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PIPING TODAY • 10

A thoughtful approach

by John Slavin

Meeting Jori Chisholm less than 24 hours after he had won the grade one World Pipe Band Champion-

ship for the second year running with Simon Fraser University, he showed no signs of having partied the night away. In fact he had just walked off stage 20 minutes earlier having competed in the piobaireachd section of the Masters Invitational Solo Champion-ship in The National Piping Centre.

This was my fi rst indication that he was a very focused individual, who takes a very con-sidered approach to all things piping-related. And well he might, as Jori makes his living as a professional musician teaching the pipes to

his students at home in and around Seattle, and also all over the world via the internet. He is also in demand as a performer, with his fi rst CD Bagpipe Revolution released last year, and is invited to tutor at piping workshops around the world on a regular basis.

There are no piping traditions within his family and his interest in piping started at age 11 because of siblings who were involved in Highland dancing. He fell into good hands right away as a top piper in the area, Colin MacKenzie, lived close by and Jori credits him with passing on a love of the Highland pipes and of piobaireachd in particular. However, the pipes were not his fi rst instrument as he began

with the piano at the age of four and continued with it until high school, where he also played the cello and sang in various choirs.

Jori believes his musical experience from such a young age helped him when he moved onto the practice chanter, and in his teaching experi-ence since then he has really come to realise the benefi ts. “No matter what instrument it is, there is always some advantage,” said Jori. “Any musica l exper ience , even something completely different like voice or piano. Learning about music and timing helps.”

He studied the learning and psychology of music at university and graduated with honours . The two areas the course

Jori Chisholm

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A thoughtful approach‘I have studied the psychology of performing music and that whole idea of peak performance. I use it in my own preparations and it has been useful to many of my students and the pipe bands I coach. A few pipers have studied the topic, but many more could take advantage of the material that is out there’

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focused on in the later years were the theory of learn-ing through positive reinforcement, and the psycholog y of music in terms of music perception. “There is an area of psychology called psychophysics, which investigates how we sense and experience stimuli such as musical sounds. There’s quite a lot of complicated stuff that goes on in our brain when it comes to processing the multitude of sounds that make up music. The study of psycho-physics and music perception overlapped the two areas that I was interested in: psychology and music.

“Since leaving university I have studied the psy-chology of performing music and that whole idea of peak performance. I use it in my own performance preparations and it has been useful to many of my students and the pipe bands I coach. There is a lot of great research on that topic. A few pipers and drummers have studied the topic, but many more could take advantage of the material that is out there,” said Jori.

“Much of the material comes from sports psy-chology, and is directly applicable to live musical performance, which is very similar to an athletic performance in many ways. You have months or years of preparation, you are doing a multi-faceted activity that uses your brain and body, you are influ-enced by your surroundings, and you are trying to put out a really good performance against the clock, against your opponent, for the audience, or for the adjudicators.

“On competition day, I try to be as relaxed as possible immediately before performing, and try to recreate the relaxed feeling I have when practising at home. Most good performers you have seen either in sports or in music have learned how to stay poised — to control their energy levels so they don’t let the excitement of the situation detract from their performance.

“The World Pipe Band Championships are a very exciting event for the competitors. There are the judges, the cameras, big screens, and thousands of people. The top performers have figured out how to channel that energy to enhance their perform-ance and not let it overwhelm them. It is definitely something I’m thinking about when I’m practising at home: I try to raise the intensity level so I get more out of the session, but when I’m performing I’m trying to keep things down. I think as you learn to overlap your rehearsal and performance conditions, you increase your chances of performing at your very best.

“One of the best moments you can have as a performer is when you are at a big event, the pressure is on, and you really need to play well, Ph

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‘I try not to be concerned by

particular judges to try to predict

who will like what. I find that more

of a distraction. I try to focus on

what I can control, and delivering

the performance I practised at home’

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and you maintain your control and you deliver the performance you intended.”

“I try not to be concerned by particular judges and try to predict who will like what. I find that more of a distraction. I try to focus on what I can control, and delivering the performance I practised at home. If I can do that — I feel have I achieved success — and it is out of my hands and over to the judges to pick who they liked best.”

