Mildura Pipe band | Musician/band
Mildura Pipe band
Phone: +61 407 257 339
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25.01.2022 Saw this on another page couldn't resist sharing tho I'm sure our drummers may disagree haha
24.01.2022 TALES FROM HISTORY: St MARGARET OF SCOTLAND Scotland’s only Royal Saint. The central Anglican church in Mildura is dedicated to St Margaret of Scotland. Who was she? She was a princess of the Anglo-Saxon royal line going back to Alfred the Great. She was born around 1047 in Hungary where her father, the Anglo-Saxon heir to the English throne had settled after he was forced into exile by a successful Viking invasion of England in 1016. She was brought up in the intensel...Continue reading
24.01.2022 TALES FROM HISTORY: 1. SHAKESPEARE AND MACBETH [part 2] MACBETH Macbeth was a real king who ruled Scotland from 1040 to 1057. Shakespeare has him seizing the throne by murdering old, wise, dearly loved King Duncan while Duncan is a guest in his home an unforgiveable breach of the rules of hospitality. EXCEPT THAT WASN’T WHAT HAPPENED: ...Continue reading
22.01.2022 BAND PRACTICE IS BACK!! Under the revised Covid-19 rules we can again hold a (restricted) practice at Barklay Sq Park in Red Cliffs this Sunday morning, 27/09. It's a start and, provided the people of Victoria continue to do the right thing, we'll be able to progress from there. See you at 10.30 on Sunday.
22.01.2022 Hi band people and friends I’ve just about exhausted my series of posts on Scottish garments and accessories; I wrote them in the hopes they might hold members’ interest in things Scottish, and keep spirits up during the covid lockdown, and it’s been an unexpected bonus that there’s been so much interest from overseas who’d have thought, and how do people find out about our FB site? But STILL we’re in band lockdown, and I’ve been trying to think of other topics that could... keep things going. Suggestions welcome! Meantime.I thought I might fill the time by writing a few posts on the history and legends associated with some of the past Scottish kings and leaders plenty of interesting yarns there! Cheers, and stay safe, Russ See more
21.01.2022 TALES FROM HISTORY: ROBERT BRUCE We know a lot more about Robert Bruce than we do of William Wallace. Historians agree that he was born 11 July 1274 either in Turnbury Castle, Ayrshire, Scotland, (as Scots would prefer) or in Chelmsford, Essex, England (as Scots would prefer not to be true!) His father was descended from Norman-French conquerors, originally from Bruis in Normandy. He was a distant relation (4th great grandson) of King David I of Scotland, which formed ...Continue reading
20.01.2022 1. ST ANDREW AND THE SALTIRE November 30th is St Andrew’s Day, Scotland’s National Day. Andrew was one of Jesus’s apostles, and the brother of Peter. According to Christian tradition, he was crucified in Patros, Greece, on a diagonal cross, a saltire. So what’s the link with Scotland? Well, it goes wa-a-ay back, and it’s all shrouded in legend, but here’s my attempt to untangle it! BACKGROUND Between 400 and 500A.D. the Romans, who had ruled the southern part of Britain...Continue reading
19.01.2022 TALES FROM HISTORY: 1. SHAKESPEARE AND MACBETH [part 1] If ever there was a king who got a bad rap from ‘history’ it was Macbeth who reigned from 1040 to 1057. History is always written by the winners, but with Macbeth’s, the ‘history’ came 5 centuries later, and it arose from a very commercial decision by an English playwright to curry favour with his new Scottish king. SHAKESPEARE English theatre took off in the last couple of decades of the 1500’s: there were dozens ...of troupes of entertainers who toured around the country. (Modern historians have traced the routes of some of these troupes by accessing local parish records, plotting spikes in illegitimate births, and subtracting 9 months and that’s when the Players were in town!) They performed in inns, halls, wealthy people’s homes or any other place they could attract an audience. It was a precarious existence and it was highly desirable to get a wealthy patron to gain some security. Shakespeare’s company, THE LORD CHAMBERLAIN’S MEN, had been popular in the court of Queen Elizabeth but when she died in 1603the problem was to maintain that royal patronage with the new monarch, James VI of Scotland, now James I of England. Solution: write a ‘Scottish’ play, or at least a play with a nod to Scottish legendary history. It had to resonate with the king, so there’d have to be lots of intrigue (James had lived his whole life surviving plots and conspiracies); murders (James’s own father had been murdered (with his mother’s connivance), his mother had been murdered by Elizabeth, and his own life had left a trail of dead bodies); witches, ghosts and other supernatural phenomenon (James was known to be extremely superstitious); and featuring an heroic and honourable ancestor of James himself a fellow called Banquo, whom no-one had ever heard of. (No matter, Shakespeare could spin a yarn and create a real character out of nothing!) Well, the play worked; the LORD CHAMBERLAIN’S MEN became THE KING’S MEN, Shakespeare became the greatest playwright in the language, and wealthy enough to retire in his early 40’s, a highly respected country gentleman. But what about the HISTORY? Log on tomorrow! See more
