Can I Have Your Postal Code?

A whinge today. No two-ways about it. That’s what it is. And, a rarity, completely unrelated to bagpipes or pipe bands.
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Medal Detector

I spent a few hours this Good Friday at an estate auction in Milton, Ontario. Auctions are great places to get a deal, and – if you’re lucky – find really interesting stuff. The funny thing about auctions, too, at least in these parts is you’re always assured to come away from the hall smelling of fried onions (courtesy of the food concession) and feeling super young – auctions seem to attract the people of the (especially) long-toothed variety.
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A Comparative Look at Pipe Band Ensemble

Here’s a copy of the slides I used in the talk I presented at the Pipers’ & Pipe Band Society of Ontario’s annual adjudictor’s seminar, March 21, 2011, in Milton, Ontario.
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Copyright this Way

A week or so ago I led a talk at the annual judge’s meeting of the Pipers’ & Pipe Band Society of Ontario. The day’s always a good one. At the very least it’s a great gathering of old friends and acquaintances and at it’s best its a really insightful exchange of ideas and perspectives.

Anyway, my bit was a comparative look at pipe band ensemble. I checked out competitive orchestras – yes, they do compete – American high school concert bands and British brass bands. I learned a lot in my seeking out of information related to other competitive musical worlds. For instance, I can now tell you with great certainty that it’s scarily, freakishly and jaw-droppingly amazing how close the British brass band world mirrors that of the pipe band. Maybe a blab for another day.
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Borreraig: An Experience Waiting to Happen

After a while, everyone who takes up the Great Highland Bagpipe comes to know of the MacCrimmons.

The MacCrimmons: that fabled sixteenth century piping family of virtuoso geniuses. The MacCrimmons, of course, were [and to a lesser extent, I suppose are] the family that provided piping services to the expansive MacLeod clan.

There’s Continue reading Borreraig: An Experience Waiting to Happen…

Band Travel

A quick note as I sit in a sunny Glasgow cafe digesting the entertaining editorial that was the band’s score sheets from yesterday’s contest in Dunoon (what a great day, by the way – congrats to Boghall! I’ll share more when I have easier access to technology).
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A Smart Ashes’ Prediction

The Icelandic ash thing ain’t going away. I wonder how news that makes headlines like today’s “Ash cloud set to close Scottish airspace” will affect the overseas attendance of pipers and pipe bands at the late summer competitions in Scotland?
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New Calum MacCrimmon Recording

It seems somehow right that I should be listening to Calum MacCrimmon’s new record, “Man’s Ruin”, on a Westjet flight to Calgary. The Scotland-based Canadian piper/multi-instrumentalist – and heir to the MacCrimmon piping line – comes from Alberta. It was western Canada, too, in Saskatchewan (the place you can all “say without starting to stutter”), too, while teaching at that school I first met Calum. Anyway, gotta write about his CD work, its “excellento” as Jack or Victor might say. His music is cool in that confident, strutty, know-what-I’m-doin-and-I’m-doin-it sort of way. I guess that’s as a good a definition of cool as anything, isn’t it.
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CBC Radio One Interview

An excerpt from a piece produced by CBC Radio’s Aparita Bhandari. Broadcast January 25, 2010.
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Bagads: The Long and Short of It

Yesterday morning I dragged my ass out of bed and caught most of the bagad performances from the season’s first bagad championship. The camera work wasn’t especially sophisticated but the sound seemed pretty good and I was really thankful that a TV network in France opted to stream the contest live. Very, er, tres cool.
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