The Objective is to play for ten (five) minutes without “hesitation, deviation or repetition”.
The Purpose is to build pipers’ stamina. The idea comes from recent practices/workshops when even senior pipers have expressed an inability to play for extended periods. Getting pipers to play multiple tunes in a practice should help build stamina.
The challenge is personal. This is not a competition with other pipers but is intended as a benchmark for pipers to aspire to as part of their development.
Notes (click here for a hard copy of the “rules”):
- the time does not include tuning time which is limited to a max of 3 minutes.
- pipers must play at least three different time signatures/genres of “light music” (ceòl beag):
- slow airs;
- common time marches (2/4, 3/4, 4/4);
- compound time marches (6/8, 9/8, 12/8);
- slow airs;
- dances (strathspeys, reels, jigs and hornpipes).
- this can be reduced to two for the five minute challenge.
- hesitation is pausing for more than a beat or two, or multiple chokes of the chanter.
- deviation is a significant mistake (small lapses such as missed doublings don’t count).
- repetition is the repeating of a tune.
- note that single part tunes such as Amazing Grace and Flower of Scotland may be repeated once as that is a common format for them (playing a third time would be repetition).
- note also that repeating the first part of a tune such as Setting a Course For Lewis where the normal format is to play first part, second part and finish with the first part is not repetition.
