(Tunes for) Summertime

Here’s a few tunes to help while away your day – a holiday if you live in Canada.

Here’s me playing my solo spot at the May 21, Toronto Police Pipe Band show at the el Mocambo club in Toronto.
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Making Music

Everyone’s always looking for the “secret“: how do I make music happen?

Making great music is a different story, but good music, to make good music? That’s a horse of a different colour.
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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.
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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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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.
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Plays Like a Flute …

… sounds like a bagpipe.
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Responsibilities of Membership

I came across a note recently where a person was enquiring about membership in a band. They were interested in this band because they wanted to “get better”. This person needed the band “to kick their arse” so that they’d play better, be better.

I thought this strange. I thought this person had the whole thing backwards.
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Happy New Year!

All the best to you and yours for the best New Year ever!

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