The clock keeps ticking.......
We recently found this clock in a bicycle shop, and thought it was quite amusing...it certainly does help to refocus the priorities of the day. Just don't ask what happens when skittles and beer time overlap!
Aaaaanyway... This post covers a bit about how we spend our days in Glasgow. There's LOTS to do here, and we stay very busy.
While Lance was here in August he took a lesson at the College of Piping, and that was when we were introduced to our new friends - our bagpipes!
That's a lot of lumber!! We left the pipes at the College for a few days, meanwhe continuing our adventures with Lance around Glasgow... Including a tour of the Tennents brewery and loads of piping events!
The week after Lance headed back to America we practically lived at the College of Piping for a week-long intensive summer school.
We had daily one-on-one tuition with world-class pipers, and group lessons on bagpipe maintenance and usage. We didn't really realize this before, but bagpipes are quite complex instruments, and the details must be properly sorted for the pipes to play well.
Of course, just because the pipes are well sorted doesn't mean the person playing them can actually play them well!!
Here's boB "having a blow" on his pipes. Notice the rigid fingers, hunched shoulders, tense arms, and the "thousand yard" gaze that is indicative of mental and physical overload. Yessir, all signs of a "badpiper" and not a bagpiper!
And here's Melinda during week one of pipe ownership:
Pensive expression, struggling for breath, bag falling down to her waist ... Sure signs of a novice octopus wrestler!
Have no fear, Friends of The Pending Pipers, we are making progress. According to our tutor, the great Willie Morrison of Locheynort (South Uist), "there is hope for you two, with plenty of practice."
Stay tuned (that's a musician joke) for more tales of piping!
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Melinda is hard at work on fiddle.
Our wee one-room apartment is filled with sheet music and instruments, and the practice room that Melinda uses for fiddle also serves as the space we use for things like cooking food. Handy space for doing that, especially since it happens to have a stove and fridge. Unusual accoutrements for a practice room, but that's how things roll here.
Most of our days are spent on our respective instruments, Melinda on her fiddle or guitar or pipes, and boB on his fiddle or highland pipes or border pipes. We sometimes spend five or six hours in a day, and we usually don't take weekends off. There's also music lessons: Melinda has a guitar tutor, Bob has a fiddle tutor, we both see another fiddle tutor together, we have two lessons a week on the big pipes, and we have Glasgow a Fiddle Workshop (GFW) courses two nights a week!
On Monday nights after our GFW course we go to the Islay Inn for our favorite weekly session.
Above is Alan on a beautiful olive wood accordion, and Iain on fiddle. These two are sort of the de facto session leaders, and are great fun to play with.
Having said all that, we do get out a bit because our bodies need a break from playing so much.
Last fall we met two lovely people at a Scottish a Country Dance ball - Richard and Marion. They live in Helensburgh, a forty-five minute train ride west of Glasgow. They both are retired school teachers, and musicians, as well. Marion grew up in the Glasgow area, is passionate about history and works as a tour guide. She treated us to a tour of the Merchant City area of Glasgow.
We've been to their place a number of times, and they are two of the loveliest people we know.
(Here we are on the subway with Richard and Marion.)
Marion plays recorder in a recorder group, and Richard plays pipes, fiddle, and a little keyboard. When we go to their house we always have a wee session of sorts, trying different tunes on different instruments.
Richard always sends us home with loads of sheet music of his favorite tunes from over the years. We now have dozens of tunes to learn just from Richard!
Back at home ...
Breakfast with Charlie, Jennifer's cat. He's a good kitty and loves to visit us in our apartment for a little love. We like his company, too, except that he's prone to instantaneous flip-outs where he'll switch from peaceful-loving-purr-kitty to psychotic man-eating-hell-cat and try to tear off one of our arms. We usually put him out the door when we does that, and then nurse our wounds and carry on.
Here's a nice shot of Melinda's brood:
The fiddle is rented from the Glasgow Fiddle Workshop, the guitar has survived several thousands of miles on the trusty rusty Surly, and there's the pipes!
Here's boB's collection:
The trusty fiddle, the mopane-and-boxwood border pipes, and the great highland bagpipes on the right. That's waaaay more than enough to keep boB busy, and there's normally not enough time in a day to get everything done on these three instruments!
We visited Bothwell castle on Melinda's birthday - a nice wee break from the instruments and a chance to see some of the outstanding historical sits that are all around us. It was a nice ten or fifteen mile bike ride east of Glasgow:
Construction of Bothwell Castle on the River Clyde was begun in the 13th century by the ancestors of the Clan Murray. The castle played a key role in the Scottish Wars of Independence, and changed hands several times as a result of lengthy sieges and battles. The original plan was for the castle to be much larger than was actually built, though foundations for the larger structure are still extant. Parts of the castle were damaged in the sieges, and when it was rebuilt it was reduced in size. The remaining ruin is still incredibly impressive, and it takes quite a while to explore the whole place!
