Competitors: 5 Things a Solo Piping Judge Wants to Say to You

For those few in the world who trot their piping wares in earshot of a judge for prize-winning consideration, here are five (mostly) tongue-in-cheek things a solo piping judge is thinking as you come forward to play – and as you set off to perform (and remember – I’m broad-brushing to make points).

These things might apply to every level of competitive piping experience. And, I should add, I’ve learned all of this the hard way.
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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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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”.
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Nuts

The tip of the day:
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Allemande Left (Nod to the Judge)

Last night’s final of the Toronto Branch of the Pipers’ & Pipe Band Society of Ontario’s amateur knock-out was a first-class event. The morning after listening to a dozen excellent amateur pipers go through their paces got me to thinking. OK. I was thinking about this last night, but I’m still thinking about it this morning.
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