_School - (planned in all 7139 known living languages, with ALL instruments, each a wiki subject page, to begin - and perhaps with utility being first a criterion for building these wiki pages for community engagement with machine learning - with echoes of Wikipedia's 300 languages and each of their communities and stewards even too - what role private tuition and instruction may play). May add something about these Stuart LIddell Topical group Lessons in the Agenda and News for open WUaS monthly business meeting on Saturday 5/15/21 - which are to come soon! You have an invitation to teach to (e.g. in video, or a myriad of other ways) and learn from wiki World Univ & Sch's Music Schools as they begin to grow :)

Thoughts about eliciting loving bliss neurophysiology a bit like playing a musical instrument? :) See some of these ideas below - and regarding riffing with Yo-yo Ma's and Wynton Marsalis's 'Guidelines for Practicing a Musical Instrument':).

Musical cheers,

Scott

http://scottmacleod.com/piping.htm

https://wiki.worlduniversityandschool.org/wiki/Scottish_smallpipes_and_borderpipes

Guidelines for practicing a musical instrument

http://scottmacleod.com/GuidelinesPracticingMusicalInstrument.htm

Thursday, May 13, 2021

Dear Stuart,

Thanks so so much, Stuart, and very nice to meet you, and to learn from you.

Here's a recording of the lesson -

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1xDeuJtcwVu8i0ubW2sgDfey3zm5WtAEX/view - for your reference.

I look forward to hearing you play 'The Desperate Battle of the Birds' again, and learning from this further. And thanks for the positive Piobaireachd feedback! (Would you name melodic Piobaireachds differently from the lyrical ones you named, I wonder?)

(I'll seek to let you know what my favorite tunes in the CoP Green Vol 1, and Blue Vol 3, Tutors are - lyrically and melody-wise - if that would be of help for your upcoming Topicals (as group lessons). Focus on one of these for one of the Topicals, as topic?)

Warm regards,

Scott

http://scottmacleod.com/piping.htm

http://scottmacleod.com/GuidelinesPracticingMusicalInstrument.htm

(And, now for something completely different, - and how to explore with bagpiping, and your extraordinary piping in particular - Guidelines for practicing loving bliss vis-à-vis practicing a musical instrument ... http://scottmacleod.com/GuidelinesPracticingLovingBlissvavMusicalInstrument.htm ?)

Dear Stuart,

Thanks so much again for the excellent lesson, and your listening.

Exploring some ideas and questions that have come up (as someone who asks questions, as a way of thinking too):

Is it the building on previous learning aspects of The College of Piping's Tutors (Vols 1-Green, 3-Blue, & 4-Yellow-Piobaireachd) that might make them interesting to your Topicals? And could choosing most lyrical or musical or melodic In what ways could this be made interesting to potential Topicals' students?

Regarding,

playing Scottish small pipes with singing (with bellows) ... am exploring the idea of musical voices 'leading,' and thanks to the bellows with SSP, where it's potentially possible to sing AND pipe at the same time, and make harmony. But when you said the bagpipe is the boss (and I think of you too, as Mr. Bagpipe ... you're a master of bagpiping, Stuart, - thank you!), I'm wanting to lead with my voice singing the melody and small pipes playing the harmony (so the bagpipe here - per your comment - would explicitly not be boss, rather my singing the melody would be, but this isn't entirely easy for me). I'd like to make my voice singing melody be the boss, with the small pipes being the 'lad' or "following accompaniment, or similar.

So in thinking about how to do something as simple as lead, by singing the melody of say 'Amazing Grace, while playing harmony on the chanter of the Scottish Small Pipes - where I personally can get lost in the Scottish Small Pipes being 'boss' in playing the 2nds, I find the following Guidelines for Practicing again helpful for figuring out how to practice and learn this anew (and since I dabble on the keyboard too which helps, the piano can become the boss too a bit for learning :) ... I also take a kind of thinking approach to all of this (which I think you said something about otherwise), and which has to do even with the word 'mind' and these 'Guidelines... ' ... where thinking opens ways to a kind of beneficial analytic approach to playing (I think:).

