Dunaber Music

A Good Reed Soaking is What You Need

My first email of the day was a seriously laugh-out-loud experience. I mean LOL in the real sense. Not just the sort of thing we all do when we often send a sort of nondescript note or text and add “LOL”: “I backed out of the driveway today and nearly hit the neighbour’s cat LOL”. Well, I’m sure you wouldn’t write that, but I know you get my gist.
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Happy New Year!

All the best to you and yours for a happy New Year – may it be the best ever!

And here’s one of the oddest postcards I’ve ever seen; someone actually posted this – in 1912!
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10 Favourite Musical Memories of the Noughts

Yikes. Its two days to 2010. Cliché alert: it seems like yesterday … we were all freaking out about the apocalyptic possibilities of a new millennium. Then, as now, I was working in the technology field and recall clearly being assigned a “war room” shift. For those not familiar with the tech business staple of system recovery, the “war room” is a small group of multi-skilled people charged with restarting failed computer systems. I was the scribe of the group (an important role, of course). With black marker at the ready I was set to record the crashing systems and falling sky. Continue reading 10 Favourite Musical Memories of the Noughts…

Merry Christmas!

Here’s a bit of a Christmas laugh for one and all: a Toronto Police Pipe Band Christmas Greeting (none of the elves, by the way, know they star in the show [oops] – but you may recognize Ian K MacDonald, Doug Stronach, Malcolm MacLean [of Ardnamurchan], Angus Douglas Lampkin and me).
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December Rose

An unusually warm November and a trellis along the warmish outside of my house made this oddity of nature appear this past weekend.
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Pipe Bands and Political Parties

One of the few purely academic things I remember from my time grinding away at university and studying political science is about political parties; specifically, the definition of political parties. You’ll know political parties are about bringing together like interests, promoting those interests and engaging people to a level that makes political authority happen. Political parties are about aggregating interest. Simply put, political parties are about bringing together people who think the same way.

It strikes me that pipe bands are no different.
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Joyeux Noël on Remembrance Day

In honour of the day, here’s a short clip from a really good “war movie”, Joyeux Noël from 2005, based on the true stories of the World War I Christmas ceasefires along the Western Front. It’s one of those movies that uses bagpipes in a rare authentic way.
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The Piper as Jack O`Lantern

An interesting image of an old postcard, circa 1912, provided here:
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Aged to Perfection (Ravi Shankar)

I had a great night last Saturday. I was treated to a concert of Indian classical music. And what a treat. None other than the world’s greatest exponent of the art was centre stage, sitar in hands. Ravi Shankar, the eighty-nine years old living legend, and his twenty-eight years old daughter, the remarkable, Anoushka, enthralled the sold out audience with non-stop musical virtuosity.
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A Good Use of Time (Maybe)

I was watching the local news last week and a segment popped up that talked about the release of new internet stats. I can’t find the link to the piece otherwise I’d happily provide it here. Anyway, the story centred on the internet: now preferred over TV for entertainment and info-gathering.
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