I was lucky to be asked to play guitar at an event at Piping Live 2019 - a book launch by composer Kyle Rothschild. He writes some great tunes and plays in the St. Laurence O'Toole Pipe Band, and we've kept in touch since meeting at this time last year. We made a video together at the start of July, where we played a couple of well known tunes he had arranged. His style is one I haven't really explored much myself, so sharing some tunes with him has been a great learning experience for me (check out the video below!).
As with many artists I know, the SLOT Pipe Band have been releasing a series of videos of 'virtual band practices' through the lockdown. To celebrate the weekend that would have been the World Pipe Band Championships, they planned to release two more videos and one of these with my guitar accompaniment. I was more than happy to join in, and was really chuffed to see that they'd chosen the infamous Gordon Duncan composition 'The 9/8 Jig' followed by PM Alen Tully's hornpipe arrangement of the same tune.
The SLOT style is a very distinctive one, and one of the more musical approaches to medley playing in my own opinion. Their 2010 Worlds win is one of my top five favourite performances to date (check it out!). They approached this new video release from a slightly more technical perspective - particularly in the hornpipe section - which did take a little getting used to but was a great technical challenge for me to accompany. The regular change of rhythm and meter forced me to practice a few different approaches to accompaniment (and also the fact that there were still more pipers, harmonies, drum corps, drum kit, mandolin and other percussion to be added that contributed to the test!) While this was far from easy - I'm glad I took it on and made myself think out of the box for what feels like the first time in far too long! Have a listen to the finished product on the band's Facebook page:
Enjoy!
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