Here's a shot inside one of the subway coaches. The Glasgow subway is the second oldest subway in Europe, and delivered millions of shipyard workers to and from home every day. It runs on a rather small loop - it takes less than 24 minutes to make the complete loop.
The trains run in two directions, called the Inner and Outer circles, so you can get all the way to the other side of Glasgow in less than twelve minutes.
Because of the small size of the circuit, the approximate circle shape that tracks follow, the company colors, and the lack of any side-lines, the subway has earned the nickname "The Clockwork Orange."
And they have some clever marketing posted around the city.
We don't often take the subway because it's kind of expensive (£1.60 for a single-ride ticket), but when we need it, we're sure glad it's there!
One night we ventured to The Lismore pub to listen on one of Melinda's guitar tutors.
Jenn Butterworth, on the right, is a phenomenal guitarist and fantastic teacher. She's highly sought after as an accompanist, and she also does quite a bit of solo work singing and playing guitar.
The Lismore inspires creepy people to make creepy faces....
Glasgow is well decorated with huge murals all over the city:
This gigantic wee squirrel has dropped his nut and The Nut is there to catch it!
We found this little urban garden...
The city of Glasgow has a program whereby they ask owners of vacant land to allow these gardens to be set up. They request the land be made available for a minimum of three years, which means the developers put on-hold their plans to build on the site and the gardeners can have it. This garden is beautifully set up with a haiku trail, raised bed boxes, sculptures, and even a shelter for the gardeners to hide in during the frequent showers. Unfortunately the "lease" is expired, and the developer might close the garden next year. It would be sad to see it go, but it's been a wonderful space and the gardeners have certainly appreciated the space.
We toured the city during Glasgow Doors Open festival, when many otherwise restricted buildings are opened to the public for tours. We visited six or eight sites, and had a great time exploring the city to find the wee gems that surround us every day.
We found the Britannia Panopticon, which is billed as the world's oldest surviving musical hall.
The place is looking a bit ragged now, but after it was built in the 1850s it was one of the highlights of entertainment in Glasgow's East End. Countless thousands were entertained by the daily variety shows that featured singers, musicians, comedians, and burlesque acts. The building has undergone many evolutions, and at one point even housed a small zoo in the basement.
We picked up a calendar of events for the Panopticon, and found out about the Drag Show...
Which made for a fun and interesting evening! The Panopticon may someday be rebuilt to its former glory, but in the meanwhile it's a fascinating and quirky place to find unique entertainment for cheap.
boB is not sitting on a toilet in this image:
Rather, he's sitting in the back of a police van. Don't worry - he's not in trouble. We visited the Justiciary (court house) during the Glasgow Doors Open festival and had a tour of the court rooms, prisoner holding cells, and the police van that's used to transport held-criminals to and from the court house.
Another exciting find was the Clydeport Building, which in its day was headquarters for the company that was responsible for maintaining the navigability of the River Clyde.
The interior of the Clydeport building is magnificent, and is a clear indication of the amount of money that was in Glasgow during the height of the shipping industry. Marble floors, French oak paneling, huge brass chandeliers, ornate ceilings and rugs ... A very wealthy place.
We also toured the inside of the City Chambers, home of a tremendous carerra marble staircase. The staircase is actually larger than the marble staircase in The Vatican!
The original budget for the building was just about £150,000. But by the time it was completed it had over-run to an astonishing £538,000! The building was constructed between 1882 and 1888, and inaugurated by Queen Victoria in 1889.
The top floor contains a portrait gallery showing all the past Lord Provosts of the city of Glasgpw, including this curious depiction:
The background sort of appears to show the skyline of Glasgow on fire. Curious...
Here's two of our friends from the Glasgow Fiddle Workshop, Finlay and MT.
Finlay is a never-ending supply of musical energy - he leads the slow session every Wednesday before the GFW classes start, and he leads the very slow session every fortnight at a Glasgow bar. He stands on stage, stomping his foot and banging out guitar chords while calling the tune changes and encouraging beginning fiddlers to give it their all and to not be afraid of making mistakes. We see MT every week at the GFW classes and at The Islay on Monday nights for the regular session. They're both fantastic folks, and we'll sure miss them!
One week Bob took a fiddle workshop from Pete Clark a fiddler from Birnham. Birnham is next to Dunkeld, which we visited with Lance.