13.01.2022 Great article on page 17 featuring two of our wonderful band members https://digital.milduraweekly.com.au//friday-/flipbook/17/
13.01.2022 HOW DID THAT START? 2. KILT PINS These days, a kilt pin, contrary to the name, does not pin the overlap of the kilt to the lower layer that would probably cause the kilt to hang unevenly. It is simply an ornamental brooch pinned to the top layer of the kilt to give it weight. BUT rumour has it that this was not always so! Queen Victoria, a lady of proverbial prudery, was allegedly so embarrassed by the sight of a Scottish gentleman struggling against the wind to k...eep his kilt from blowing open and revealing his personal crown jewels, that she gave him her own brooch to pin the garment together. She then let it be known that in future it would be appropriate for her kilt-wearing subjects to fasten their garment. Now, the good old blanket safety pin, which has been around for nearly 3000 years, would seem to be suitable and it was, for most people. However, for the rich, the kilt pin became a high-fashion accessory, with wealthy Scottish gentlemen out-doing each other with expensive jewellery. Crafted in gold and silver, and embellished with gems, these kilt pins would often take the form of miniature mementoes of a warlike past such as claymores and Lochaber axes, and incorporate clan crests or family mottoes. The ladies would also wear similarly designed brooches to fasten their cloaks and sashes. See more
11.01.2022 HOW DID THAT START? 5. THE COAT OF ARMS Millions of people world-wide have a family coat of arms proudly displayed on a wall. Strictly, under Scottish law, there is no such thing as a ‘family’ or ‘clan’ Coat of Arms: only one person has the right to a Coat of Arms and that is the person to whom they were originally granted, and those Arms descend to the direct heir in each generation. That means your ‘Family MacWhatever Coat of Arms’ on your wall is actually the... Arms of your Chief, not your clan. ‘Coats of arms’ go back about 1000 years to when soldiers covered their bodies in armour and it was difficult in a battle to recognise friend from enemy. So they could be recognised, leaders would create a stylised picture, often incorporating a place, or a fearsome animal in a threatening pose, or an incident of some significance to them and their family, and that picture would be painted on their equipment such as their shield. This was the Coat of Arms. Over the years these arms became more and more complex as marriages were made, children were born or adopted, alliances were formed and broken, and it became necessary to compile a register. In Scotland, the registration was, and still is, the responsibility of an official called the Lord Lyon (after the lion shown on the coat of arms of the Scottish king since the 12th century). Part of the training of a young warrior was to memorise a shorthand description of the hundreds of different ‘Arms’ pretty necessary if you were to know who to fight and who not to! See more
10.01.2022 https://www.milduraweekly.com.au/local-pipers-are-back-mak/
10.01.2022 HOW DID THAT START? 7. THE FEATHER IN THE CAP There is a Scottish convention (though not a law) that a clan chief is permitted to wear three Golden Eagle feathers tucked behind the crest badge on a cap; heirs apparent and some holders of substantial clan lands may wear two; and ‘gentlemen’ may wear one. Occasionally long pheasant feathers are used. Some people take this convention seriously; others happily ignore it and display feathers if they fancy doing so. Wher...e did it come from? It’s not part of the heraldic tradition, and it seems to have first appeared in the first half of the 19th century. It’s been suggested that the idea may have been adapted from American Indians as depicted by popular American writers of the 1820’s. At any rate, there’s little evidence that it was a Scottish tradition before this time: portraits of chieftains painted in the 1600’s, 1700’s and early 1800’s don’t show them wearing three feathers, although later portraits of such historical characters, painted in the 1830’s, long after the subjects were dead, sometimes do. It may have been an attempt to transplant the custom into the ‘Celtic Revival’ romantic view of history(?) Highland infantry regiments from the 19th century began wearing bunches of clipped, coloured feathers called ‘hackles’ behind their crest badges different colours, different regiments. In the 1870’s the Black Watch (42nd Regiment) introduced a shorter, more compact hackle similar to that worn by civilian bands today. This design spread to other regiments and the longer, earlier version was retained only by the military bandsmen. See more
