David Wilmott– by Geoff Hore

The Pipe Band movement is full of multi-talented musicians. It is not unusual for pipers to take up the tenor or bass drum in times of need. It is also common for members of the drum corps to be seen playing different drums from time to time.

A more difficult achievement is for a piper to learn the side drum and vice versa, however, this has happened, and, in some cases, individuals have become more than proficient.

There have been many band bus trips and hotel and motel visits where members have shown their talents on guitars, pianos, piano and button accordions, flutes and almost any other instrument you can think of. One of the more famous New Zealand compositions, The Accordion Jig by Donald Sargent, was composed originally for the button accordion.

Then there are those who have been blessed with a more than passable singing voice and who have entertained on many of the less formal occasions. Poetry is another area where bandsmen and women have excelled. Those of us who were members of the Wellington Police Pipe Band in the 1970s will never forget Doug Muir reciting many Banjo Paterson poems.

Over the last 20 or more years there has been a marked increase in the number of concerts put on by Bands and we see the cross-over of talents first-hand.

One individual who has more than his share of musical talent is David Wilmott of Christchurch. David was born in 1964 into a musical family. His maternal great grandfather, Charles Peebles McGlashan, was one of the first Pipe Majors of the City of Dunedin Pipe Band. His grandfather, Charles McGlashan was an accomplished saxophonist.

David’s mother, Patricia (Pat) nee McGlashan was a piper and his father, Murray a tenor drummer in the Canterbury Caledonian Pipe Band. In fact, it was at a pipe band contest that they first met and fell in love. David’s three older sisters are also musicians; Margaret, like David, was a classically trained violinist, Diane a pianist and briefly a bass drummer in the Caledonian Ladies’ Pipe Band, and Helen learned the piano, clarinet and bagpipes before moving on to become an accomplished bass drummer.

Not surprisingly, David married a piper, Katherine (nee Hatton). They first met when aged about 13 – David in the Canterbury Caledonian Pipe Band and Katherine in the Caledonian Ladies Pipe Band. However, they went their separate ways for many years until in 1998 they were reunited and married early in 2002.

With such a family history of musicianship, it was not unnatural that David would play some musical instrument. At the age of 4 he started on the violin and went on to eventually pass his practical and theory exams up to Grade 8 with the Royal School of Music and the Trinity College of London. He also studied music at high school to Bursary level. David progressed through the Christchurch School of Instrumental Music’s orchestral programme until at the tender age of 13 he was a member of the Christchurch Youth Orchestra.

As if all this was not enough, at age 9 he started learning the bagpipes. His first tutor was Airdrie Stewart who was serving with the Royal New Zealand Air Force and living in Christchurch. He spent two years with Airdrie before Airdrie retired and moved to Dunedin.

David had several other tutors over the next few years including Donald Gannaway and Neville Burney. Neville soon had him playing in the Canterbury Caledonian Pipe Band and in 1979 he competed with the band in Grade 1 at the Dunedin contest.

At about the same time, David started having lessons from Chris Stevens. It was Chris whom he credits with being his main mentor. Chris introduced him to serious solo competition and was instrumental in his progress up through the grades until about 1988 when he was playing A Grade.

In 1990-92 he took some time away from the band and the bagpipes, and when he returned, he came back with a new vigour. By this time Chris Stevens had taken over as Pipe Major and Chris welcomed David’s assistance in setting up and producing the sound of the Band. This partnership laid the foundation for David’s now established role as ‘sound-man’ in the band.

During this period, David was promoted to Pipe Sergeant and since 2000 has carried full responsibility for the band’s sound. In 2004 David was made a Life Member for his services to the Band.

During his teenage years in the late 1970’s, influenced by the Sex Pistols David acquired a passion for punk rock. David states he liked most punk rock bands of the time but of those he didn’t like, Blondie seemed prominent in his memory. The writer was rather surprised at this revelation for two reasons. Firstly, he can well remember the group from the mid to late 1970s and rather enjoyed their music. The second reason is that he never thought of Blondie as a punk rock group or even heard them called that. Perhaps there is a bit of closet punk in us all!!

David adds that Blondie, in his opinion were really a "post-punk" product and he feels they embraced commercialism which turned him away from their music. He admits there were many worse punk bands around at the time but felt that from their punk roots in the late 70's Blondie elected to follow the New Wave road when punk started to fade. He decided to take the more cerebral alternative path.

David was heavily immersed in the punk culture to the point where he taught himself the guitar and together with a few ‘skateboard mates’ formed a band. Apart from a couple of simple cover versions to get them going, the band only ever played original songs and David was heavily involved in writing their music.

David installed an electronic pick-up on his violin so he could play it in some of the band’s performances. Over time, they built up a bit of a cult following amongst the local varsity crowd and also entered a Battle of the Bands competition. During their competition performance, things were going along quite nicely until they were let down by equipment failure. Apparently, one of the band members (David blushes while talking of this) tripped on an electrical lead and it became disconnected. There was suddenly a massive hole in the music – a bit like a bass drone stopping or a chanter falling out in the middle of a performance. Needless to say – they didn’t win.

Throughout his teenage years David had the three music cultures classical, punk and highland bagpipe pouring out of him. However, his time in the youth orchestra whilst surrounded by other musicians older than himself became less exciting for him and his interest in the classical performance started to wane. Although he no longer performs this music he frequently will sit down and put on a record or CD of Beethoven, Mozart, Mendelssohn or whoever just for his own enjoyment.

Into his 20s and 30s David’s love of the highland bagpipe music slowly took over from the punk and classical and he is now full time into the bagpipes.

As part of his classical music examinations, David had to compose music and write out multiple-part scores. As these were all done to order he did not particularly enjoy the experience. By the time he reached his late teens he found that through his punk and highland bagpipe music - being more free-form idioms - composing came quite naturally.

