Churchill's Lament

[PiobBear]

Had an interesting request for a graveside funeral this morning; the tunes piped at Sir Winston Churchill's state funeral, but the family had no idea what those tunes were. Google's quite a handy thing on occasion.

Today's trivia answer is:

My Home/Mist Covered Mountains/Endearing Young Charms

They make quite a nice set. It was in an old (for this area) cemetery, populated by the founding (European) families of the county, with lots of old-school hand carved marble monuments. I piped the set as a postlude, and walked off through the cemetery to repeats of Endearing Young Charms.

[Standard]

I've told my wife for many years now that I'd like pipes at my funeral. Perhapse I'll have to show her these tunes. Amazing Grace is good, but something else would be good too. Glad to hear that you were able to come up with what the family requested.

[Prester John]

Sounds like a wonderful set.

Maybe you can YouTube it for us!

[PiobBear]

Maybe you can YouTube it for us!

I sorely wish I had a way to record my piping in MP3's or something.

[pipe23]

Samson makes a couple of small, excellent recorders, such as the Zoom H2:http://www.samsontech.com/products/p...fm?prodID=1916
Records on SD cards, up to 8 gigs, and are pretty easy to use. Sound quality is excellent.
Some of the Ipods have the ability to record also, though not at the quality of the H2.

[fluter]

Samson makes a couple of small, excellent recorders, such as the Zoom H2

That's very cute! A few years ago, the choice of the gigging classical musician was a portable minidisc recorder, although I'm still stuck in the DAT (digital audio tape) era.

This may be a worthy successor, assuming the microphones are decent. It has a USB interface so that you could upload to a computer system, and take it from there...

[pipe23]

That's very cute! A few years ago, the choice of the gigging classical musician was a portable minidisc recorder, although I'm still stuck in the DAT (digital audio tape) era.

This may be a worthy successor, assuming the microphones are decent. It has a USB interface so that you could upload to a computer system, and take it from there...

I loved the MiniDisc recorders, have 4 of them, unfortunately Sony decided to phase them out in favor of mp3 recorders. I went to MiniDisco.com and picked up about 50 blank discs so I am set for awhile. I feel the Minidisc format is much better than mp3, the Samson H2 and H4, and the Roland Edirol which is similar, let you change recording formats and sampling rates so the sound quality is still there, I'm just not fond of the SD cards, too small therefore easy to lose and sometimes you get a bad one. It is amazing however that they get so much data on such a small thing.

[Phogfan86]

Amazing Grace is, to me, too easy a pick, but there's a reason the guys in my pipe band call it The Moneymaker.

Mist Covered Mountains and Rowan Tree are really nice tunes for a funeral. I also like Wings.

[Jack Daw]

Excellent choice for a set, PiobBear.

[MadBagpiper]

I sorely wish I had a way to record my piping in MP3's or something.

A mini-disk recorder is a fantastic little device! It's like $25 at Target or somewhere like that and when you record something you put it on the computer and it's already in MP3 format. I've got one and it's pretty awesome, but the recording quality is not very fantastic but it gets the job done.

That sounds like a nice set. The Dark Island is a fantastic tune as well and playing that with Hector the Hero is a good set too.
The Piobreachd Lament for Pipe Major Robert Reid is a beautiful tune as well.