ASHBOURNE CONTEST

There were clearly a number of factors working against us today.

We'd all been hoping for a cooler day than last week at Corby and boy, did we get it!

Overcast, cold and even drizzle at times - not a hint of sunshine to help raise the tone

A number of chanter reeds suddenly decided today was the day that they were going to give out - what a contrast to last week when we never had to alter a single reed in the band, they just came straight out of the boxes and within a few minutes of playing were on song - today was a totally different story.

 

Grade 4

Band
P
Px2
D
Total
Place
City of Newcastle
1
2
2
4
1
University of Bedfordshire
4
8
1
9
2
Nottinghamshire Police
3
6
5
11
3
Grampian (Association) Corby
2
4
8
12
4
Wolverhampton
5
10
4
14
5
RAF Waddington Pipes & Drums
6
12
6
18
6
Birmingham Irish Pipes & Drums
7
14
7
21
7
West Midlands Fire Service
10
20
3
23
8
Essex Caledonian
8
16
10
26
9
Standard Triumph
9
18
9
27
10
City of Bradford
11
22
11
33
11

The initial sound developed in the tuning park was very promising indeed. Unfortunately this was the only time and place where it was good for the whole day!

The weather seemed to be working for us at the start of the day - good robust sound which was clean and sweet.

As the day progressed though and it came closer to the time to actually compete there was just a hint that something was happening with at least one of the reeds. However, it wasn't too bad (and could have been put down to a bit of uneven blowing)...... but worse was to come.

On the strike up on the start line it was clear that the drone sound was way off tune (turned out the Pipe Majors outer tenor had moved substantially during the march up to the line! Despite this the actual playing was quite good, but clearly with a poor drone sound we weren't going to be in the running for a major prize (the judges sheets were dominated by comments on the drone sound).

 

Grade 4 MSR

As we left the competition area, one of the pipers had trouble with his pipes (the internal moisture control system had come to pieces causing a blockage). This was sorted and we were tuning up for the MSR contest (although reed issues were now starting to give real problems with tuning) when another of the pipers lips went. This meant for the second week running we were under the numbers required for an event and so had to scratch.

Ah well, that gave us some more time to sort the reeds out for the Grade 3 event - or so we thought!

 

Grade 3

After an hour of struggling with chanter reeds we eventually managed to get something like a sound and arrived at the final tuning area with just a few minutes to spare before going on to compete.

The performance started off quite well and there were no piping mistakes (that's an improvement for us!) but reed and pipe problems came back as the set progressed with one pipers drones cutting out completely and some of the notes just drifting off of pitch.

The final result when we got the summary sheets was no real surprise (7th out of 8 on piping)

So, some serious work to do over the next six practices to re-reed the piping corps and get things back on an even keel before we once again venture North of the border for the Cowal Championships.