10.01.2022 HOW DID THAT START? 3. The SGIAN DUBH [pron. ‘ski-en-doo’ Gaelic for ‘black, or hidden blade’] Nowadays, this is a small, ceremonial dagger worn in the sock garter. Once, though it was much more. (And PLEASE, it is NOT a DIRK!) In former times, for personal protection, it was common for men, and ladies too, to carry a dagger under the left armpit, concealed in an upper pocket of the jacket. On entering the home of an acquaintance or friend, good manners required... that such concealed weapons be laid aside. Perhaps, though, if you feared the rules of hospitality might not be as firmly held by your host as you’d like (after all, Robert Bruce became king by inviting his rival to a friendly meeting in a church, and then murdering him!) a compromise would be to remove the hidden armpit knife and stick it in your sock, in full view but ‘gettable’. After the suppression which followed the collapse of the ’45 uprising, it was illegal to carry a weapon, but an exception was allowed for a small, utilitarian skinning knife with a blade less than 4 inches long. Accordingly, the ‘armpit knife’ was scaled down to conform with the restrictions and carried openly in the sock. See more
10.01.2022 Our pipe major Peter Fleming playing at mildura South Primary school for their anzac day ceremony
08.01.2022 Well, we've had our last band practice for a while but keep blowing/beating away. If you happen to have a sassenach neighbour who doesn't appreciate God's chosen instrument, practice chanters and drum pads don't make much noise! Covid won't last forever and we need to be ready when the restrictions ease. In 100 years the band has been through many turmoils, and survived; this, too, will pass! Stay safe, everyone! R
08.01.2022 HOW DID THAT START? 1. SPATS The wearing of spats as part of pipe band dress has declined in recent decades but until at least the 1970’s they were almost universally worn. The custom goes back to the military, where canvas or leather over-shoes were worn to prevent pebbles getting into the shoes. These over-shoes were known as Spatter-dashes, hence, ‘spats’. There are occasional references to highland soldiers wearing spats going back as early as the late 1700’s bu...t the custom became usual by the mid-19th century, when a wide variety of spats were worn in different regiments and by individual, fashion-conscious officers some covering just the ankle, some covering the whole lower leg from foot to knee, some shaped to the contours of the calf muscle, some laced, some buttoned, some buckled, and so on. It’s been claimed that the custom goes back still further, to the late 1600’s when the first highland regiments were being formed. There were stories always vague and set in a variety of different times and places about remnants of an exhausted highland regiment which returned from war, battle-scarred and shoeless and were ashamed to enter their home city in such a bedraggled state. They wrapped their feet in bandages and proudly marched into town in their new, white footwear. Now, how romantic is that! See more
08.01.2022 HOW DID THAT START? 6. THE CREST BADGE A Scottish crest badge which is usually worn on the cap or as a brooch, to show membership in a specific clan consists of a visual design and a motto or ‘slogan’ surrounded by a belt and buckle. Both the heraldic design and the motto are registered with the Office of the Lord Lyon of Scotland, and legally belong to the chieftain, but the surrounding belt indicates that the wearer is a follower of that individual. The actual chi...eftain who owns the symbols may wear a crest badge surrounded by a plain circlet, not a belt. Crest badges do not have a long history: like the mythology of tartans, they are part of the romanticised ‘history’ of Scotland which was created in the early 19th Century by the so-called Celtic Revival. Before that, a sprig of a special plant, or a flower, may have been pinned to a cap, but not a badge. Prince Charlie’s Jacobites were said to have pinned a wild white rose to their ‘blue bonnets’ in the ’45. See more
08.01.2022 The August edition of the School of Piping magazine, GONE PIPING, is worth a read, as usual. Amongst other things, Brett has an excellent article on the legendary pipers of WWI. http://www.schoolofpiping.com/sh/advanced_publications.html
07.01.2022 TALES FROM HISTORY: WILLIAM WALLACE William Wallace, or Braveheart as Hollywood calls him, offers plenty of scope for script writers to invent pretty much anything they want, because most of that we think we know about him is based on legend. A lot of the legend came from a long (12 volumes) poem written about 170 years after the events it describes, by a bard called Blind Harry, so the stories had had plenty of time to circulate and grow by the time they were writte...Continue reading
