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Archive for January, 2007At first glance, rock star Rod Stewart and the Lochiel Pipes and Drums seem to have little in common. Stewart wears denim, sprints across the stage while performing “You’re In My Heart,” “Maggie May,” and “Some Guys Have All the Luck.” Lochiel Pipes and Drums members wear kilts, march and play “Amazing Grace,” “Scotland the Brave” and “Cockney Jocks” on bagpipes.
The band, which debuted at the 2006 St. Patrick’s Day parade in Harrisburg, will play at Giant Center at 7 p.m. as people enter the facility, then onstage before Stewart comes out. Stewart, 61, frequently invites local bagpipe bands to perform before he does. Your instrument wants you. The long hours of practice and competition can make the average piper take his or her instrument for granted. All pipers have their regular maintenance routine to keep their pipes in top shape, but think about it, you’ve taken your stand up and down the bumpy roads to the games in cars, airplanes, and buses. You’ve carried it around all over the field and played it in all kinds of weather. It’s time to take some extra effort to make sure your instrument has held up. Pipers can be as active in the winter as they are at other times of year. But things do slow down in the winter months, so take the time to give your instrument a Valentine and some tender loving care… Here is a good post on tuning and the bagpipe scale The Pitch and Scale of the Great Highland Bagpipe The pitch of the chanter
Jan
29
2007
 
George Balderose plays the bagpipe at Robert Burns Dinner Feb 10Posted by: Pipe Major in NewsGeorge Balderose plays the bagpipe at a previous Robert Burns Dinner.Scottish merriment, including bagpipe music, sword dancing, poetry reading and toasting to the lassies will once again come alive at the Donora Borough Building in the name of Robert Burns. After a one-year hiatus, the Donora Historical Society and Donora Scottish Heritage Committee will sponsor a Robert Burns Dinner at 6 p.m. Feb. 10 at the borough building on Meldon Avenue. This dinner will mark the 88th anniversary of the first such event in Donora… …Tickets are sold only in advance for $25 a person. To purchase them, call Faye Hefner at 724-823-0661 or Barb Ferguson at 724-379-7782. Organizers emphasized the ticket price does not cover the cost of the event and that they are looking for patrons to help underwrite the cost. To inquire about sponsorships, call Iams at 724-379-7750. How Bagpipes Are ConstructedAlmost everyone I know loves the sound of bagpipes. I love the sound myself even though I am of Native American and French origin. Let’s take a look at what creates the unique sound of bagpipes. He might be a Liverpudlian born and bred but Paul McCartney was embracing his love of the Highlands on Thursday night. The Mull Of Kintyre singer was joined by his photographer daughter Mary for a traditional Burns Night knees-up in London’s St Martin’s Lane hotel. They were among a host of stars gathering to celebrate Scotland’s most famous bard. Perthshire actor Ewan McGregor, who delighted onlookers by donning his kilt, and Glasgow-born Texas singer Sharleen Spiteri co-hosted the charity event, where entertainment was provided by bagpipe troupe the Red Hot Chilli Pipers. Kids from Westhill Academy near Aberdeen, Scotland are hoping to make it into the Guinness Book Of Records for the longest bagpipe session after playing for eight hours to raise money for charity.
It was a good day in the sun at Turakina yesterday for the New Zealand Police Bruce Childress admits a fondness for the pipes, bagpipes that is.
Childress, 49, of Kennebunk has been playing the bagpipes for more than a quarter century and making them since 1987. In 1996, he left a position as an electronic engineer to make the bagpipes professionally.
“In terms of notoriety and sales, (the business) has been a success,” said Childress, noting that while craftsmen rarely earn large monetary perks from the job, they are compensated by making a living doing something they love to do.
“I’ve loved music since I was a child,” said Childress, who’s been a student of guitar and other stringed instruments since age 8, including the hammered dulcimer, which he said is “the precursor to the piano” and played with mallets.
He plays the pipes about 30 minutes each day for pure enjoyment and as needed to test the sound of bagpipes throughout the creation process. “I do play them but pride myself more as a maker of the pipes than a player of the pipes,” he said.
