Nova Scotia

I've played for an hour today, there is washing on the line, the week's bread is made, dinner is on the hob, the place is reasonably clean, the ironing pile isn't utterly overflowing, and the bear for the person going on maternity leave at the end of this week is all  done bar an arm, so I feel I can spare 10 minutes for some blogging.

Two new books arrived this week, both by Barry Shears. Dance to the Piper I've already dipped in to. It's full of interesting things, not just about piping in Nova Scotia, but about migration and the way of life, too. It's the kind of book that makes you read bits out to anyone who will listen, or say to them "did you know..."

The other is a collection of tunes. I've tried a handful, and they are a challenge, simply because they don't do the things I expect pipe tunes to do. The most obvious example being the start and end notes. These begin on B, high A - all sorts of random notes. I wanted to play Yetts of Muchart, just because it's such a fabulous name (it's a place and looks as though it is more commonly spelled Yetts O' Muckhart), but have ended up going with Capt Angus L MacDonald by PM Fraser Holmes. Capt MacDonald, according to the book (which tells you a tiny bit about each tune) was the last Gaelic speaking Premier of Nova Scotia.

I can't promise any Cape Breton tunes here just yet: I really need to polish off the current crop of new tunes before I move on.