Thoughts on Day 1 of the Worlds?
Posted Aug 12, 2022, 6:44 PM UTC
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Inveraray had clear sound and clear tunes and just looked and sounded bang on.
The close ups of the sweaty hands tho, made tape come off my own chanter 🤣it looks hot as heck out there this year and I know that's always a challenge.
SFU was also impeccable but having heard their medley a bunch of times this year it sounded almost rushed or something today.
However, I'm a grade 4 player in a grade 4 band. Make of my take what you will.
7
Coming from a drummers perspective, so bear with me:
SFU was exceptional, cleanest corp by far.
However FMM was top overall followed by I&D and SFU, Power, Fife, and Shotts overall
5
Boghall’s gotta be higher up. Their piping was very nice today
2
I havent been paying a huge amount of attention to the pipe band scene recently but I was really dissapointed hearing SLOTs medley. I generally back them every year, their tune selection and arrangements are always so musical and so fun to listen to but honestly that medley was kind of boring. They playing was fine in my opinion but not up to where it was in previous years.
5
Their performance probably wasnt a surprise for a lot of people but for me this is my first time seriously watching a comp for a long time
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-10
Just my thoughts from the stream. Dunedin certainly are a talented band, but their tuning clearly didn't go well today. Happens to everyone sometimes and the weather clearly didn't help, but it stands out when you're going up against some of the best-sounding bands in history.
6
Didn't take any notes while I was listening, but based on my memory I would go:
Inveraray - Most consistent across both sets. Incredible sound.
FMM - It's always a matter of splitting hairs to make any criticism about the top two bands, but I thought their MSR wasn't quite up to their usual impeccable standards.
After the top two, I thought there was a group of five bands that were the clear second tier: in no particular order SFU, Shotts, Scottish Power, Boghall and SLOT. SFU's medley was an absolute banger - probably my favourite play of the day as I hadn't heard that medley before. Great to see Boghall back at the top and capping off a great season for them. Power could've been right up with the top two, but was undone by a couple bad mistakes - honker in the MSR reel and a trailing drone in the medley. If I'm not misremembering, Shotts had an early chanter in the MSR and a bad attack in the medley. When you're up against some flawless plays at the top, it's hard to look past having some bad mistakes in both sets unfortunately. It's going to really suck for someone in this group to miss the prize list because they all seem deserving IMO.
Next group - again in no particular order, St Thomas, Johnstone, Fife, Police Scotland. Big thumbs up to St Thomas - not quite at the same level of the first group, but I thought by far the best showing of the new G1 bands. Great momentum for them and moving in the right direciton. For Fife, on their day they are one of the dark horse bands that can really surprise people and upset some of the traditional big bands but unfortunately today was not that day - rough showing for them compared to how they've sounded earlier this year IMO. Other way around for the other two - I wasn't expecting much from Johnstone and Police Scotland based on their earlier plays this year, but I thought both really improved their sound today.
Closkelt and Dunedin sounded rough. Too bad for Dunedin because they were sounding fantastic last time they were in Scotland in G2, but again today was not their day.
General observations:
Yes re: the bloody nose. Saw it in person, props to that piper haha.
Re: heat, it’s fucking hot lol
Mad respect for that, he must've stressed so hard when his nose started to bleed right before they were to play.
Chalk it up to the weather. It’s balls ass hot in Glasgow right now
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That felt like a brisk autumn day for the Dunedin and St Thomas bands!
Still f-ing hot through!
Glad I'm not the only that noticed the buttload of slides in the medleys. I'm not complaining, I love slides but it just seemed like they were way more prevalent compared to earlier years.
Also, the stream did indeed have some issues sync-wise, which really lessened the fun for me.
Yeah, I'm also not against all of the slides in the medleys, just thought it was a bit funny. After fifty years of PMs being against anything non-traditional in a competition set, suddenly after just a couple years it's seemingly almost mandatory to prove you can handle one now.
A well executed slide by the whole band at the same moment can sound so great!
I will admit I am bit biased towards St.Thomas as the PM is a good friend from childhood, and I agree I thought their medley was fantastic musically and clearly the best of the new bunch. SFU was amazing. I missed the 78th, but will check them out a little bit later. I had a hard time with tuning and tone from all the bands as I was listening from a shitty iPad speaker and the grandkids were around the house. It sounded to me like a couple bands were playing a little bit lower pitched than others, but again, shitty iPad speakers and grandkids. Looking forward to tomorrow.
Video/audio was off for me too. Must have been the stream.
Seems like since inveraray won their new medley with a bend in it, everybody is trying it now. Can't remember who had the slide in the slow air but it certainly wasn't for me.
I missed the bloody nose 😂 looking forward to an exciting day 2
Newbie question, but what's a slide...?
When you "bend" or slide from one note to another. Done by "sliding" your finger off the hole.
Thanks! So it's a bit like a deliberate crossing noise?
A crossing noise is generally just a quick wrong note in between two others - if you're trying to lift three fingers but move one later than the others, you end up with a quick wrong note until your third finger moves.
A slide is different because you're only ever moving one finger, so a typical crossing noise isn't really possible. Going from C to D for example is accomplished by lifting your right index finger. Doing a slide from C to D just means uncovering that hole a bit at a time instead of all at once, so it sounds like you're sliding from one pitch to the next like you might on a guitar.
You should be able to try it out - it's not really very difficult to do in principle, although playing it controlled and in unison is obviously a much bigger challenge.
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