West Seattle Blog video of bagpipe musician Tyrone Heade at Dignity Memorial-Forest Lawn, playing evening music during Memorial Day weekend.

YouTube – Wedding Processional – Pachebel Canon D Bagpipes:

Wedding Processional in the Mexican Riveria on April 19, 2010 at the Grand Palladium Resort & Spa.

Tune played by Brides sister, 2003 World Bagpipe Junior Winner with the Robert Malcolm Memorial Pipe Band.

“GREAT JOB”

““

(Via View in YouTube.)

Bagpipes take the streets of Chile | Video | Reuters.com:

“Apr. 28 – In front of thousands of spectators, over 100 bagpipers paraded in the Chilean capital of Santiago.”

(Via www.reuters.com – View Video.)

vPipes – Hyper-realistic Electronic Bagpipes:

“vPipes-Uilleann is a unique electronic uilleann bagpipes emulator that uses revolutionary technology resulting in a hyper-realistic experience in terms of sound quality, fingering and ornamentations. It thus affords the possibility of practising accurately in a variety of situations that would prove impractical or impossible with a real set of pipes.”

ORDERING CLOSES JAN 15 for FIRST RUN

We are pleased to announce that the vPipes-Uilleann is now available to order.

Many thanks to all for having demonstrated a ‘saintly’ patience.

You are finally able to enter the realm of hyper-realism with the vPipes-Uilleann.

The market price for the vPipes-Uilleann is 1,290 Euros (net of local taxes and delivery).

The special launch price has been maintained at 980 Euros (net of local taxes and delivery).

In order to be included in this launch, orders must placed before the 15th January 2010. Limited to 1 unit per person.

The period during which the vPipes can be reserved opens on 21/12/2009 and closes on 15/01/2010.

The vPipes Project Team

(Via www.vpipes.com – Read Full Article.)

Rare live performance of Mull of Kintyre with a full set of highland pipers, a 18-piece Balmoral Highlanders Pipe Band. Part of the third encore at the London O2 Arena performance on 22 December 2009.

The HBT1 Highland Bagpipe tuner is the most comprehensive bagpipe tuner available. Featuring 5 modes, including a metronome, the HBT1 tuner correctly displays the pitch of the chanter notes to harmonise with the drones while also displaying the note, frequency, calibration frequency and pitch position on a large LCD screen. It’s easy to use and fit’s in your sporran!

Editor’s Note - I sometimes get a questions about Hurdy Gurdies and how their sound compares to Bagpipes. I found this video that may be of interest if you have never have heard a Hurdy Gurdy being played.

This is a short excerpt from the 8th century epic tale of BEOWULF. The instrument I am using to accompany myself is called a hurdy-gurdy , a popular instrument of medieval Europe. The hurdy-gurdy in this video was made for me by Alden and Cali Hackmann of Olympic Musical Instruments in Indianola, Washington, and is a fully equipped electro-acoustic instrument with a built-in sound console.

Hurdy-gurdy players, like bagpipe players, cannot control the volume of their instruments which makes it difficult to use for accompanying the human voice but the intensity and sheer volume of the instrument also made it ideal for great halls and public places in ancient times. One advantage that it has is that it is a complete instrument, able to play melody, harmony and rhythm.

The hurdy-gurdy in this video is plugged into an RSP Technologies Intelliverb processor which I control with a MIDI Ground Control foot switch. The only other instrument used in this video is a Moog Ethervox theremin.

The original Beowulf epic was written in Old English which is no longer spoken and cannot be understood by English speakers today. I used a modern adaptation of the words for this video. For anyone who is interested, I have posted the text to my website, along with some closeup photos of the hurdy-gurdy. You can also hear a stereo mp3 of the song just as it was performed, without the YouTube distortion.