The Golden Rule of Good Practice

“Practice what you can’t do”.

That’s it.

M.  

A Gaelic Proverb

When I was hard at it learning Scottish Gaelic I used to get right into the old proverbs – songs, too, thanks to my teacher, Isabel MacDonald.  But, I have to say, I loved the proverbs and poems (especially Duncan Ban MacIntyre). 
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Overcoming Real Challenges (John Wilson)

One of my prized “piping possessions” is a signed copy of John Wilson’s autobiography, “A Professional Piper in Peace and War”: the front page, inscribed in broad strokes, “With all good wishes, Michael, from the author, John Wilson, 13th, January, 1979″. Sweet. 
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Old Judging Tips Still Fresh

Pipers are some of the most competitive-minded people on the planet.  Gather a few pipers, throw a shoe box up for grabs (a functional, if not stylish, trophy), find a judge and, voila, you’ve got the makings of a grand solo piping event.

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Italy Redux: Italian Pipes (& Fellini)

I found my recent encounter with the pipes of Italy hugely interesting. Until recently the piping shepherd figure that I’d seen in a lot of Christmas nativity displays was about the beginning and end of my zampogna knowledge.
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Technical Style

When it comes to technique there’s no one single, absolute and correct way to make things happen. By “things“, I mean the effective movement of fingers. “Technique”, simply stated, is the way we move our fingers to allow just the right amount of air to flow out of our melody-making chanter, the right amount of air to make gracenotes sound and appropriately place rhythmic flourishes (also known as embellishments). To me, that’s technique. Dead simple.
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Tempo

The other morning I received note from 16 year old piper. He was looking for advice about couple of bagpipe “issues” with his main challenge revolving around tempo. No matter how hard he tried his march playing was always “hurky jerky”. That’s a new phrase for me but I picked up straight away what he meant – I think.
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Building Medleys: 7 Principles

So before we begin this musical adventure – this virtual attempt at creating an interesting competitive selection of music – it might be a good idea to establish a few principles to help move us along.

Consultants and David Letterman love lists: “3 reasons for this” and “top ten” for that; so let’s keep it simple and try a list.
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Pipe Bands: How to Breakthrough

The original subject was “breakthrough to win”. I thought that a bit crass, knowing that in making music it’s all about the performance, right?

Like competitive figure skaters (part of a subjectively judged sort of thing that is often compared to competitive solo and band piping) we’re so often heard to say (publicly), “I was happy with that. I did it for me. I got through it. It felt good” – regardless of the outcome.
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Cane Drone Reeds: Are You Able?

The trend with some bands to play cane drone reeds (or say they are playing cane drone reeds) seems a natural thing in more ways than one.  Cane reeds seem enviro-friendly. Like paper coffee cups, tap water and one-ply toilet paper, they’re green.  They’re part of the zeitgeist.  Let’s all play cane! 
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