Day four of the February Piping Challenge was all about setting your chanter and drone reeds, while avoiding any extremes to allow you to find your comfort zone. At 6pm tonight, day five’s video will be available to watch on Facebook here and on Youtube here. The NPC team want to see you […]
Dan Nevans gave a tuning demonstration on day three of the February Piping Challenge, and explained the importance of tuning to your high A note. In today’s topic, day 4, which will go live at 6pm tonight, Dan will be talking about adjusting your reeds and how to get the […]
The topic of day two of the February Piping Challenge was how to memorise tunes to develop your repertoire. In the video below Dan Nevans shares the ‘rule of three’ tip to help the tune learning process. In day three’s topic, which will go live at 6pm tonight, Dan will […]
Dan Nevans kickstarted The National Piping Centre’s February Piping Challenge yesterday at 6pm with a 25 minute livestream on the topic of Getting your pipes going. Dan presentation was very entertaining, often with an interesting turn of phrase, and his main point in all the advice he shared was the […]
A Beginner’s Guide • By John Slavin. I have often wondered why the notes on the Highland pipe chanter have the wrong names, and thought it might point to a time in history when the pipe chanter’s low A note did actually sound an A note at 440Hz. I took […]
A Beginner’s Guide • By John Slavin. Part four of this series is to give pipers some understanding of what other instruments need to do in order to be in tune with our concert pitch B-flat chanter, or even allow you to tell your musician friends what they should be […]
A Beginner’s Guide • By John Slavin. As part of the interviews conducted for this feature in 2011, I focused on a few topics which are crucial, or closely related, to the whole subject. These discussions are not all about the theory but more about sharing the experience of the […]
A Beginner’s Guide • By John Slavin. If you have followed part one and part two of this series you should now understand the importance of playing a concert pitch B-flat chanter, and the following points summarise the other important aspects covered in the previous features. Your low A sounds […]
A Beginner’s Guide • By John Slavin. The first part of this feature focused on the basics of setting up your pipe chanter to allow you to tune to concert pitch when playing with other musicians, and to recap the main points: you must have a concert pitch B-flat pipe […]
A Beginner’s Guide • By John Slavin. THE GREAT Highland Bagpipe is a versatile instrument capable of producing breathtaking music in the hands of the finest solo performers and Grade 1 bands, or of stirring the emotions of the listener when a pipe band parades down the street with a […]
