True-love giving
“Twelve drummers drumming, 11 pipers piping” . . . these are maybe the greatest connections to piping and drumming we have when it comes to bridging to the non-playing public. Everyone loves “The 12 Days of Christmas.” It’s the “Scotland the Brave” of Christmas Carols.
I’m not sure about your part of the world, but it seems that Christmas windows at big department stores have made a comeback in Toronto. That’s nice. I’d hate to think that kids never get the chance to gaze dreamily at the mechanized glittering windows before they become completely inured to consumerism. It used to be that department store Christmas windows were a marvel of technology; now, they’re a quaint throwback to the days of Hornby trainsets and Meccano.
The fancy Holt-Renfrew store on Bloor Street this year has a really clever series of windows that have a fashionista take on “The 12 Days.” Their interpretation of 11 Pipers Piping is quite brilliant: 10 female mannequins in plaid/tartan with “drones” sticking out of their designer handbags. Get it? Bag-pipes. (The eleventh mannequin appears to be a man smoking a pipe, to keep everyone honest, since I’d imagine about one out of every eleven Holts customers is male.)
Sadly, the 12 Drummers window is made up of mannequins in a tin soldier motif. Drummers can be many things, while pipers to most punters, at least in the western world, are Highland bagpipers. Ed Neigh said many years ago that pipe bands must be eternally grateful to drummers, who have so many other musical options, but instead chose to play in, of all things, a pipe band.
Every year you see financial calculations of how much it would cost to buy or rent the entire 12 Days. For the 12 drummers, they always seem to go with a marching band of some kind, while the cost of 11 pipers is mainly that which the local pipe band would charge for what today would often mean about half of its pipe section. I’d imagine that hiring 11 of SFU or Field Marshal Montgomery’s pipe section would set you back at least a thousand dollars, or about the price of five decent gold rings — six if you throw in both Lees and a Parkes.
Swans, a partridge in a pear tree, geese a laying – all very doable, and I’d bet you could wait around Westminster to get 10 Lords to leap on their tea break. I’m not sure what eight farm-girls go for what with the cost of their dairy cows, or if eight wet-nurses are even possible in this age and day.
“Eleven pipers piping”: a true gift to our art.
On the 1st day of Xmas, my true love sent to me, a bagpipe in every key.
On the 2nd day of Xmas, my true love sent to me, 2 Canning reeds, and a ………
On the 3rd day of Xmas my true love sent to me, 3 perfect drones, 2………
On the 4th day of Xmas, my true love sent to me, 4 sheepskin bags, 3……..
On the 5th day of Xmas, my true love sent to me, 5, McC 2’s, 4 ……..
On the 6th day of Xmas, my true love sent to me, 6 sheets from ‘pipetunes’, 5……
On the 7th day of Xmas, my true love sent to me, 7 perfect upbeats, 6……………
On the 8th day of Xmas, my true love sent to me, 8 modern piobaireachds, 7……
On the 9th day of Xmas, my true love sent to me, 9 vintage bagpipes, 8………
On the 10th day of Xmas, my true love sent to me, 10 wooden chanters, 9……..
On the 11th day of Xmas, my true love sent to me, 11 pipers piping, 10……
On the 12th day of Xmas, my true love sent to me, 12 drummers drumming, 11….