Inver is a wee village between Dunkeld and Birnham and is home Niel Gow, the famous composer and fiddler from the 1700's. Niel Gow is arguably the father of the Scottish reel and strathspey musical forms for dancing, and is widely credited with beginning what is now called the traditional Scottish fiddle style.
We visited Niel Gow's cottage, which has a plaque mounted in his honor.
And another wee plaque for our man Pete Clark.
Pete is a fascinating man - biologist, naturalist, historian, musician, teacher, comedian ... the list goes on. The workshop was an intense week focusing on advanced fiddle technique, playing in the more difficult "flat" keys, and loads of other fiddle-related topics. Every afternoon we had a wee excursion to explore part of the rich history of the area - a visit to Niel Gow's cottage, a walk to see the Birnham Oak (from the Birnham Wood, which is mentioned in MacBeth), a visit to the village archives and cathedral, playing with two local Reel and Strathspey societies, and we went to Perth one night for delicious curry.
Here's some of the class, posing in front of the Dunkeld Bridge on the River Tay. (Which, you might recall, is a Telford Bridge.) Niel Gow wrote a tune for the bridge, but unfortunately died before the bridge was completed. It is widely believed that the tune he wrote for the bridge was the very last tune he composed.
If you ever want to take an intense and fun week-long fiddle course in Scotland, Pete Clark's workshop is highly recommended!
Back at home in Glasgow, one fine Sunday we went to Helensburgh to meet with Richard and Marion. We played music (highland pipes in the parlor, anyone?) and a had a lovely lunch. Then they treated us to a tour of The Hill House, one of Charles Renee Mackintosh's projects.
The Hill House was built in 1902 - 1904 for Charles Blackie, owner of the publishing firm Blackie and Sons. He specified to Mackintosh that the building was to not use timber on the exterior or red-tiles for the roof, which are traditional on the west coast of Scotland. Mackintosh was pleased to have full reign over the design process, and designed the entire house, inside and out, to carry forward his themes and ideas.
Mackintosh was very particular about his projects, and required that he have control over every aspect, including furniture, floor coverings, window coverings, light fixtures, and even the metal fittings on the windows. Many of his clients found is level of control off-putting, but final aesthetic result of this level of integration is stunning - every detail complements every other detail and the spaces feel perfect. (Well, that's true if you're a huge fan of Mackintosh's style, which boB certainly is. If you don't so much care for Mackintosh then that's okay, too.)
Here's a stunning cabinet designed by Mackintosh that incorporates many traditional Mackintosh elements:
The detail in the design is incredible. Mackintosh reportedly drove his furniture builders crazy with his intricate and complicated designs.
We also took a tour of the Central Street train station. After donning our ultra-trendy high-viz vests and hard-caps we headed into the subterranean world of the Victorian-era train station.
The tour was, in a word, fascinating! Our tour guide was hilarious and had us rolling with tales of gigantic rats and rotting rubbish. He also told us some of the darker history of the station, in particular the about the function of the lower level of the station durin the early years of World War I - it was where bodies of service men we delivered so the family could collect them. A horrific story, but one that needs to be told so that we understand the world around us, who came before us, and how we got to where we are today.
Back to the good stuff: Bagpipes!
Here's a snapshot out of one of our tutor books:
These are a few of the dozens of bagpipe "movements" that are played in piobaireachd, which is the classical music or "ceol mor," for which the pipes are very well suited. We're just learning a tiny bit about the basics of piobaireachd, but plan to continue our studies after we leave Glasgow.
And here's the grand family photo:
That a lot of musical instruments!! It's no wonder that were exhausted - we stay very busy working on all these instruments!
As we entered the second week of October we knew our time in Glasgow was drawing to an end. We went out with a bang by taking an intense three-day workshop at the Nstional Piping Centre.
We felt a bit traitorous since we've sworn our allegiance to The College of Piping, but we also figure that learning from different tutors will open our eyes and ears to new things, and we were right. It was a very productive three days, and we have enough piping technique to work on for a long, long time.
Here's a fantastic shot of us with an Englishman called Larry:
We were in a class with Larry for the weekend, and he was a great guy to play pipes with, he's full of stories and anecdotes, and we had loads of fun with him. He's almost eighty years young and still piping strong!
It was a good experience, and we're glad we did it, but just to make sure in case any of our CoP friends are reading this, here's where hearts lie:
Here's a nice picture of us with Jennifer, our land lady:
We've really enjoyed her company, and we're grateful that we'll get to stay with her again when we come back to Glasgow.
Finally, on the 17th of October we loaded our bikes, slung our pipes in our backs, and headed to the train station.
We'll be back in Scotland again in mid-November, but until then we'll experience a taste of Holland and Germany.
