Tag: Grey’s Notes

Michael Grey’s Notes: Dear Old Glasgow Town

Michael Grey’s Notes: Dear Old Glasgow Town

GREY’S NOTES by Michael Grey. Piping Today #71, 2014. You know you’re a seriously regular visitor to Glasgow when someone stops you on the street, asks for directions  and you can help – and with mostly reliable info. It’s the last Friday of the Commonwealth Games and thanks to years […]

Michael Grey’s Notes: Seven deadly sins

Michael Grey’s Notes: Seven deadly sins

GREY’S NOTES by Michael Grey. Piping Today #70, 2014. One of the people I teach, a young guy, about 17, is mad as hell about piping. He eats it up. Loves the tunes, loves to play. He’s crazy about piping — a lot like you maybe. I can tell you […]

Supernatural sound of the pipes

Supernatural sound of the pipes

GREY’S NOTES by Michael Grey Piping Today #69, 2014. There’s one thing I know: it was the sound of the bagpipe that attracted me, that made me want to find any damned way I could to learn to play the instrument. Haunting, stirring, soulful, inspiring, soothing, ethereal; bagpipe music touched […]

Michael Grey’s Notes: Angus Mackay on trousers, life and God

Michael Grey’s Notes: Angus Mackay on trousers, life and God

GREY’S NOTES by Michael Grey Piping Today #68, 2013. Angus Mackay.  He’ll be known, at least by name, to many of you. Born on September 10, 1813 — under the astrological sign of Virgo — on Raasay, an island off the north-west coast of Scotland, he was to become one […]

Pipers. Must. Compete.

Pipers. Must. Compete.

GREY’S NOTES by Michael Grey Piping Today #66, 2013. Winning isn’t everything, but it beats anything in second place, said the American poet, William Cullen Bryant. Competing pipers and pipe bands might swear by Bryant’s words. The driven need to compete is firmly soldered very near the heart of the […]

Opinions, assumptions and truths

Opinions, assumptions and truths

GREY’S NOTES by Michael Grey Piping Today #65, 2013. Summertime and the livin’ is easy; fish are jumpin’ and the cotton is high. Great words; in fact, great lyrics from George and Ira Gershwin. And while it’s our standard holiday season, with weather that’s light on the back, summer isn’t […]

Flashbulb memories

Flashbulb memories

GREY’S NOTES by Michael Grey Piping Today #64, 2013. It’s an uncomfortable truth that any sentence that starts with “One of my earliest memories…” will induce in any person — outside of maybe a Freudian psychoanalyst — a vacant stare, a droop of the eye lids and just enough open-mouthed […]

Two heads are better than one

Two heads are better than one

GREY’S NOTES by Michael Grey Piping Today #63, 2013. It’s said that every day we each make thousands of decisions. Starting from the moment we wake up: do we get out of our chariots or roll over? And then: if we decide we want to eat, what’s for brekkie, what […]

Bearskin hats and pristine spats

Bearskin hats and pristine spats

GREY’S NOTES by Michael Grey Piping Today #62, 2013. I was at lunch with a work friend the other day when the subject came up:  just how old is the general public’s idea of the stereotypical pipe band? You know, Scotland the Brave, Black Bear, Green Hills and yards and […]

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. […]