Bruce Beavis in Chicago: ‘I’m the P/Sgt for a start-up Grade 5 band and I was thinking about tuning practice chanters. ‘I’ve been giving a lot of thought to the general topic of musicianship in bagpiping and wonder what your thoughts are. ‘It seems odd to me that we treat the bagpipe like a musical instrument but spend most of our time practicing on a practice chanter that has…
Well done to the CPA for having a re-think over their Silver Medal qualification rules, writes the Editor. It shows President Glenn Brown and his team are receptive to different views and opinions, not least those of Alan Clark and Jason Craig who have written so well on the issue in these pages. I think the inclusion of a qualifier in the Southern Hemisphere just had to come and having judged in New…
A new archive recording is posted today. It is from US-based Scot Donald McBride. The excerpts Donald has sent are from a recital he made for the BBC in 1997. Donald is pictured above in 1980. Donald is currently resident in Kansas City and recently underwent a serious hand operation. We wish him well and hope he will be back to playing soon. Donald was taught by his father in…
Spent an enjoyable day at Johnstone Pipe Band yesterday assessing young pipers for their PDQB exams. A nice bunch of kids and before we began I got them together for a short pep talk. I explained that this was not a competition but an assessment and that all they had to do was play their five chosen tunes cleanly and correctly and they had to pass. I asked them to…
Well done to Mike Grey for highlighting the band circle issue on his recent blog. Readers will know this is a particular hobby horse of mine. Mike writes: ‘I came across a pic today, courtesy of Barry Ewen. Here is a photo (thank you, Barry) of the 78th Fraser Highlanders Pipe Band – near the beginning of the vintage of my membership – competing in a crescent-shaped stance. This was 1984….
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