Dunaber Music

Online Piping Competitions

Hats off to New Zealand. This past Monday (June 8) marked the first day since February that there’s been no active cases of Covid-19. Among many other pleasant pre-pandemic freedoms, the country can again hold public events without limitations on numbers. Thinking of piping and pipe band competitions the Royal New Zealand Pipe Bands’ Association enjoyed a pipe case full of good luck in the timing of their final contest of the year. Presented in the South Island city of Invercargill on the weekend of March 13, the organization’s national championship came in just under the quarantine wire. I thought at the time it would be the world’s final pipe band championship of 2020. And I may be right (sadly). Barring, of course, some kind of online “championship” – just the kind of post-apocalyptic thing New Zealand pipers and drummers can take off their to-do – or worry – list.
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Recommendations for Solo Piping

A little while ago I received a note from Jim McGillivray asking if I had a copy of the solo piping report we had (diligently) worked on together with Bob Worrall – over 20 years ago. “Word Processing” was still newish then and stuff was saved on 3.5 inch “floppy discs” and, well, no – the report was long lost, as far as I knew. Until last week. I found a paper copy while going through boxes of stuff – ephemera. Now there’s a great word.

So for all administrative wonks and lovers of arcane piping history, I pass it along here.
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Ten Years Later & Heavy Pigeons

I’ve just discovered today that this is the ten year mark for this website. Rather than congratulate myself (done) I’ve scrambled for a quick and dirty way to mark the occasion – such as it is. What to post? What to post?
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Backstory and Reflections: Live in Ireland 87 Project

Writing a blog has to be the ultimate in vanity exercises, or “vanity projects”, as is usually said when referring to almost anything a person undertakes that requires a healthy ego. We flatter ourselves imagining – or blindly assuming – that people are gagging to get a dose of our words and unsolicited opinion. I invite you (surely countless readers) to consider otherwise. But I do believe this to be true. A blogger rides the pud-puller that is the web log – the blog (come to think of it, Facebook musings are much the same).

It seems to me, too, that the blog can be that and something more. It can be this and that: in my words here, I try to also use this self-made forum as a record of stuff that happens to and around me. I guess you’d call that a diary. Yeah, that’s it; a diary. I’m not as a faithful a diarist as I’d like but when I look back on the last ten years of my dunaber blog I’m reminded of people, events and opinions changed and retained. So, in looking back, I’m happy I kept a little record of one part of my life.

With this in mind I want to provide a little context and reflect briefly on the “Live in Ireland 87” project, so in future years I’ll recollect and today you’ll know a little of the background of the thing.
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Happy New Year – oink!

Posting a photo or graphics of any kind is almost always the easiest way to fire up a blog. So here are a few to help wish one and all a Happy New Year.
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Isle of Gigha

If you’re looking for a change of scenery and a fine place to recharge, look no farther than …
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Happy Canada Day – 5 Random Facts

Today’s the day. And since we’re here, five random facts about Canada – it’s always five (it’s a blog):
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Halfway through 2016 and Reflecting

I think it’s the early sunrise and especially bright eye-squinting mornings, just a little south of the 49th parallel, that reminded me today that we’re almost at the halfway point of 2016. Whoosh! That’s how time goes – and that’s how time flies. And so, as not to forget, and maybe omit something from what will surely turn out to be a mighty and interesting late-December 2016 summary, I thought I’d jot down a few personal highlights of the year that’s been so far. Not for you, of course, but for me! Me. Me. Me.

When thinking, in processing thoughts, just what makes a person think – of anything? What ignites a thought? A chance meeting with a new acquaintance or old friend? An email, a text, a dog’s bark, the weather, an online video, the news – the cat licking it’s arse – what random action or environmental thing triggers (and apologies in advance for using that word) a thought or thinking? And, again, in this case, thinking as reflection.
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Fishing the Good Fish

In my part of the world we’re just a little past the opening of fishing season for the “good fish”; that is, the fourth Saturday in April. That day triggers the good-to-go mark to land brown trout, speckled trout, brook trout and Atlantic salmon. Regrettably, I haven’t fished for anything – bagpipe prizes aside – in years. Fishing, I think, is a great pastime: it focuses a person’s thinking, yet relaxes; water flows, or, at least, is present (and how great is that) and daily stresses usually become less, even fall away.
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Relatives and Hipster Beards

There seems to be a common line said among those that seek to know their genealogy: Know where you come from, so know where you’re going. That may sound great in that placard, protest-y, sound-bite sort of way but it seems to feel a bit trite to me. I “get” learning from your mistakes and successes, including those of rellies long gone; what has happened, history – but not sure my family history, by virtue of lives lived, has informed where I’m going – or where I’ve gone. My family history has laid the groundwork for circumstance, and maybe that is what that oft-said line is all about. Anyways, I write “not sure” in italics just to say, I’m open to convincing.
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