05.01.2022 HOW DID THAT START? 8. THE LADIES’ SASH The custom of wearing a tartan sash on formal occasions is another ‘tradition’ which grew up in the Celtic Revival of the 19th Century. It allowed wealthy ladies to continue to wear their beautiful gowns but also demonstrate their allegiance to their clan. A book on etiquette, published in the 1830’s, decreed that the wife of a chieftain, or of a Colonel in a Scottish regiment, should wear the sash over her LEFT shoulder and a...cross the breast, secured by a brooch on the left shoulder. Other ladies should wear it over the RIGHT shoulder. I doubt if many bother with that distinction these days. Country dancers generally pin the sash on the right shoulder and drape both ends over the back, but I’ve been informed that "members of the Royal Scottish Country Dance Society have been granted permission by Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II, to wear their sashes on the LEFT shoulder. This is an honour bestowed upon the Society because she is Patron". See more
04.01.2022 Some photos from Anzac day 2021 courtesy of our band photographer Margaret Whyte
03.01.2022 HOW DID THAT START? 4. THE SPORRAN Pockets are a fairly recent tailoring invention certainly a lot more recent than kilts. Since ancient times items such as small valuables, ammunition and food were carried in a leather purse deer or calfskin usually hung from the belt. At its simplest, such a purse consisted of a square or round leather pouch with a drawstring at the top. Perhaps because the pocket-less kilt lasted longer in Scotland than in some other cultu...res, the leather pouch there evolved to become more elaborate: metal clasps replaced the simple drawstring, exotic furs such as wildcats, seals and badgers were used, and various embellishments such as horsehair, with contrasting tassels of small metal bells and engraved badges (which added nothing to functionality) were added. It became usual to hang the sporran by a separate belt or chain, and to wear it in the front, below the main belt buckle. (A French friend of mine once referred to my sporran as a ‘cache-sexe’!) In the Highland regiments, regulations defined the sizes, shapes, colours, number and positioning of tassels, types to be worn by different ranks, positions to be worn, etc. and by the 1850’s there were some pretty elaborate regimental sporrans. But it’s the civilian world, where unrestricted imagination and taste, good or cringeworthy, have produced the most outlandish designs. See more
03.01.2022 This one made me laugh
03.01.2022 drum corporal Neil Lawrence taking part from his driveway today in the Pipe Bands Australia VP75 tribute performance in commemoration of the 75th anniversary of the end of World War Two (Social distancing rules being followed and face mask only removed for the picture )
02.01.2022 Social distancing in a time of Covid!
01.01.2022 Hi Russ, my father was a member of the Mildura Pipe Band and he was one of the Band members that in listed that went off to the Second World War with the Mildura Pipe Band. Colin Ewen MacDonald ( Ex Prsioner of War ) My Uncle Norman MacDonald and his younger brother Donald all at some stage played the bagpipes with the Mildura Pipe Band. I play my uncle Norman,s 1890 Center pipes. My father Colin Ewen MacDonald, 1920 - 2002, his pipes were blow up by bombing of the Burma Rail...road when he was a Prisoner for 3 1/2 years by the Japanese. My other uncle Donald MacDonald who I think in the 70/80 may have been the Pipe Major for a period with the Mildura Pipe Band. My father Colin won a Gold medal in Solo Piping competition when he was 16 and an active member of the Band. Colin taught me the bagpipes and also took me to Melbourne each week on the train to have further lessons with Angus McCaffer. When my uncle Donald died back around 1996 I was Tutor of the WA Police Pipe Band and flew back to Melbourne/ Mildura to play at Donald’s funeral In Mildura. I took my Dad Colin to the Funeral and we stayed at the Grand Hotel. Lovely memories of my Uncles and father and they all started their musical adventures with the Mildura Pipe Band. I have been the PM of the Federation University Pipe Band Ballarat for the past 9 years, and have tutored and assisted Pipe Bands over the years. I am a Life Member if Golden City PIpe Band Bendigo and Federation University Pipe Band. Many thanks for your articles on FB, Mildura Pipe Band is very close to my heart, Thank you Neil MacDonald See more
01.01.2022 BAND PRACTICE TOMORROW AND IN FUTURE If you’re wondering how you can blow the pipes through a surgical mask the answer is, You can’t! Under the new restrictions we can practice at Barklay Sq tomorrow morning [02/08] but not after, until the Plague emergency has passed. Meantime, keep practising at home your neighbours deserve to be cheered up!
