When in Rome …

I’ve had to pretty much watch what I eat my whole life. Fries and gravy, pasta and anything and pints stick to me like chrome on a trailer hitch. Maybe you can relate. The buckles on a kilt, or your pants (trousers) don’t lie. It’s probably the way of things for most people, I suppose. Anyway, I generally, sort of, mostly, do my good-intentioned best to keep things right.
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Get Your Bag On

No surprise that I’m about to say I believe it’s a special (different, out-of-the-ordinary, etc) kind of person who’s attracted to playing the Great Highland Bagpipe. Loud, brash, hard to keep quiet and sometimes offensive – and I’m talking the instrument and not (necessarily) the player here – it seems to me shy folk are not generally attracted to playing bagpipes. Yes, exceptions to every rule but I say the bagpipe world is full the eff up with “type A” personalities (drummers included, here, too, but they’re another story).
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When the Heat’s On

For anyone who has to regularly play their bagpipes in a place that’s hot, well, you may already know this secret.
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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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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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Japanese Cinema and Pipe Bands

Now there’s a subject line you probably never imagined.

I always thought those old cheesy Japanese movies from the 1950s might benefit from a little kick, a little something to give them a boost. I’m not talking Seven Samurai or Rashomon here, I’m talking about movies like those from the Godzillaand Mothra franchises (did they call ever call old movie serials “franchises”?).

Anyway, I thought how great it would be for one to snag a pipe band soundtrack, music to go along with the badly dubbed English.
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