Re the 'mind' word in Ma and Marsalis's Guidelines - http://scottmacleod.com/GuidelinesPracticingMusicalInstrument.htm -

as I've been exploring singing with playing harmony on Scottish Small Pipes - Amazing Grace - I find I want to, newly, hear the 1st part as I sing it in my mind regarding "Yo-yo Ma says, never make a sound without hearing it first; hear it in your mind" - http://scottmacleod.com/GuidelinesPracticingMusicalInstrument.htm - so that my singing voice 'leads' ... am seeking even to learn 'exercises' for this, for how to hear a line of music in my mind, that is ... (and being able to play both lines on the keyboard helps, because I can learn the 'structure' of some of both 1st and 2nd parts). Thoughts about exercises for this (if you've explored this from a virtuosic GHB bagpiping perspective, and not necessarily from virtuosic western classical cello or virtuosic jazz trumpet perspective?)

And then, I wonder further what Yo-yo means re mind here:

4 Concentrate when you practice.

Yo-yo says: join feelings into your music when you feel bad, to integrate your feelings with your mind and body.

which I could interpret, in one way, as playing light music I enjoy a lot in a way I enjoy (for the flow experience in part) ... when I'm feeling bad practicing a tune otherwise, for example. By changing tune to play light music I enjoy I thus am able to integrate this in my mind (and body, with fingers playing) ... but there are many ways further to explore this.

What do you do in concentrating when you practice (if you begin to feel bad ... and re the feelings word you mentioned in the lesson)?

Thoughts, ideas, questions, suggestions about all of this?

Stuart might you also, experimentally, be interested in exploring singing or piping harmony at all with Scottish Small Pipes? (And regarding an experiment too with playing Amazing Grace in harmony over smartphones - https://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2021/04/magnolia.html - wherein you'll also find Amazing Grace in 5 parts, and which sheet music I can share with you if interested). Or do you do this already? (I haven't seen you singing with piping on Youtube or Vimeo before:).

Thanks so much for your great teaching, and piping, and I'm looking forward to learning further from you - perhaps next in a 'Topical' lesson. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Cheers,

Scott

as a follow up on this one idea, and possibly per your Topicals (but you're the greatest piper in the world, and I'm a learner here, listening to, and feeling ,what I like):

Favorite tunes (for me) in the CoP Green Vol. 1 Book:

those in the 2nd half of the book in general

Favorite tunes in the CoP Blue Vol. 3 Book:

Slow Airs

My Home

Marches

Bonnie Dundee

Scotland the Brave

Dance Tunes

all 5

Competition MSR

some of them :)

Hornpipes & Jigs

all 4

PPS

I chose all these tunes for my album because I like, and like to return to, them (and ask myself what makes these lyrical or melodic, for me, comparatively; and what could make piping tunes lyrical or melodic or musical for a wide swath of pipes, compared with other tunes which a wide swath might agree are not lyrical ... and are these GHB "classic tunes," or "old favorites" - idea-wise? )

https://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2020/02/western-honey-bee-re-my-upcoming-honey.html

http://scottmacleod.com/piping.htm

https://scottmacleodhoneyinthebagscottishsmallpipesbagpiping.bandcamp.com/

Looking forward to your next Topical, Stuart!

Thank you!

