Hi Everyone, I wanted to provide an update on our plans for the offseason. In order to be sensitive of people's time, we wanted to cut practices for each band to every other week. I will lay out dates and details below. These are for piper practices. I will let Alex speak to specifics on drummer practices. This practice schedule will start in October. *Grade 4* Every other week practice. The first practice in the month will be on Monday's on Zoom at 7pm - 9pm. The second practice will be at Edith Morley Park at 6:30pm. *Drummers* should attend this practice. The music for next year will not likely be changing. Please work on memorizing all of the tunes. There are a few who have memorized everything, but many others are just getting started on that process. I would also stress that each of you take lessons in order to further improve over the offseason. I will provide a list of information and suggestions at the bottom with possible instructors etc. *Grade 3* We will be shifting to every other week zoom practices *Weds at 7pm*. These will be the first and third week of every month. These practices will be focused on our competitive sets and repertoire. We will also have *Optional* practices every second and fourth week of every month. These practices will be tailored to the attendees of the practice. We will likely work on fun music that we aren't expecting the whole band to learn. We can also use this time to catch some of our newer or less frequent pipers up to what we worked on all year. We will continue having park practice *Every Sunday at 1pm *at Edith Morley Park. Check Slack every week to confirm attendance. *Drummers* are more than welcome and encouraged to attend these practices. We will be having a full band practice at Edith Morley Park *Sunday Sept 27.* Alex B will be in town. Please plan on making it even if you are a semi-remote player. I want to get all the chanters carved, get the band tuned and get some good run throughs in of all our sets. Please try to have : MSR, Medley, 68s, Banks of the Lossie, Grans Tune, Miss Megan Harrington, Donald MacLean, and tune for lottie *memorized* for this practice. That list is in Priority order. *Everyone* After G3 practice every week we will continue to have our post-band hangout. Feel free to join. They usually get started around 8:30 pm. We use the existing G3 Zoom link. https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87136316096 I will also be revamping our full band repertoire. I will try to schedule some sort of full band practice once a month for parade band. Look for a zoom meeting to be sent out soon. *Slack* We have been regularly using slack for day to day / week to week communication. Please get in the habit of checking slack / turning notifications on / logging in regularly. If you need help or access please reach out. *Christmas Concert* I haven't heard any updates as to the Christmas Concert. But I want to start having the full band learn a few extra concert tunes just in case. I will be preparing those in the next few weeks. *Piper Lessons / info* Taking lessons is a surefire way to improve technique, repertoire, individual ability, tone, musicality, expression, and a variety of other areas. Whether you are an active soloist, a band competitor, or just a hobby player it can be extremely beneficial. It doesn't have to be on a weekly, bi-weekly, or even monthly cadence, but some semi-regular instruction would help everyone in the band at some level. For anyone wanting to improve on band music : *Gr4*: Please work with Neil W or Adam B on the tunes. I'm going to reach out to a few others in the gr 3 band who may be willing to also help out. *Gr3:* Please work with Adam B on the tunes. *Solos: *There are many different options for solos. You can look up essentially any top soloist and find their online teaching service : Willie McCallum, Jack Lee, Callum Beaumont, etc. All of these folks come at various price points (usually fairly reasonable). Below are the teachers that I regularly work with or have recently worked with and can speak to. *Bruce / Alex Gandy : *I work with Bruce every other week. He is a legend and has a wealth of experience as a player and teacher. His schedule is often very full but occasionally has spots. I would recommend more intermediate to advanced players work with Bruce. He is also 4 hours ahead, so lessons are likely in the morning. His son Alex is also very accomplished and teaches regularly. https://brucegandymusic.com *Jamie Troy : *I work with Jamie every other week. Jamie is an incredibly talented player and has a fairly unique teaching style that I really appreciate. He has a fairly open availability for lessons starting soon. I'd recommend players at any level for Jamie. If you are interested in lessons with Jamie let me know. *Rob Boyd : *Most folks in the band should know Robbie. He's been playing with us for a few years now, and is a very accomplished soloist. He has a few spots available starting in a few weeks. Rob is local and might be an option for distanced in person lessons. *Adam Blaine* : I have a little bit of availability but am more than happy to work with anyone on anything that they need help with, whether its getting their instrument setup, picking solo tunes, band stuff or anything. *Drummer Lessons / info* *Alex Bieschke* : Everyone here knows Alex. Shes a phenomenal instructor and talent. Don't hesitate to reach out to work on band music or solos, I know I'm going to. There are tons of solo contests going on online at least once a month. I'd definitely like to see some more people compete in solos for drumming and piping. I'll make a slack channel where we can post the upcoming contests. *Wrap-up* Reminder to *G3* about the *Sept 27 Edith Morley Park Practice. Drummers and Pipers* We're living in a pretty tough time right now with a lot of uncertainty, but it's been a really great time getting to play with, and chat to everyone in the band every week. I'm hearing tons and tons of improvement across the band and we should be poised to have a great year next year. I hope everyone is staying safe! Don't hesitate to reach out for anything. -- Adam Blaine Project Manager | Musician Phone : 518 396 8840