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Saturday, January 31, 2016

Elks' Hall, Yellowknife

Tickets are now on sale for the NWT Pipe Band's 2026 Robert Burns Dinner & Concert at the Elks Hall in Yellowknife on Saturday, January 31, 2026.

Tickets are $100 and will sell out quickly!  This is a licensed event, so minors are not allowed.

Join us for an evening of Highland Piping & Drumming, Highland Dancing, fiddle and guitar music by Andrea Bettger and Ben Russo, traditional Burns Night Toasts, presentation of the Scotty Trotter Memorial Award and, of course, the traditional Burns Night dinner of haggis, roast beef & gravy, neeps & tatties, and shortbread!

 

 

 

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John Knox founder of the Church of Scotland

"... the kirke within this kingdome is now purged of all superstitious observatione of dayes... thairfor the saidis estatis have dischairged and simply dischairges the foirsaid Yule vacance and all observation thairof in tymecomeing, and rescindis and annullis all acts, statutis and warrandis and ordinances whatsoevir granted at any tyme heirtofoir for keiping of the said Yule vacance, with all custome of observatione thairof, and findis and declaires the samene to be extinct, voyd and of no force nor effect in tymecomeing." 

Act discharging the Yule vacance (2 June 1640)

Nothing like an image of John Knox to put one in the Christmas spirit...

The Scots traditionally have not celebrated Christmas.  Prior to 1560 Christmas was  a time for feasting.  The year 1560 is important as it is the start of the Protestant Reformation.  The Church of Scotland (Presbyterian) - or Covenanters - frowned on anything to do with Roman Catholicism and in 1640 the Scottish Parliament made the Yule vacations illegal.  One has to put this in perspective as 1640 was right at the start of the Wars of the Three Kingdoms. In England, part of this war is known as the English Civil War.  Even when Charles II was restored to the throne, Christmas celebrations were frowned upon.  It took until 1958 for 25 December to become a public holiday.  This is one of the reasons why New Year's or the Hogmanay is a more important celebration for the Scots.

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Ange joueur de biniou kozh ou cornemuse (sculpture dans le donjon du château de Vincennes).

ABC Notation is a shorthand form of musical notation for computers.  It can be converted to show the standard staff notation of music (i.e. engraving).  It can also be processed to produce a MIDI sound file.  ABC notation is ASCII based and has the flavour of software from the 1990s at a time before the preponderance of Windows and "what you see is what you get" (WYSIWYG).  The language has evolved but is standardized.  The initial release dates to 1997 but the latest release was in December 2011.  Details are at: http://abcnotation.com/ .  The standard has extensions that can accommodate lyrics (aligned with notes - reminds us of hymn books), chords, tablature and even percussion/drumming. 

The developer of ABC Notation, Chris Walshaw, originally developed the program to notate French bagpipe music (binioù and bombarde).  ABC Notation is an offshoot of MusiXTEX - a typesetting/engraving system for music typesetting.  A further offshoot of this project was LilyPond - but its input files resemble programs.  There are conversion programs.  There are a number of proprietary score-writers available (Celtic Pipes, Bagpipe Writer, MuseScore etc.), but for a not-for-profit society like the Northwest Territorial Pipe Band, the promise of opensource software is compelling.  Because of the origins of ABC Notation for bagpipe music, the notation handles grace notes and other embellishments very well.  Nevertheless it should be noted that ABC notation can handle more than just bagpipe music.

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A kilt is a garment similar to a skirt worn by men.  It was originally a wrap-around full-length garment (belted plaid) that could be draped over the shoulder and head - something like the garment Mel Gibson wore in the field in the movie Braveheart, where he played the role of Sir William Wallace fighting against Edward I (Edward Longshanks) and his army.  This was the "great kilt".  A walking kilt or small kilt was invented in the 1720s which was less unwieldy as the great kilt.  The small kilt was quickly adopted in Scotland, although here is evidence that this kilt was already in used before the 1720s.  A kilt usually has a tartan, although Irish pipe bands often wear a kilt in a solid colour - typically saffron or green.  The amount of material in a kilt (wool) can range from heavy (18-22 ounces) down to light (10-11 ounces).  A full kilt has 8 yards of fabric, although for those who are not girth-impaired, it can range up to 9 yards. 

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Haggis is a savoury pudding. 

When one speaks of a "pudding" one does not speak of cream-based sweet desserts such as custard, mousse, rice or Jell-O.  In the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth a pudding could be sweet or savoury.  For example black pudding or a Yorkshire pudding are savoury puddings whereas rice pudding, Christmas pudding or a treacle sponge pudding are sweet puddings. There is a Canadian connection to sweet puddings - the sticky toffee pudding may have origins from two Royal Canadian Air Force Officers billeted in England during the Second World War.

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