It is a well-known fact that the way written bagpipe music has evolved differs from the classical style. The placing of the notes and gracenotes upon the stave has been modified to suit the compactness of our nine notes. We all know the way the gracenote groups are written in bagpipe music they do not add up to the time signature. Anyone who has learned to read music via the bagpipe idiom takes these things for granted but they do seem odd to a classically trained musician.

Once David got his head around these idiosyncrasies the compositions came. They enter his head at any time and any place and nowadays he always has a manuscript paper handy so he can jot these ideas down. On one occasion he was riding his bicycle through The Square in Christchurch and an idea for a tune came into his head. He kept humming this idea over and over while battling into a fierce Nor’ Wester - oblivious of the traffic around him - until he arrived home and put it onto paper. The tune was to become what he considers his first ‘meritable’ work. Written in 1982, it was a 12/8 march Garden City Pipers. This tune is still played in the band and was named by a friend and fellow piper Dale Keller. Since that tune there have been many dozens of bagpipe (and other) melodies that he has composed.

He has over fifty complete bagpipe tunes and even more semi complete tunes – he calls these ‘scratchings’. One day they may or may not be completed. Ironically, none of the punk tunes were written down and other than the odd recording these no longer exist other than in the composer’s memory.

Some tunes he has composed have come to him all at once, whilst others have been fragments from a number of different occasions and then joined together to make a tune.

He has sat down with the intention of writing a tune but almost without exception, he finds these end up as incomplete or unsatisfying ‘scratchings’ and they often have little musical merit. He states that although it is relatively easy to write something to formula, it nearly always ends up predictable or unoriginal. It seems that the less harder he tries the more likely he will get a good idea for a tune into his head. This is not unusual amongst composers; most of those written about in this series have stated the same.

David’s favourite tunes are jigs, hornpipes and reels and not unnaturally these tunes are in abundance in his compositions. He also loves playing strathspeys but ironically has found this style of tune the most difficult to compose and to date nothing of merit has emerged. Most composers seem to find the 2/4 march the most prolific time signature to express their art but to date David has only one, Wendy Neale named after a fellow piper in the Band. The writer heard Wendy playing this tune at Labour Weekend 1993 and was most impressed by it.

David has composed three Suites: In the Summertime, The Millennium Suite and Rumour. The first two have been performed by the Band. He also has 4 or 5 semi completed suites.

The writer has archived 16 of David’s tunes and they all have merit. Four Hornpipes; The Southern Attraction tells of the attraction the North Island Bands have for luring away South Island pipers; The MacPherson Strut (a name proposed by a drummer in the band, Lance Rairi, many years before the tune was actually written) does not allude to some pompous Highlander but refers to the well-known suspension system used in many cars since its invention for the Ford Consul in 1951; The Old Man’s Hornpipe is from The Millennium Suite and was given this name after a fellow piper mocked David’s ‘old man’s sausage fingers’ (he says ‘thanks Rowan’), and The Thunderdrone so named because it just sounded cool!

Four Jigs; The Millennium Jig is part of the Millennium Suite and was composed around the time of the Millennium; 2 Ladies 2 Vex Me is named for his wife Katherine and four-year-old daughter Evelyn and the wonderful new challenges they bring him; Hot Pursuit is just a fast tune and hence the name, and The Distillery so named for obvious reasons.

Three Reels; The Chameleon has frequent changes of time signature between 2/4, 3/8 and 2/2 and as the chameleon changes its colour, so does the tune; J T Stuntman (aka The Collarbone) refers to James Tomkinson’s attempt to ride a bike into the infamous Dungeon and the subsequent breaking of his collarbone as he found the door was not quite wide enough to accommodate his entry, and The Toper’s Dance is in remembrance of the late Alan Harris. Alan, who died recently is a fondly remembered member of the band who, whilst at the Tauranga contest 12 years ago slightly overindulged in the ‘sponsor’s product’. David observed Alan, while smiling ever so smugly, reaching out to lean on a tent pole. Unfortunately, the pole was a good ten feet away. Alan did quite a dance before not quite making it to the support he so casually was seeking!! (An obituary for Alan is elsewhere in this magazine).

A 6/8 march Patricia Wilmott is named for his mother. Two airs; Doubtful Sound is named for the place in Fiordland, and Rumour is part of the Suite of the same name.

David has competed in solo competitions with many of his own compositions and has won on more than a few occasions. At one of the annual Scottish Extravaganza concerts held in the Christchurch Town Hall, David was the guest soloist and was asked to perform a 10-minute medley of his own compositions. The Band has also used many of his tunes.

David has shown a brief interest in piobaireachd but has never played it seriously. He found many of the grounds have beautiful melodies but often his interest wanes once into the variations. He admits that some of the piobaireachd he has heard have influenced his own compositions.

As mentioned earlier, David has always carried a manuscript book to record any ideas that come to him. Technology has taken over from the manuscript book and with the advent of the many music writing programmes for the computer he now finds that he can just as quickly write the tune directly onto the computer.

Like the writer he used Encore 4 for many years, but this is a time-consuming programme and since then the piping fraternity have developed software especially for the bagpipes. One designed by an Andy Baker; Pipe Major of the Auckland Police Pipe Band is Electric Pipes. David can enter a tune, embellishments and all, into this programme using the keyboard as quickly as anyone can type a sentence into Microsoft Word. However, if the computer is not available the trusty manuscript book, cigarette packet or whatever is never too far away.

The writer would like to thank David for his assistance in preparing this article. Normally, all interviews for these articles occur over the telephone and then several emails later the finished article takes shape. This one involved a trip to Christchurch, a 4-hour session with David at his house and then the normal number of emails to catch up on things missed. David is a very talented man, and it has been a pleasure working with him.