by Dan Nevans. Piping Today #90, 2018. I feel like a lot of my articles are complaints. I sit here behind my laptop like some whingeing granny in the hairdressers, bleating on about how the world has changed and how uncomfortable I am with that concept. Because of the often cantankerous […]
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Dr. Andrew Bova: presenting an enjoyable recital
By DR. ANDREW BOVA. Piping Today #97. August 2019. For most of us pipers, our performances are confined to a few standard stages. For some, this may be competition, either solo or band. For others, this may be playing in a ‘street band’, performing mostly at parades and social functions. […]
Michael Grey’s Notes: the Abilene Paradox
GREY’S NOTES by Michael Grey. November 2023. Going along to get along. You may know that I have landed unexpectedly and feet first in the land of pipe bands. Where, say, this past summer I was on the periphery – a listener, a judge, a toe-tapping outsider – this autumn […]
Dan Nevans: there’s life in the old pipes yet – a love story
“Mind aw they adverts for animal shelters?The ones wi’ wee sad lookin’ dugs an’ that?That’s wit they pipes looked like whenah first clapped eyes on them” Dan Nevans, to anyone who would listen, February 2017 by Dan Nevans. Piping Today #86, 2017. Stop reading this article. You’re not ready. Take five […]
Michael Grey’s Notes: humblebragging, narcissism, neediness and sanctimony
GREY’S NOTES by Michael Grey. Piping Today #84, 2017. Anyone who uses Facebook will know that from time to time there are interesting bits of information that break through the often unfiltered cringe-making that is the backbone of social media. And so it was last week, smashing through a sea […]
Dan Nevans: developing your musical vision (and nine uses for a pen you never considered)
by Dan Nevans. Piping Today #87, 2017. Scenario One: It’s finally happened, thanks to over population and pollution, Planet Earth is doomed and so you make your way to the nearest space port to hitch a ride to Alpha Centuri. In your rush to escape the heat death of the planet, […]
Michael Grey’s Notes: the best I ever played
GREY’S NOTES by Michael Grey. Piping Today #83, 2016. When I first starting competing in Scotland and going around the competitions, there was no shortage of fun to go along with the games. Like today, only it seems to me that then there were more eccentric, larger-than-life types around the […]
Michael Grey’s Notes: a jig is a jig
GREY’S NOTES by Michael Grey. Piping Today #82, 2016. There was a time when I thought that one of the hardest things I’d ever done in my life was to play Peter MacLeod’s tune Donald MacLean, twice through in the jig final at the Northern Meeting. John Burgess, ever the […]
Dan Nevans: a guide to constructive critique in an ensemble setting – the language of leadership
by Dan Nevans. Piping Today #94, 2018. I pure love swearing. I started at an early age and have peppered swear words into my day-to-day vocabulary for as long as I can remember. I think it might be something to do with being of Celtic descent: Gaelic has a certain ebb and […]
Michael Grey’s Notes: Pipe Band tribes all have an Aunt Ethel
GREY’S NOTES by Michael Grey. Piping Today #81, 2016. It’s estimated there are over seven billion people inhabiting our dear blue place — planet earth. That’s a seven and nine absolute zeros. To me, an unimaginable number of anything, let alone a measure of human souls. And yet, time and […]