When it comes to major competitions like the Worlds or the Gold Medal, Jori is all about serious preparation. “For me the year has an arc, and it starts when I get home from Scotland and it finishes after the Worlds with the band or in the top solo competitions at Oban and Inverness. For the two weeks leading up to a competition I’m trying to rehearse my performance, and at that point you can only

really make minor improvements. You don’t want to change or relearn anything, it is just about making sure you have gone over the mate-rial enough so you are feeling 100% confident.

“There are different forms of practice, and I don’t play for the same length of time every day the whole year round. In the fall it is about finding and learning new tunes and trying out new equipment, and as the months and weeks tick away and competition approaches it is really about refining the tunes. In the summer when it is competition season I probably have a couple of hours per day when I am focused on practice. It may not be two hours on the pipes, but it is certainly two hours in my daily routine when I’m working on the practice chanter, or working on my technique, playing over tunes, and analysing my playing. Then in the days before a competition it will be less and the practice will taper off, and it is then just a mat-ter of keeping the pipes and hands going, and staying fresh,” said Jori.

For years Jori had looked for a great old set

of pipes but they were rather hard to find out in the west coast of the States, so he plays a set of pipes made by Dave Atherton in Chicago. “Dave has been making pipes under his own name for a few years, and the Atherton drones that I play are replica of a set of 1853 Mac-Dougall pipes. When Dave’s pipes came on the market I tried a set and I just had to have them. They were everything I was looking for with a rich, deep bass drone, easy to tune and they stay in tune. I play the Willie McCallum McC2 solo chanter. I really like that chanter. With all the high quality pipes, chanters, reeds, and other equipment — it’s a great time to be playing the pipes. It’s never been easier to get and maintain a great sound. “

One of the benefits Jori has found in work-ing for himself is the variety in his job and how it changes throughout the year. His routine

changes depending on the time of year, but the majority of his working day is taken up giving tuition.

More than half of Jori’s students still get normal one-to-one tuition in Seattle, though the online lessons are rapidly growing, and he has students who live relatively close who use a combination of online lessons supplemented by a monthly meeting for a hands-on tuition experience. “When I first signed up for high- speed internet I was the first person in the neighbourhood. Now more and more people have high speed internet and webcams, and are used to the idea of connecting online and I get daily emails from people who want to learn more about learning pipes. I have online students all over the world.

“I launched my site, Bagpipelessons.com, almost 10 years ago and it has grown and de-veloped over years. I have added features and there is quite a lot of content on there now. I created the Tune Lesson Downloads prompted by an idea from one of my students who was

finding it hard to find piping CDs and sheet music which matched up perfectly. So, I put together individual tune downloads which give you the sheet music, an mp3 recording of me playing the tune on the pipes, and a recording of me teaching you the tune. So you get a five to 10 minute lesson of exactly what we would do if we were sitting down together. I explain the time signature, the rhythm and structure, how to approach the tune, and strategies for the most efficient learning. I have taught these tunes so often that I know what areas most people have issues with so I can point out potential problems to look out for. These Tune Lesson Downloads take quite a bit of work for me to create, but they are under $5 per tune.

“I have more features I’ll be rolling-out this year on the site and I’m very excited about the next generation of Tune Downloads. Stay tuned!” said Jori.

Jori has notched up many achievements in his solo career and has won a host of prizes on both sides of the atlantic over the past decade. He is the first person to have won the United States Gold Medal Piping Championship three times, with the most recent win this year. He takes time to come to Scotland each year and compete in the solo competitions.

“All year long, I look forward to visiting Scot-land. It is the highlight and it defines my year. I come to the Worlds with the band and stay until the Northern Meeting at Inverness and Braemar, fitting in as many other games that I can. I’ve had a lot of highlights — but for most pipers at the top level to win the Gold Medal is the ultimate. I’ve placed at the Gold Medal several times and been as high as third, which was a thrill. When you see the guys who have placed ahead of you, and know how good they are, it keeps you inspired and humbled.

