She always loved music. When she was still a toddler, we got her one of those rocking horses that are suspended by springs in a frame. She would ask, “Pway Pink Yoid, daddy. Pway Pink Yoid.” She particularly liked Money. She rocked on her horse in time to the music. She often seemed to go into a trance as she rocked to he music.
When she started first grade, we had been talking about getting her beginning music lessons. I had a friend who owned a music store, specializing in pianos and Thomas organs. He had a good deal on spinet pianos, so it seemed that was the best way to start music lessons.
I picked her up after school. We always talked about what she did in school that day. Then I told her we had been looking at pianos.
“Why?”
“So you can take music lessons.”
“I don’t want a piano.”
“You said you wanted to learn to play music.”
“I do. I don’t want a piano.”
“We need a piano so you can take music lessons.”
“Why?”
“You can learn to play music on the piano.”
“I don’t want a piano.”
“What do you want?”
“I want to learn to play the pipes.”
“You want to learn bagpipes?”
“Yes.”
“Why do you want to learn to play the pipes?”
“When I hear the pipes, it makes my heart beat.”
Not too long after that, I read that The Black Watch, the Royal Regiment of Scotland touring concert band was going to be in Nashville. I got tickets as soon as they became available. We drove to Nashville for the concert. We got seats in the second row, center stage. Some of the best seats in the house. Brandi loved it. She was mesmerized the whole concert. During intermission, some of the pipers and drummers came down and visited with audience members. She started chatting up a handsome young trooper from Aberdeen. His highland accent was as thick as cold porridge, but she had no difficulty talking with him. They talked about, what else, pipe music. At the end of the concert, she was first to her feet, standing up in her seat, clapping her hands over her head. The Black Watch left quite an impression on her.
Sitting on the front row center, she learned all about what “going Regimental” meant when the soldiers did the Highland Fling and Sword Dance. Did not faze her in the least. She simply didn’t care. At that time, she had been taking highland dance lessons herself from the Scottish national champion dancer who was attending college in the USA on a scholarship. Brandi did the Highland Fling several times in public, including a fashion show and Christmas concert.
Brandi was finally coaxed into piano lessons in the second grade. She took piano for a year, then dropped it for other things. Her teacher, Dr. Rush, said Brandi had the best sense of rhythm of any student she ever had, child or adult. A natural musician, according to Dr. Rush.
She started piping lessons when in Jr. High. That included going to piping camp at the North American Academy of Piping and Drumming in North Carolina.
From the time she was four years old, she went to the Grandfather Mountain Highland Games every year. They always have great performers in the four groves. She met some of the best Scottish musicians in the world, ranging from Alex Beaton to Joe Kilna Mackenzie. She befriended Eric Rigler, who is the piper heard in Braveheart and Titanic. Some of her favorites were the Scottish rock groups.
Clann an Drumma tried to capture the ancient sound as it might have been a thousand years ago in the Highlands. They did not wear modern Scottish attire. Their kilts were the ancient style. Their most famous piece was Joe Kilna Mackenzie’s lament for his grandfather, Sgt. Mackenzie, who was killed in WW1. Joe can be heard singing it in the movie We Were Soldiers.
Their “wild man” drummer, Tu-Bardh Stormcrow Wilson, got her started with the bodhrán. He spent time with her, showing her the basic strokes and she took it from there. Her 14” and 18” bodhráns now sit on top of the piano in their gig bags.
Brandi continued to go to every music venue at Grandfather Mountain, discovering great groups and music. When Saor Patrol first appeared at GMHG, she fell in love with them. This is a video she made herself. She was excited to find them. Before they left, she knew all their names, where they lived and had their email addresses.
This is a professionally produced video of Saor Patrol. Powerful group that can only be appreciated live, up close.
She also found this group, Tuatha Dea. She continued to correspond with them after the Games. She found out they were coming to Gatlinburg and wanted to go. She drove down there. It got later and later that night, and I was becoming alarmed. Finally, about 1:00 AM she called, saying she was starting home. Said that after she ate dinner, they called her up on stage and she had been drumming with them all evening.
Something happens to the sound about one minute in. I am leaving it, because this was recorded by Brandi on her Android phone.
This is one of Tuatha Dea’s official videos. The didgeridoo player got her started with the didge. She bought her first didgeridoo from him.
She never let me make a video of her playing. She kept her ability to play a secret from everyone, even her best friends at school. Her senior picture in the high school annual stunned everyone. She said she didn’t want them to know, because she did not want to be pressured to play at assemblies or with the band. “They will push me out in front of that band, and I am not going to do it,” she said.
A young woman with catholic musical tastes, who never found a genre she disliked, as long as it had a good rhythm. For her, it was the beat.
A daughter of Boadicea, fearless, with the highland spirit. She did not tan, like most people with her heritage, but the longer she stayed in the sun, instead of bleaching toward blonde like most, the redder her hair became.
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