Tag: Blog

What have the Romans ever done for us…?

What have the Romans ever done for us…?

GREY’S NOTES by Michael Grey Piping Today #61, 2012. The pipes, and maybe along with the accordion, are the poor bullied souls of the music world.  So often the butt of jokes, especially in the world of “classical” music — and, by the way, that’s only from my own experience. […]

The value of a picture

The value of a picture

GREY’S NOTES by Michael Grey Piping Today #60, 2012. We live in the most documented world there ever was: everyone has a digital camera and everyone uses it. Not just that, almost everyone leaves their easily-seen fingerprints all over the internet for their friends to see, for their families to […]

For love nor money

For love nor money

GREY’S NOTES by Michael Grey Piping Today #59, 2012. What makes us do what we do? Cross a street with the red man aglow, hold the door open for someone, jump the queue at an airport check-in? We might be in a rush, we might just love people — or […]

The rose-tinted glasses of time

The rose-tinted glasses of time

GREY’S NOTES by Michael Grey Piping Today #58, 2012. There’s one sure thing about being involved in the piping game: there’s never a shortage of memory-making material. The bagpipe seems to have a way of finding the centre of the most percolating social action. Or maybe it’s the pipes that […]

An extrasensory sense of place

An extrasensory sense of place

GREY’S NOTES by Michael Grey Piping Today #57, 2012. It seems to me that the more we visit a place and the more we get to know it, the stronger are our feelings for that place. It dovetails, maybe, that the deeper our memories connect with a place then the […]

Salute to the old-school time shifters

Salute to the old-school time shifters

GREY’S NOTES by Michael Grey Piping Today #55, 2011. I’ve always thought John D. Burgess came as close as anyone to the title of ‘maestro’. Burgess was surely a true artist of consummate skill and not without a hint of charm and eccentric personal colour thrown in for good measure. […]

Give (new) music a chance

Give (new) music a chance

GREY’S NOTES by Michael Grey Piping Today #54, 2011. When a brand gets to be used as a verb you know the product is a popular, if not powerful, thing: “Facebook me when you’re done practicing your birls” and “Great idea about twice-through pipe band MSR contests, I’m gonna Twitter […]

What Motown can teach pipers

What Motown can teach pipers

GREY’S NOTES by Michael Grey Piping Today #53, 2011. It seems like the more stuff there is on TV and the more channels there are available, the less there is to watch. This way of things has made me an impatient channel-clicker: two seconds on that show, nine on the […]

Wandering pipers

Wandering pipers

GREY’S NOTES by Michael Grey Piping Today #51, 2011. A couch that converts to a bed is a good thing to have. A spare bed is right up there with common household conveniences like, say, a toaster, a fridge or a bottle opener.  A spare room may be best and […]

Superstitious Minds

Superstitious Minds

GREY’S NOTES by Michael Grey Piping Today #50, 2011. I’m not a hugely superstitious person. But then again, I’m not not a superstitious person. You won’t see me walk under a ladder. That’s just crazy. What harm’s a little salt over the shoulder when I’m in a spilling way, and, […]