- Scott GK MacLeod

Founder, President, CEO & Professor

World Univ & Sch (WUaS) - PO Box 442, Canyon, CA 94516

1) non-profit World University and School - http://worlduniversityandschool.org

2) for profit general stock company WUaS Corporation in CA - http://worlduniversityandschool.org/AcademicPress.html

(o) 415 480 4577 - sgkmacleod@worlduniversiryandschool.org

(m) 412 478 0116 - sgkmacleod@gmail.com

World Univ & Sch Innovation Research - scottmacleod.com

* *

Sunday, May 9, 2021

Taylor, All,

Regarding further learning the Scottish small pipes, in new and beautiful and creative ways -

exploring, I started to play my small pipes while singing some poems I've written, experimentally. (This exploring approach complements in a very freeing and different way Yo Yo Ma and Wynton Marsalis' guidelines for playing a musical instrument - http://scottmacleod.com/GuidelinesPracticingMusicalInstrument.htm )

So, in addition to small piping with a poem from June 2009 - http://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2009/06/hills-are-brown-in-canyon-now.html ...

I tried, too, playing small pipes with the 3 poems I read at the MIT Open Mic last Thursday 4/29/21 ... https://scott-macleod.blogspot.com/2021/04/pagosa-hot-springs-southern-colorado.html ...

Then looked up 'scottish smallpipes singing' and found this treat -

Judy Barker, voice and Scottish smallpipes - Maggie Lauder

https://youtu.be/sLk8XuadJco

Liking the harmonies that emerge initially from the unison singing - it's an inspiration, and great to learn from. (What kind of song is this? Is it a Scottish 'song' of sorts? I think so).

The song is called Maggie Lauder, with words here - http://mysongbook.de/msb/songs/m/maggiela.html

(And one could explore this with two musicians initially - https://youtu.be/a8fUv6psT3Y - although I like the first Maggie Lauder better).

Then, on the keyboard, I thought of finding my Blues' piano book for learning in new ways with singing, and freely and improvisationally ...

and then, playing keyboard, I turned to my Pink and Blue Scottish Country Dance books ... where voila, there are so many tunes like the above Youtube tune, to explore with ... and found "Rowan Tree" in the Blue Book p. 65 (right above The Flower of Quern - https://youtu.be/9vCoWzl2jVY - which we've begun to play on the D mix chanter) for example.

Searched on words for "Rowan Tree" and found the words below ... and this is all so doable ... in a brand new way ...

To write some poetry further in meter and verse, that would allow singing in new ways with the small pipes?

Bellows' blown small pipes open up worlds in these regards

Seeking in this process of exploring Scottish small pipes with singing with poetry and song ... to potentially say something (rather than to perfect musical pieces), as in songs of the '60s, that is about peace, for example! :)

Happy Mother's Day to April (and to other Mother's here).

Scott

Oh rowan tree, oh rowan tree
Thou'lt aya be dear to thee
Entwined thou art wi' many ties
O'hame and infancy
Thy leaves were aye the first of spring
Thy flowers the summer's pride
There was nae sic a bonnie tree
In a' the country side
Oh rowan tree
How fair was thou in summer time
Wi' a'thy clusters white
How rich and gay thy autumn dress,
Wi' berries red and bright!
On thy fair stem were mony names
Which now nae mair I see
But they're engraven on my heart,
Forget they ne'er can be
Oh rowan tree
We sat aneath thy spreadin' shade
The bairnies round thee ran
They pu'd they bonnie berries red,
And necklaces they strang
My mither, oh! I see her still,
She smil'd our sports to see
Wi' little jeannie on her lap,
And jamie on her knee
Oh rowan tree
Oh there arose my father's pray'r
In holy ev'ning's calm
How sweet was them my mother's voice,
In the martyrs' psalm
Now a'are gane!
We meet nae mair aneath the rowan tree
But hallow'd thoughts around thee twine
O'hame and infancy
Oh rowan tree

- Scott GK MacLeod

Founder, President, CEO & Professor

World Univ & Sch (WUaS) - PO Box 442, Canyon, CA 94516

1) non-profit World University and School - http://worlduniversityandschool.org

2) for profit general stock company WUaS Corporation in CA - http://worlduniversityandschool.org/AcademicPress.html

(o) 415 480 4577 - sgkmacleod@worlduniversiryandschool.org

(m) 412 478 0116 - sgkmacleod@gmail.com

World Univ & Sch Innovation Research - scottmacleod.com