Today I glued the bass drone pieces together using bubinga and cedar woods, it looks attractive. I will shape it tomorrow then I will have the 7 bass drones made.
I made 7 bellows cheeks today, cut them and sanded them down ready to apply the material. I did away with the curved ends; I want my own design, something to make them a little different. The construction is my own idea, so I might as well make the design a little different too.
The glued fabric on the 2 bellows cheeks I did yesterday was a success, it is ready to apply the “leather” part now…. the tricky bit.
Friday, May 1, 2015
Workshop Venue
Yesterday I completed shaping another bass drone this time with bubinga
and cherry. After taking advice from the “Bagpipe Makers Exchange” forum, I
began different tasks to rest the eyes and mind so not to make too many
mistakes in the future.
I worked on the bellows by drilling the outlet holes and gluing fabric over the cheeks and letting them dry for 24 hours. Then I went back to the bass drone making, cutting the wood, long boring and shaping it down to 19mm. This will be my 7th and final bass drone for the workshop.
At Newcastleton, I looked around the venue space where the workshop will be held. There was a leather couch type seating around the wall which is good for spacing out the students so their pipes will not overlap each other too much.
The room also took me back to the 1980s Festivals where they used to hold the Northumbrian small pipe competitions, times change, next year it will no longer be a venue but flats.
I worked on the bellows by drilling the outlet holes and gluing fabric over the cheeks and letting them dry for 24 hours. Then I went back to the bass drone making, cutting the wood, long boring and shaping it down to 19mm. This will be my 7th and final bass drone for the workshop.
At Newcastleton, I looked around the venue space where the workshop will be held. There was a leather couch type seating around the wall which is good for spacing out the students so their pipes will not overlap each other too much.
The room also took me back to the 1980s Festivals where they used to hold the Northumbrian small pipe competitions, times change, next year it will no longer be a venue but flats.
Newcastleton Folk Club
Newcastleton Folk Club is on every 4th Tuesday of the month, just over the Scottish Border. I have been going for a few months and enjoying it a lot. There is a nice mix of singers and instrumentalists, with a mixture of ballads, modern songs, humorous songs and the odd poem.
The musicians always have an element of piping as one of the organizers (Dave) is a small piper, and has been introducing the larger French-Anglo pipe and the Swedish Sackpipa into the mix. I play my Northumbrian and Scottish Small pipes, and this time I was joined with a fiddler and guitarist. There are a few guitarists generally to accompany songs or to perform solo. Other times there have been Irish pipes, mandolins, mandolas, and a whistle.
There is a rotation of music, so everyone gets a chance to play/sing. This week I played 3 sets on the Scottish Small pipes, the first being composed of 2 Lowland Scots tunes “Now Westlin Winds” and the “The Gallowa Hills”; the second set was made up of 3 Northumbrian tunes “Neil Gow, Chevy Chase, and Frisky”.
The next set of tunes was on the Northumbrian Small pipes, I played 2 tunes called “Bonny at Morn” and “Fairly Shot on Her”
The last set was on the Scottish Small pipes, which was accompanied by a guitarist and violin player. The tunes were “The Rowan Tree” and the “When the Battle’s O’er”, 2 Highland pipe tunes.
The musicians always have an element of piping as one of the organizers (Dave) is a small piper, and has been introducing the larger French-Anglo pipe and the Swedish Sackpipa into the mix. I play my Northumbrian and Scottish Small pipes, and this time I was joined with a fiddler and guitarist. There are a few guitarists generally to accompany songs or to perform solo. Other times there have been Irish pipes, mandolins, mandolas, and a whistle.
There is a rotation of music, so everyone gets a chance to play/sing. This week I played 3 sets on the Scottish Small pipes, the first being composed of 2 Lowland Scots tunes “Now Westlin Winds” and the “The Gallowa Hills”; the second set was made up of 3 Northumbrian tunes “Neil Gow, Chevy Chase, and Frisky”.
The next set of tunes was on the Northumbrian Small pipes, I played 2 tunes called “Bonny at Morn” and “Fairly Shot on Her”
The last set was on the Scottish Small pipes, which was accompanied by a guitarist and violin player. The tunes were “The Rowan Tree” and the “When the Battle’s O’er”, 2 Highland pipe tunes.
"Tender is the Night" by F. Scott Fitzgerald
I have been reading the book for a couple of weeks, not going at it diligently but when the mood took me. I found it hard going at first, I could not see where it was going, the main story line, like with so many modernist writers it touches upon subjects in a realistic way while the brain still expects a Victorian plot.
But it grew on me, more his style of writing, his use of a sentence, detached from the plot yet a part of it, a double meaning speaking to a past time of the 20s, between the wars. The character Dick, grew into an anti hero character. His decline from popularity, good job, prospects, money, career, charisma… into a vulgar, argumentative, drunk, abusive, violent, adulterer. He controlled his wife, yet saved her from mental illness….
If we are to believe the end where he says something like “the doctor has cured the patient”. Was he married to her to save her? Was it a plot of his to cure her of herself? He went from mental illness into an independent woman…free to have an affair of her own… so just as morally corrupt as him.
I found the end sad, really sad. He became liberated yet his existence was one of obscurity, failed jobs, failed relationships living in a small town in the US, money troubles, where as Nicole married the lover (who seemed to me also controlling.. “Out of the drying pan into the fire!”). if it was true that he did all this to save her, not love her, but to use her as a patient, maybe an easy option, maybe to hide behind her money… money which paralyzed him, stopped him from striving, creating… and left him impotent; and what eventually led to their marriage failure, breakdown and separation.
Did she love him? Can a mentally ill person really love another as a wife could? Was not her love an illness, an infatuation? She latched on to him and took over the money side of things in a monologue. It was done and dusted in a paragraph. Money took away the strife which created happiness.
But it grew on me, more his style of writing, his use of a sentence, detached from the plot yet a part of it, a double meaning speaking to a past time of the 20s, between the wars. The character Dick, grew into an anti hero character. His decline from popularity, good job, prospects, money, career, charisma… into a vulgar, argumentative, drunk, abusive, violent, adulterer. He controlled his wife, yet saved her from mental illness….
If we are to believe the end where he says something like “the doctor has cured the patient”. Was he married to her to save her? Was it a plot of his to cure her of herself? He went from mental illness into an independent woman…free to have an affair of her own… so just as morally corrupt as him.
I found the end sad, really sad. He became liberated yet his existence was one of obscurity, failed jobs, failed relationships living in a small town in the US, money troubles, where as Nicole married the lover (who seemed to me also controlling.. “Out of the drying pan into the fire!”). if it was true that he did all this to save her, not love her, but to use her as a patient, maybe an easy option, maybe to hide behind her money… money which paralyzed him, stopped him from striving, creating… and left him impotent; and what eventually led to their marriage failure, breakdown and separation.
Did she love him? Can a mentally ill person really love another as a wife could? Was not her love an illness, an infatuation? She latched on to him and took over the money side of things in a monologue. It was done and dusted in a paragraph. Money took away the strife which created happiness.
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