January and Cold

Happy New Year

It's cold here in the Peg, and snowy... I haven't left the apartment today as I'm dealing with a touch of the flu. Not surprising given the past weekends schedule.

We have had a busy week or so since returning from our time off.

Grade 3 and Grade 2 bands had a great weekend workshop with our good friends Jake Watson, and Graham Brown. Both are leaders in the Peel Regional Police Pipe Band, and experts at their craft. Needless to say both bands learned a great deal.

I know the grade 2 band enjoyed their time together. The band actually started to sound great. Not balls to the walls like June would be, but solid, tuned, tight, and generally improved from last season. That's always our goal.

The grade 3 band, on the other hand, I think learned the most. This was the first time that section of our association got to spend some time with Mr. Watson, and have a workshop in general. For those who have worked with, or watched Jake work, it takes a few moments to toughen your skin. He tells it like it is. Which is how Wes, and I, like it. He never pulls a punch. I think this was a bit of a change for the grade 3 band. They're used to Wes harping at them, however I think they just chalk that up to him being constantly grumpy : )

What I think they learned, and after speaking with a few of them I've confirmed this, is that there is always work to be done, and that Wes and I aren't nuts... well we may be nuts, but we have a clue as to what we're talking about.

It's difficult when you only hear one person tell you how to this, when to do that, why we do the other, you tune them out a bit after awhile. I know I do. These workshops are great, because though Jake comes in a reiterates a lot of what has been said, he says it in a different way that clicks with some folks.

Then he just fixes everything else.

Either way, both bands sound awesome out the gate this season, I'm very pleased.

We also had the wonderful chance to keep Graham a few extra days. Graham is a fun loving, experience driven type of dude. "what would you like to do today Graham?"... "well if we go for lunch I'd like to hit a mom and pop 'best of' type joint" he seems to like new things and stepping outside his comfort zone. Needless to say he fit right in.

So after hitting a local diner for lunch we went out to Juvenile practice on Monday night, Graham gifted some of his knowledge to our youngest students, I hope someday they'll remember that experience. We also managed to keep Graham in town long enough to have him at Tuesday's band practice where we got to confirm our changes and decisions we'd made on the weekend.

Generally, I like making friends in the pipe band world, I can confidently say Graham has been adopted by the SASPB gang much like John Fisher, and Jake, and I'm very glad to have another high level player I can email when i'm in a jam.

I think it was a fantastic weekend and we all will be pulling for Graham at Winter Storm this weekend coming up.

Stay warm folks,

Cheers,

Sean