Bagpipe making, like life is difficult - Hamish Moore
During one of those incredible afternoon, early evening thunder storms that can happen in Barga during the spring and early summer, a visitor to Barga was enjoying the peace and quiet of Piazza Angelio. Hamish Moore sat outside the Osteria and pulled out from his bag a small set of pipes and started to play (click on the link at the bottom of this article to hear what Hamish played) Afterwards he spoke about some of the story that brought him here to Barga. After graduating as a veterinary surgeon in 1975 in Scotland, Hamish worked as a vet until 1986 when he retired from The Ministry of Agriculture in order to play music and make bagpipes professionally. Through his recordings, teaching, and pipe-making he has done much to promote the bellows blown pipes of Scotland. Some of his music can be bought on line here While listening to the radio a few weeks ago in Scotland he heard an interview with John Bellany and decided on the spot that he wanted to come and see the Barga that John had been talking about so feverently. Here he is seated in Barga Vecchia with John Bellany's gallery just behind him. Hamish had arrived in Barga.
Scottish Small Pipes Due to the social, political and religious history of this country much of the rich, colourful diversity of piping culture has been tragically lost and Hamish has been at the fore-front of a renaissance promoting a pre-military style of piping. This has been achieved principally through his integrated approach to teaching, where the music is taught through the medium of Gaelic song and as part of the old step dance rhythms. Scottish Small Pipes have led the present revival of bellows blown pipes nationally and internationally. In its modern form it is a bellows blown bagpipe with three drones set in a common stock and with a cylindrically bored open ended chanter. The drones are tuned to the tonic, one an octave below the tonic and one in between, on the fifth. It is currently being made in four keys, namely A, Bflat, C and D. The key of A is by far the most popular and can now be regarded as the standard for this instrument. The scale of the chanter is myxolydian having a sharpened third and sixth and natural seventh. The pipes are harmonically rich, easy to maintain and due to a lack of moisture in the system the reeds are very stable and have a life of many years. In the keys of A and Bflat, the finger spacing and pitch are both similar to the practice chanter but with a vastly improved tone. It is little wonder that these pipes have reached their present level of popularity. Once the bellows technique has been mastered, the player has an instrument which is quiet enough to be played indoors with little physical effort and is acoustically and musically compatible with most other instruments. Some of his music can be bought on line here and the Hamish Moore website can be seen here
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- everyone : you will be sorely missed.
- W. Shakespeare : Lear? Not at all! Those words are lifted from Macbeth's soliloquy:"....L ife's but a walking shadow, a poor player That struts and frets his hour upon the stage And then is heard no more: it is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing."
- Quentin Compson : Yes, Ma'am. It would be King Lear I believe, an allusion to the fool (and to Lear himself). But there is a more recent connection between Yokapatawpha and the Coldfields with a Biblical reference -- Absalom -- rather than the Shakespearean one to which you allude.
- poetry : Miss Coldfield, considered poetess laureate of Yoknapatawpha County, may simply be quoting Shakespeare, I do believe.
- Quentin Compson : Rosa: Stay in your own novel, please. You have no business in The Sound and the Fury, although I appear in both.
- Quentin Compson : Doggy, May I refer you to three sources on the Action-Theory dialectic? Albert Camus: "To do is to be." Jean-Paul Sartre: "To be is to do." Francis Albert Sinatra; "Do be do be doo." That should answer your question.
- Rosa Coldfield : ... it is a tale Told by and idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing.
- doggybag : Quentin - your constant focus on ideas over deeds makes you a highly unreliable commentator- quite often it is difficult to tell which of the actions you are suggesting are mere figments of your imagination and which you really do think should be acted upon.
- Quentin Compson : Hey, you two ought to get together sometime.
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- Cartier-Bresson : What a wonderful image of the equally wonderful Maestra Paola -- that could be no one else's elegantly gloved hand...
- Guest_4784 : the girl behind the bar is in the ALTANA rest. just inside the old city
- message for Santi : Altana
- Santi : O.K. Which bar is it?
- doggybag : Hello Santi - no - not the Alpino
- Santi : Is the daily image of the girl behind the bar is of Alpino?
- Casey Jones : Summer bus schedule to real station: see Forum Aug 5.
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- Guest_3522 : And here I thought there were roadents eating my main board.
- doggybag : you are welcome Guest_689 ... now if I could just fix the sound streaming system with is doing a serious chipmonk impression on some computers
- Guest_689 : Dear Mr Braganews Thank you for fixing the webcam
- Guest_3522 : Scottish emigration to Malaysia ? - see «link»
- Guest_878 : the most scottish town with the most scottish idiots
- Guest_3522 : Re: Daily Images 26 July: Let us fervently hope that being "Italy's most Scottish town" doesn't bring more of this UK-style tagging and yobbish hooliganism to Barga. The vandals in question were two young men from Scotland. «link»
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- Guest_878 : è più bella alla volta dei Menchi, c'è un barista molto attraente.
[...] And who should be sitting in the bar that afternoon ? The recent visitor to Barga, the Scottish Small Pipes maker Hamish Moore [...]
[...] Hamish, acknowledged as the premier small pipes bagpipe maker in Scotland first came to Barga last year after hearing a fellow Scot - the artist John Bellany during a radio interview who talked so passionately about his move to this area and the City of Barga that he decided to come and see for himself what all the fuss was about. (article here) [...]
[...] last May by Keane and myself on my first visit to Barga. (article here) An Artist in Residence in Barga making pipes in a studio in the heart of the old town, in [...]