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One of the most prominent features of bagpipe music is the omnipresent dot-cut. We've discussed it many times here on the BagpipeLessons.com Studio — and the importance of holding the dotted note to make it as long as possible in order to make the cut note as short as possible. Sometimes the typical long-short timing is reversed, and the short note is played first. I've found that most pipers struggle when the dot-cut pattern is reversed and the short note comes first. Today's post takes a detailed look at this less common rhythmic pattern. Known outside of piping as the Lombard Rhythm or Scotch Snap, the cut-dot pattern is the number one most-common rhythm mistake in all of piping. Here's a 4/4 march with the typical dot-cuts marked in blue. The reversed cut-dots are marked in pink. Let's take a detailed look: Here are  couple other places we've mentioned of the cut-dot: Learn tunes efficiently by avoiding ...