A Piper’s Tale

FRED MORRISON is one of the leading lights in world bagpiping, and has made an equally sensational impact in both traditional piping and in more contemporary folk styles. Kenny Mathieson puts the questions.

KENNY MATHIESON: Fred, you won the Macallan Award at Lorient for the seventh time this summer – are they thinking of barring you from the competition yet?

FRED MORRISON: No, but I’m thinking about retiring from it! I first won there was in 1985, I’ve won a few other prizes there as well over the years as well as the seven titles.

KM: Do you enjoy playing in competitions?

FM: I don’t really know, to be honest. There are definitely pros and cons. I was out of it for ages, and then I got quite into it again. I wouldn’t totally agree with competition in music in principle, but it is a nice scene to be part of, and there is a lot of good music played there.

KM: What are the disciplines you need to be a successful competition player?

FM: Nowadays especially you need to be a really correct player – there is a huge emphasis on correctness of technique, and in my opinion the emphasis is more on that than on musicality. There is a lot of sway goes on the instrument itself as well, in terms of tuning and so forth. I think if you go back twenty years and before, there was more stress on musicality and performance, but now if people play safe and don’t do anything wrong, they won’t be far away. And that’s a bit dodgy, I think.

KM: I guess the danger it is that it stifles individuality because that won’t impress the judges?

FM: Absolutely, and that’s exactly what happens.

KM: Changing tack a little, you were born and brought up in Renfrewshire, but your family roots are in South Uist, where piping was very much in the family?

FM: Very much so. I learned from my dad, and he was from a piping family in the north end of Uist. Up until recently, and to some extent now, every village in Uist had four or five families of pipers – the place was full of them. It was that kind of legacy that I learned from. It was a done thing in the family, more or less. I was always dying to get into anyway – I was well up for it.

KM: What would you say were the essential characteristics of Uist style?

FM: Definitely the expression – it has its own style of expression, and a real swing feel to it. Expression and subtleties of touch, I would say. It’s difficult to describe it like this, but I know what it means! The Uist style I grew up with was all based on musicality and life and rhythm, and even with the Pibroch and the slow airs it was always full of passion, never just down to technicalities. A grace note could be a life and death matter when I was young!

KM: What was your own road into becoming a musician after that initial family influence?

FM: We used to come up to Uist a lot and spend time there, and I’d get to go to the house ceilidhs and all of that. I never played in a pipe band, though, which is a strange thing, I suppose. It just never arose. I got into performing through the junior piping competitions, and at that level I do think the competitions are a very good thing. It gives youngsters an outlet to play regularly and raise their standards of tuning and technique and so on. That was where I started – I think my very first one was a chanter competition in Shettleston in Glasgow that was part of a community project. I started playing at ceilidhs around Glasgow after that.

KM: How did you get involved in the folk scene?

FM: At the age of 18 I went away to Amsterdam with a friend of mine who played bodhran, and I met a couple there called Billy and Miriam Kelly. Miriam is now married to a well known singer in London, Ron Kavana, and Billy is a guitar player living in Boston, but at that time the four of us teamed up. I learned a whole lot from them about different styles of music and the folk scene and different kinds of tunes.

KM: How big a change is it from the formal piping scene?

FM: For me the kind of music I do in the folk scene, or for the general public rather than the specialist piping public, if you want to put it that way, is different, and there is more to it than people imagine. If you are trying to entertain the public you have to have something that is going to interest them, and you have to be able to blend technique with an entertaining style of rhythm. It takes a lot of adapting.

KM: Presumably there is more freedom of style and expression in the folk setting?

FM: Absolutely, and I love the freedom of it. I love the spontaneity, which you don’t have at all in competition playing, and I love improvising. In the competitions you are working completely by the book.

KM: What style of pipes do you play?

FM: The Highland pipes was my first instrument, and it’s probably the one I play best, although it’s not what I do most! The Border pipes are probably the instrument I play most often. I got into them in the early 90s, but as soon as I got them I went mental with them – I was playing them in every session I could get to in Edinburgh. It was like a new lease of life.

KM: Sessions aren’t always easy for you big loud pipers to fit into, are they?

FM: For pipers, sessions are just frustrating on the Highland pipes – you can give a wee blast every now and then, but you can’t really join in because of the tuning and volume and so forth. Then I started to play with Capercaillie, and that really took the ball up the park for me.