Hundreds of people from Snohomish County and surrounding areas gathered at the Nile Shrine Center in Mountlake Terrace on Saturday to remember Burns, whose Jan. 25, 1759, birthday is celebrated worldwide. Clad in suits, dresses and kilts, the birthday-party guests honored Burns with Scottish dancing and a feast following a couple hours of Scotch whisky tasting. “He was such a prolific poet, and he was a well-known Freemason,” said Carl Alexander, general secretary for Seattle Scottish Rite of Free Masonry. Check out the photos on this page
Q: How do you get two bagpipers to play in tune? A: Shoot one of them. Local pipe-major Gordon Pollock’s heard them all but the universal appeal of ancient pipes of all types — particularly a full set of Highland bagpipes — is no joke. “What drives people to listen is the sheer presence of this instrument,” said the Duncan dentist, turning professor for Bagpipes 101. “They’re a remarkable engineering feat.” Centuries of tradition plus a lifetime of practice by Pollock and the Cowichan Pipes & Drums can be heard this weekend during dinners and shows toasting the birthday Scottish poet Robbie Burns. The spots that couldn’t keep their kilts down, and wasted millions9. Sierra Mist — Bagpipe kilt ad (2004): On a hot day, a kilt-wearing bagpipe player breaks off from a parade and stands above an air conditioning grate — mimicking Marilyn Monroe’s famous scene in “The Seven Year Itch.” CHICAGO - Bagpipes can play mournful renditions of “Amazing Grace,” and they line the streets at the South Side Irish Parade. Rarely, though, are they the instrument of choice for a strolling musician at a romantic, candlelit dinner. But for Kitty Kirk and Dave McKee, bagpipes helped start a love story that is still going strong 40 years later. In 1964, Kitty and her younger brother, Frank, took two buses from their Chicago home on Garfield Boulevard to see a bagpipe band march in a parade in Chicago’s Garfield Ridge community. Frank was enthralled, and began taking bagpipe lessons. When his teacher moved out of town, Kitty took him to find a new teacher where the Chicago Stock Yards Kilty Band practiced.
Jan
22
2007
Robbie Burns Night flop so far No tickets sold, cancellation isPosted by: Pipe Major in NewsArea residents hold the fate of this year’s Robbie Burns Night in their hands. Having sold zero tickets thus far for the January 27 event, the organizers of Robbie Burns Night will decide at a meeting Monday evening whether to take a financial loss and cancel the celebration for this year. In past years, the popular event, organized by Duncan MacDonald, was held at the Brockville Legion. Since MacDonald’s death last fall, the Celtic Festival committee took on Robbie Burns Night here as a fundraiser for its Celtic Festival. “I have no idea what’s going on,” said Ralph Legere, chairman of the Celtic Festival committee. “We’re not getting any calls at all. I could speculate, but I don’t want to do that. “We’re definitely not getting support at this point.” The committee has to decide on Monday whether or not the event gets the go-ahead. He said the Celtic Festival committee has already spent about $3,000 to $4,000 in advertisements placed in three local newspapers. The event, if they decide to follow through with it, would cost between $18,000 and $20,000. Planned for Saturday, January 27 at the Brockville Memorial Centre, this year’s event is “traditional Robbie Burns,” said Legere. The evening will include a roast beef dinner and entertainment by bagpipers although not the City of Brockville Pipe Band as in previous years - poetry readings, The Highland Dancers and a show by Antrim, a three-man Celtic band out of Glengarry. A bar is available. The first event in the auditorium will be bagpiper Allison J. McFarland, Bethel College professor of business, at 1:45. McFarland played with a competition band in Philadelphia for eight years and was one of five bagpipers who regularly played for the University of Pennsylvania Commencement ceremonies. She will play the pipes and also explain how they work. A “pibroch” is a piece of music for the bagpipe, consisting of a theme with variations, usually martial but sometimes dirgelike. A wedding where the bride asked us to play both tenor banjo and Uilleann pipes during the processional. She approached with great spring in her step, but the parents and groom seemed greatly perplexed. We trust the couple is still married following this decidedly eclectic start, but we hope the Florida Legislature will finally define marriage as something that never involves a tenor banjo and Uilleann bagpipe. |
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