RESULTS
RU Brown Piobaireachd Society President Craig Masson
Fs gracenotes or melody notes and ended up doing
neither.The melody note is the most musical option. The cold room affected Marion badly and there were skirls in the crunluath. Ross Campbell from Queensland was given The Vaunting. The low pitched pipe was not great – nor were any in the contest – but this did not prevent him for giving us a well laid out tune, the only major faults a rushing in the taorluath and crunluath doublings and some snatching in the ground. Scot Robert Gibb, currently working inAustralia, played part of the Gathering of the MacNabs. Again the cold intruded and his chanter reed all but seized up by the time he reached the crunluath singling and he was forced to call it a
day.Tom Glover fromNZ made a good attempt at the timing of the Earl of Seaforth’s Salute and just needs to work on the phrasing in the last lines of all three grounds.His drones began to go off in the taorluath singling and, concentration affected, missed a cadence. His crunluath movement does not have the required ripple and he would benefit from practising the D, E, F, E gracenote sequence evenly, building to the required speed. Pipers ignore the use of the practice chanter at
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their peril. Jonathan Quay played a well put together King’s Taxes though embari was suspect throughout. Otherwise the fingering was of high order.He too rushed the doublings of his taorluath (triplet) and crunluath. Peter Hewlett had a very sharp high G – fatal in his tune, The Bicker. Moreover he did not time the 3/4 phrases accurately or musically, especially the high A, low As, high A
sequence.This normally composed, musical piper seemed very nervous and his high G cannot have helped his stress levels. Garry Barker was given MacKay’s Banner. The ground and thumb were well played though there was not enough stress on the Cs before the high As in the second bars of the latter. He had a good progression of tempi through the rest of the variations. He needs to open up his taorluath and crunluath movements a little to avoid misses.He did not play an a mach – a fatal omission. Stuart Easton was too slow and deliberate with the End of the High Bridge. There was practically no variation in tempi in his eleven minutes on stage. On the plus side the pipe was good for three-quarters of the performance and he had the best technique in the competition. Some skilled guidance, and Stuart will feature much higher up the prizelist. Previous RU Brown Gold Medallist Brett Tidswell surprised the bench by putting in a relatively small tune, Too Long in this Condition – and was duly given it to play. F was sharp and the drones never seemed
settled.The ground suffered a little from lack of focus on the main beat notes particularly on high A at the end of
phrases.There were one or two minor fluffs on edre but otherwise he gave a good account. Cameron Ely shaped up the urlar of the Lament for theViscount of Dundee
well.Variation 1 singling was good too but he seemed to lose control altogether thereafter, racing away with the doubling. There was again rushing in the triplet
doubling.The crunluath fosgailte was neatly fingered. The chanter lacked balance
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