KM: Is there a big adjustment moving from Highland to Border pipes?

FM: I think so. Border pipes are a difficult instrument to play, even harder then the small pipes, because the pressure of the reed is so low, and they are more squeaky and squawky. It’s hard to be accurate, especially if you want to use them for high-tempo or exiting music. You really have to approach your technique in a different way to the Highland pipes, although it is basically the same ornamentation.

KM: You play the Irish version, the Uillean pipes, as well, don’t you?

FM: They are a different beast again – I went mental with them as well! I’m a serious Paddy Keenan fan. I met him when I was teenager in 1983 or thereabouts, and I have always loved his music, and especially his ability to improvise and never repeat the same phrase. When I got the Uillean pipes I just got obsessed with them. I love the travelling-style players as well, Finbar Furey and those guys.

KM: How difficult is it to play with other instruments in bands like Capercaillie or Clan Alba, or in your current duo with Jamie McMenemy?

FM: I think you have to look at chordal things a lot more – you have to be aware of what will work chordally and rhythmically with another instrument. Playing solo you can play anything you want, but if I am working with Jamie, for example, I have to think about what is going to work with him, so there are a lot more things to consider in that setting. It’s not just a matter of suiting the other instruments, you have to think about the other person as well, because people have different styles and approaches, and that is going to affect your decisions as well.

KM: Did you enjoy your time with Capercaillie?

FM: Oh yes, that was fantastic. I learned  a lot playing with them in terms of working with sound and their professionalism and so on, and I think it did me a huge amount of good for playing with any other artists, and playing in that kind of amplified setting.

KM: Clan Alba was a project that promised a lot and never quite came to fruition.

FM: It was a real shame that they didn’t do a lot more, because the concept with the big arrangements was brilliant. I learned an awful lot from Dick Gaughan in that band. That was the first professional band I had really been part of, and Dick was amazing. He would spend all day explaining or working out a certain thing if he had to, and he was an amazing giver of help and musical knowledge.

KM: Is that a direction that interests you as a bandleader?

FM: I still think about having a bigger band from time to time, yes, especially when I’m writing, because you can always hear the material with bigger arrangements and bigger grooves and so on. It is something I might seriously consider at some point. Going out as duo is much easier, though, and starting a new band can be a very expensive business.

KM: Do you have a band of your own at the moment?

FM: I’m really just working with Jamie at the moment.

KM: What’s happening with Ceolas?

FM: It’s neither going nor not going, really The thing with Ceolas is that everybody was in another band – people had their first band and then were in Ceolas as well, and that was often a problem. I couldn’t record with them because of a recording contract I had, and then when I started to work with Jamie we seemed to be touring all year. It was really just a case of too many other things happening, but at the same time the band could easily be put together if anybody wanted to book us.

KM: The duo with Jamie seems to have been a big success – how did that come about?

FM: I would say so, without a doubt, and probably more than we thought. I think people realised that they were going to get a powerful show without too much hassle. We only started playing together at Celtic Connections in 2003. I had seen him many times in Brittany and with Kornog, and I always loved what he did, but I hadn’t worked with him at all before that.

KM: Had you played much together before you made the Up South album?

FM: No – I laid down my tracks and he came over and put his backings on, and it was only then that we really started to get out and play it all live. The album is fairly chilled-out, and we both love that, but there is more of the hard-driving stuff now in the live set, and it’s tighter as well.

KM: ‘Up South’ is a Uist saying, isn’t it?

FM: Yes, that’s what folk say in Uist when they are going down south. There are various stories about how that originated. Some folk say it is because of the hills at the south end giving the impression you are going up, but there is also a story that has something to do with the stars and navigation, which I am a bit vague on, but it sounds more likely.

KM: Do you do much teaching?

FM: Not much at the moment, although I would like to do more of that. Again, it’s mainly down to being so busy with Jamie – you can’t really take on students and then go away for two months on tour. Working in education is good for building your own awareness of the music as well.

KM: Finally, Fred what is coming up for you?

FM: What I really have to do is work on the music for the opening concert at Celtic Connections in January. I’m doing a piece that Mark Sheridan will be orchestrating, and we need to get our heads together and sort that out very soon. It’s a huge amount of work, but I’m really looking forward to it.

© Kenny Mathieson, 2004