He chose to attend Stewart’s Melville College because of what they were doing with piping in the school, and was taught by Robert Burns — “a good name for a piper” as Steven put it. Not long after starting at Stewart’s Melville, he gave up lessons with Dugald as school took up so much of his time. He admits that he lived most of his life at school and only went home to Livingston, West Lothian, in the evenings to do homework and then sleep. Steven added: “My school life was the busiest
I have ever been but it is also the most relaxed I have ever been. It is the most I have ever prac- tised and when lunchtime came I was delighted to get the pipes out for an hour’s practice. “Once I got to sixth year I got a set of smallpipes and started attending lessons with Finlay MacDonald at The National Piping Centre, as I wanted to be sure I was playing them correctly. “Until that time I was always doing competi-
tive piping, was regularly in the lists of people who won prizes, and I felt that it was the road I was supposed to be going down. “At the same time I was listening to folk music, I was also doing a bit of piano and I was involved in concerts at school. “The concerts were mainly classical music, and I was the first piper and the only folkie, but because I was relating to other musicians I wanted to represent the pipes as being parallel with other forms of music. I always wanted to step up to the plate and see where I fitted into the big wide world rather than just within piping.” Steven views himself as a musician first and a piper second, and even though he was a suc- cessful young solo competitor with a promising future on the boards and pipe major of the school band, he had no problems making the transition from the piping scene to the wider musical world. Lessons with Finlay really opened him up to other forms of pipe music, and other music. This led him to the BBC Radio Scotland Young Traditional Musician competition, earning him a place on the Traditional Music and Song Association’s Young Trad Tour in 2008. This expanded his musical horizons and made him realise it was really what he wanted to do. Steven admits there was no traditional music influences in his family — the only real tradi- tion his family had was in boxing — but his mother encouraged him to pursue his ambition. “It is very different experience growing up in the central belt of Scotland compared to people
PIPING TODAY • 36
who grow up where traditional music is part of a legacy,” he explained. “Myself and many others have approached traditional music purely from a musical ascetic.
“I keep in touch with James MacKenzie
from Lewis who was on the Young Trad Tour with me, and he is one of my favourite pipers to listen to, especially for traditional playing. I can always hear a Gaelic style come through in his music, and although I can mimic the style, I don’t think I will ever be the genuine article as James is. “I think we both have quite different
approaches; if we were both to play the same jig for example, James would give it a totally different feel than I would.” Steven’s lessons with Finlay quickly moved
from smallpipes to Highland pipes, and this reflects his thoughts on how versatile the High- land pipes are as an instrument.
“There seems to be an attitude within pip- ing that Highland pipes are for competing and playing solo, and Border and smallpipes are for playing with other instruments, but it seems so arbitrary to me why that would be the case. Highland pipes can be an instrument like any other, and be tuned to concert pitch as well, and that is why I mainly stick to Highland pipes,” he said. “When I am around folk musicians I am on the same wavelength — I get it. When I’m around pipers I feel less part of the group — but I don’t look on that as a negative. I know the pipe scene is not for me — I just happen to play the same instrument.” In 2008 Steven started his BA (Scottish
Music — Piping) degree at the RSAMD, now the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. His first Monday of Freshers’ Week followed on from his last day of the Young Trad Tour and it was
NEW DIRECTIONS
Photo: John Slavin@Designfolk Ltd
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