“Last year I won the Piobaireachd at Cowal which was tremendous,” said Jori. “When you get the huge trophy which goes back to the 1920s and you see some of the amazing names from piping history who have won the trophy. It is a thrill to have that trophy in my house in Seattle for a year, and a greater thrill to see my name engraved alongside the piping greats. I enjoy competing in Scotland for this great con-nection with history. We have competitions at home, but our traditions are newer and our history is more recent.”

Another aspect of his yearly cycle is his commitment to Simon Fraser University Pipe Band. SFU are not the usual kind of band who

‘Last year I won the Piobaireachd at Cowal which was tremendous. It is a thrill to have that

trophy in my house in Seattle for a year, and a greater thrill to see my name engraved alongside the piping greats. I enjoy competing in Scotland

for this great connection with history’

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have a regular practice 52 weeks a year as they have a lot of players who live overseas. They have a core group who live in Vancouver, people who fl y in, and Jori who makes a two-and-a-half hour drive to practice. During the autumn and winter he attends around twice a month, in the spring two to four times and then in the summer much more often. Overseas and long-distance members fl y in for the summer and for four-day long weekend practices.

“I fi nd that band playing and solo piping have many overlaps, but are essentially two different art forms. In the solos it is all about perfecting your technique and your per-sonal expression of the music, especially in the piobaireachd which involves more subtlety and long-term preparation. In the pipe band it is all about unison, tone, dynamics and ensemble. I really enjoy both solo and band piping, and each has enhanced the other. In the band, I have had to play tunes that I might not have played otherwise, and had to develop the play-ing stamina and instrument control skills that has improved my solo playing.

“The solo competitions can be a very intense experience as all the pressure is on you, but you also maintain control of how you play, what you play, when I play, how you set up and tune your pipes. When you are playing with the band you give over that control to your leaders. The pipe band tune-up at a major

competition like the Worlds can be extremely intense. Once the process gets started, you just have to hang on and enjoy the ride. You have to give yourself over to you leaders and trust their leadership, and be ready to go with what is asked for you at any moment. If you need an extra moment, you don’t get it — you need to be ready to go.

“There are moments where you need to be intensely focused and other moments where you relax a little bit. Each year is a little bit dif-ferent in terms of the feeling and expectations within the band. I felt calm this year. Maybe it was due to another year of experience or because of the extra preparations for the big pre-Worlds concert. I felt this year at the Worlds we had two really good performances. After we played, several of of my band mates said they had felt confi dent and relaxed, and I felt the same way. Towards the end of the medley, and for one of the fi rst times playing in that circle, I felt so good and I looked around and thought — wow, this is awesome. It is a great feeling when you can achieve that level.”

Jori fi nds it best to focus on his own band’s performance prior to competing. He avoids checking out how other bands are playing. After competing, most of the band goes back to the bus to relax. “If it has been a good performance it will be high-fi ves and hugging and enjoying the moment. The period of time

between our last competition performance and the results can be a very fun, relaxing time. There is no work left to be done, and if the band has played well you are fi lled with hope for a great result. I don’t usually get nervous for the results. I fi gure we have done all the work and it is in the judges’ hands now. This year the result was great and a real thrill to win back-to-back Worlds.

“The band has a very intense work ethic and and commitment to excellence — and it comes from our leaders. I think this has contributed to the success of our band members in the solos. It is about starting your preparation early, working hard, working smart and being really prepared in terms of instrument set-up and maintenance and our tune-up process. Everything has been thought through and practised, so that when we get to the day it is just a matter of executing the plan. This year, there were no catastrophic weather issues, there were no health issues, there were no big problems with the pipes — so it felt like it all just worked according to plan. So when it all goes well, and you feel like you played well, and the result comes out in your favour it is just perfect.” ●

For more information about Jori’s teaching program visit BagpipeLessons.com. You can hear sample tracks from his CD on BagpipeRevolution.com, and follow him on twitter.com/bagpipelessons or fi nd him at facebook.com/jorichisholm.

‘I felt this year at the Worlds we had two really good performances. After we played, several of of my band mates said they had felt confi dent and relaxed, and I felt the same way. It is a great experience to be able come off the competition circle with a feeling you performed your best’

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