Pointing, pulsing, phrasing, and the musical decisions that separate playing the notes from playing the tune.
The trickiest rhythms in piping are the ones where the cut note comes first and a short note lands on the beat. Major John McLennan, The Battle of the Somme, Black Bear, King George V's Army and Mrs. MacPherson of Inveran, the most butchered rhythm in piping, how to stop rushing the short beat note, and pulsing on the Piper's Metronome.
Pointing, pulsing, phrasing — pipers hear these words on judges' sheets and in lessons, but what do they actually mean? I untangle all three,…
Strathspeys, along with piobaireachd, are the most distinctly Scottish tunes we play — and technically the hardest, with an unrelenting dot cut,…
I open with one of my favorite recordings anywhere — the third movement of Hamish Moore and Dick Lee's concerto for bagpipes and jazz — and then…
The Highland bagpipe has nine notes — but the ladder from low G to high A actually has more rungs, and in this session I show how to reach four of…
I finally tackle a topic I've dodged for years: circular breathing. It isn't necessary on the Highland pipes — the bag is a built-in circular…
In this session I unveil the Pyramid of Musical Mastery — a framework I developed to connect the two sides of piping that usually get taught…
In this collaborative video, I sit down with seven-time world champion pipe band drummer James Laughlin to break down the fundamentals of…