Clan Davidson Virtual Pipe Band
Teach Yourself Bagpipes Site Lindsay Davidson Site


Welcome

COVID and social distancing brought troubled times for making music together, but also brought opportunity for innovation and exploration.  

We discovered that we can still enjoy exploring a common repertoire together from all over the globe.

Our format is a weekly meeting for one hour over zoom, plus supplementary sessions with individuals at other time. We have a 'bandroom' on google classroom where materials, follow-ups and reflections are shared. We only meet in the winter months. Our participant numbers at meetings are limited to around 10 at any given time, though there is no limit to participation and browsing through the 'bandroom'.

Since the pandemic restrictions have passed, we have had several meetings of parts of the group in different countries, and travel in small groups to perform.

The process is the group meetings is designed to share the best knowledge and methodology known to all the members, and the result is a rich mix of exchanges and a lot of learning for everyone. Experience levels range from professional to relatively new to piping, from rusty, to upwardly mobile.

There are still very experimental aspects to what we are doing, and we are gradually discovering new ways to develop piping and learning of piping.

Contact Lindsay Davidson, the leader of this project, to join in. All ar every welcome - indeed the challenge of meeting as wide a range of needs as possible is part of the richness of our activities.
 
The underlying methdology is essentially, but not exclusively, based upon the teachyourselfbagpipes.co.uk website, and some of the repertoire refers directly to pages there.

Each tune has a set of videos with the music displayed. The tunes are played at two pitches (A and B flat) and at three different speeds - full speed, half speed and quarter speed. As you get better, you should play along with the slower speeds.

You can play along with your practice chanter (high or low pitch), your smallpipes (Low pitch A is most common), or with earphones (be careful not to damage your hearing) with your highland pipes (high pitch B flat). There is a click track on the videos so you can stay in time and count everything you need to count to get better.

At the top of each set page are two videos to play along with  that are just the set as for performance, without any practice material. These are at low pitch and high pitch and apart from the introductory clicks to show your tempo and starting point don't have any click tracks.

Each tune has a few tips on what to watch out for when learning, on its own page, linked from the 'set' page and also listed alphabetically on the tune index

You can find more tunes and lots of exercises and other material on the teachyourselfbagipes.co.uk site, all free. The gracenotes are all prepared rhythmically and by changing from normal speed to half speed, you get to be twice as exact, and by halving again, to quarter speed - if you can cound and feel and play every gracenote correctly seven times in a row, without losing concentration, you are totally secure with playing that tune rhythmically and exactly as per interpretation given (there are plenty of other interpretations possible).

The choice of name for our 'virtual' band was because the original idea was as a way for people interested in Clan Davidson (Lindsay Davidson is Clan Piper to Clan Davidson) to be able to build a common repertoire and meet at Clan Gatherings. Many of the original tunes were taken from the Clan Davidson Collection, composed by Lindsay in 2009 as part of the celebrations that took place in Scotland that year. The group selected other materials thereafter, including piobairechd, and  GS McLennan set!

Those who have learned in a totally virtual way, from teachyourselfbagpipes.co.uk, can join as a natural progression from there. There are easier sets and harder sets to play so there is something for everyone.

Absolutely everyone is welcome to join in and get in touch with Lindsay, either to join the group, or a preparatory pathway, or to exchange views on how to set up similar virtual piping groups.
 
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