Jock - Highland Dancing Piper

Another slow (training) 6 step fling at 110 Bpm.
One great thing about embarking on this little project of starting to put together a wee album for highland dancing has been finding little gems like these wee strathspeys. Steps 3 & 4 is a Strathspey called "Miranda Hay" composed by another dancing piper Richard Anderson and step 5 & 6 is another tune by Richard called "1st Battalion The Gordon Highlanders". And of course steps 1 & 2 is a classic strathspey played for highland dancing called Molly Connell, composed by Jim Wark.
Dunno what was going on with my hat here. Looking like Joe 90! 🤣
Enjoy!

6 Step fling @ 110 Bpm.
Yes, it is slower than the prescribed tempo on the RSOBHD website. But you ask, I deliver. lol.
Anyways, I didn't intend on posting anything today, but I put together an old set of pipes that's been sitting in the cupboard in my mum & dads house since 2006 (20 years sitting in the cupboard!!!) Mad, eh! Put on an old Gannaway bag with no seasoning in it, and 2 spare drone reeds that were laying in the old box they were in (only 2, because with the 3rd one going, they sounded a bit more offensive than they already are!).
The bag was in dire need of some seasoning to make it air-tight, so nothing was sounding too steady, but it was a nice treat to get these out again and reminisce slightly on my early days of piping.
Make of the pipes are unknown, but are Ivory mounts & tin foil ferrules (nickel) 😂

Got the pipes out last night to try get them going after having a solid 2 weeks off after returning from our Scotland trip. They were honking!!! And the fingers were like sausages! So I decided to rummage in the archives and see what I had worth trying to listen to instead.
I was out trialling a studio in June last year (2025) and as fate would have it, I was sick as a dog the day of recording (it was obviously not meant to be at that time!). Morag and the girls were interstate at a dancing champs, and I was trying to deal with the man-flu all on my lonesome (get the little violin out, people!). Thanks to Jamie & Peter for all their moral support and keeping me on the right track in the studio though. A massive help!
I remember listening back to the recordings the week after and absolutely hating how it sounded and how bad the fi*****ng was. And although I still don't think it's very good, it's nowhere near as bad as I thought it was at the time. I think that's the thing with any art form that relies heavily on constructive criticism and analysis to improve, that you can easily get bogged down in the negative, instead of celebrating the good parts.
Anyway, here is my offerings for today. It's what would have been about 6 hours in to the day, many painkillers later, and what would have been about track 20, so the fingers were pretty tired by this point. A 3+1 Steps Swords, timed at 104 & 120Bpm (the slowest tempo, according to the RSOBHD recommended tempo's on their 'Useful Information' page on their website - https://www.rsobhd.net/about-us/useful-information/

(P.S. I've noticed that lately the audio/visual on Facebook sometimes go out of sync after posting. So just a note to say that the before posting this, the beats were in time with the metronome, just in case) 🧐😎😀

It's been an amazing couple of weeks visiting the homeland and watching my daughter Eilidh dance at Bute, Commonwealth and Cowal, while my other daughter Skye snapped her way though the weekends, getting some amazing dancing shots, to occupy her while not being able to dance this year. The weather has been amazing while we've been here and it managed to hold out until the drive out of dunoon yesterday. There was a lot of internal reflection while taking that long drive 'Home' over the Loch Lomond road back to the in-laws house. Thinking about life choices and my own childhood in Scotland. Many many happy memories!
That road has now taken us to Australia where we have spent the last 17 1/2 years. It's been amazing for us. Although it definitely came with some ups and downs during the early years of us being there. Then Covid came, and we all know how that felt. During that time, I wanted to try something different other than just playing pipes. I've tried my hand at writing songs over the years and had an idea in my head about wanting to write something about 'Home'. But talking about home, while living in Australia for so long, is a bit of a complicated matter. So here is a collaboration with Scotty Taylor that we put together during those Covid times.
Put your headphones on, enjoy the story, the scenes of Scotland, and where we call home now - Perth, Western Australia. There's even a wee bit of me playing the didgeridoo that Morag got me for my 30th birthday :) and to finish it off, a wee slow air on with pipes and a small snippet of the tune I've been playing for the highland dancing that the dancers like to refer to as 'The Yeeha Tune' 🤣

Great being back in my hometown of Glenrothes visiting family while the kids are over for their dancing comps. Would be rude not to get the pipes out for the local dance school while i was there.
I remember popping in to the same dance school about 25 years ago to offer some piping, but i had absolutely no idea how to pipe for highland dancing. It's definitely an acquired discipline, and one that I'm glad I've taken up.

On our flight as part of our annual pilgrimage back to the homeland. Sitting watching this oldie, but goldie, that i found while looking through my old hard drive last night. A video of the El Paco Grandè set from our Pre-Worlds Concert at the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall in 2006 with The Vale. 2006... How could that be 20 years ago?!?

Had a wee tune going through my head the other day (not dancing related), and was certain it wasn’t an original, but couldn’t put my finger on what it was. Got the pipes out this afternoon and started playing it during my tune-up. Turns out it was a Slow Air arrangement of The Rowan Tree.
ABSOLUTELY FREEZING in Perth, WA today, and pipes were very quickly getting wet, but here’s a recording of it during my tune-up (Yes, I record everything these days, as it’s good practice playing to a mic) 😁
Hope you enjoy the wee bit of visuals I’ve put to the tune as well 😉