Practice Practice Practice

I was pretty much without bagpipes for the month of April. I play McCallum bagpipes, as some of you may know, and decided to take Kenny MacLeod up on his offer to have them refurbished. I’ve worked with Kenny and Stuart McCallum for years (the two who lead the McCallum Bagpipe enterprise) and have been an early and enthusiastic supporter of their efforts to make great bagpipes happen in Ayrshire. In fact, the set I play today is the first silver and “ivory” set the company made. So there you go.
Continue reading Practice Practice Practice…

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.
Continue reading Medal Detector…

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.
Continue reading Copyright this Way…

Humility and Grace

It seems to me that one of the hardest lessons to learn in the competitive piping game – or life, for that matter – is around winning – and losing. “Win with humility and lose with grace”, goes the old saying. Like just about every other piece of well-kent advice of the proverbial sort, well, it’s all easier said than done. Think of the Golden Rule or “ethic of reciprocity”: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. If that simple tenet of human rights was easy-peasy to make happen we’d all be living in a Utopian Shangri-La.
Continue reading Humility and Grace…

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…

Those Who Can, Teach

The world’s population is roughly 6,697,254,041. Of those people, I figure, based on what I know, what I’ve read and what I sense to be true (so we’re talking science here) there’s about 100,000 of us Great Highland Bagpipers (GHBs).

And what’s that percentage? GHBs represent about 0.0014931492726393354 of the world’s population. More or less.

Should pipers feel vulnerable? I think I really refer to the pipe and not the piper so, I put it this way: is the playing of the GHB an at-risk art form?
Continue reading Those Who Can, Teach…

Strafe Strafferson: What’s with the Crazy Piping Notes?

There’s a crazy phenomenon in the piping world [ok, yes, there’s more than one, but I’m only talking about one of them here]. This phenomenon has to do with what might be described as the crazed strafing of notes on a pipe chanter; the random rat-a-tat-tat of notes on the chanter. This sort of unhinged insanity sounds like this: “upanddownthescaleupanddownthescalerandomtoptobottomnotesrandomtoptobottomnotes”.
Continue reading Strafe Strafferson: What’s with the Crazy Piping Notes?…

Just as I Would’ve Played It

A while back I was going on about how I thought most of us go about listening to music – specifically, bagpipe music. My ramble was around how we should try and get over the discomfort we feel (that’s the delicate way of putting it) when we hear musical interpretations outside of what we’re used to hearing – or playing.
Continue reading Just as I Would’ve Played It…

Bring on the Giraffes: Blair Drummond

Have you ever considered, thought about, reflected on, what pipe tune you may’ve have played the most in your life? What melody you, as a piper – or, as an accompanist, a drummer – have played more than any other? Have wiggled your fingers, twisted your wrists, and aimed to be true to the score of more than any other that was ever written? I have. And my burned-on-the-brain, firmly committed-to-muscle-memory, impaled-on-the-hard-drive? Well, here’s a hint: it’s the name of a Scottish “safari park”.
Continue reading Bring on the Giraffes: Blair Drummond…

Poetic Passion

A thought today, just as we enter the fray of the sometimes twisted piping/pipe band “music season”:
Continue reading Poetic Passion…