With only a few more days to go before St. Patrick’s Day, 2011 is upon us, the countdown clocks in Irish bars, pubs in a box and plastic Paddy bars are working overtime. A few more days and the Irish and those with the “Irish” in’em will be joining the throngs of green-clad people headed …
Read more “Bagpipes for weddings, St. Patricks and Vancouver parties”
It’s a dreary time of the year. Across the country, as February exhales it’s frosty breath and unleashes another blanket of snow, the thoughts of blue skies and summer breezes are fleeting and momentary. Victoria, the usually green BC capital is covered in a rare mantle of snow, while Vancouver deals with below freezing temperatures. …
Read more “Bagpiping in Vancouver and area on brief hiatus before St. Patrick’s Day”
The following story comes from the New Zealand Herald. You must hand it to the bands’ “musical director†(do they mean PM?) for his successful ingenuity. A 65-year-old Hastings man has convinced a judge that years of playing the bagpipes rendered him incapable of completing a roadside breath test. City of Hastings Pipe Band musical …
Read more “Bagpiper avoids police breath-test claiming ‘breathing technique’ issue”
The opening paragraph reads, “In the coming weeks, Inverness County Welcomes will embrace the family of four that fled Iraq for temporary asylum in Syria.†Read this article. It is a small reminder of the good that you find inside many people. It’s about those who reach out and take action to make this world …
Read more “Baghdad to bagpipes. A Cape Breton hug in the depths of winter”
I discovered this YouTube video produced by Associated Press recently. It’s an interesting video about the making of Gibson bagpipes in Willoughby, Ohio. The founder, Jerry Gibson, has been making the pipes since 1978. The Gibson pipes are patterned after Capt. John MacLellan’s prize-winning MacDougall bagpipes. The Gibson is renowned for its classic MacDougall sound. …
Read more “American bagpipe maker chats about his Gibson bagpipe”
For all the bagpipe and drumming aficionados in the Lower Mainland, we have an opportunity to see something we rarely see on the big screen; a documentary about bagpipes, and in particular, a film about the global assembly of all-star pipers and drummers who form the band “Spirit of Scotland“. The band is composed of …
Read more “Vancouver silver screen highlights global bagpiping pros”
I found this gem in a February 5 story in SanDiego.com. The article is written by Christian Hertzog about the local early music society. Hertzog may well have invented the most professorial maligning of the bagpipes ever written. “Listeners anticipating stentorian caterwauling from the bagpipes were surprised at how well behaved they could be, and …
Read more ““Stentorian caterwauling†– the best slander ever against the bagpipes”
One of the truly unique aspects of living on the West Coast is the ability to actually play the bagpipes outside for some events during the depths of winter. Now granted the weather isn’t perfect; this is not southern California, but for a Vancouver bagpiper who came from the east coast, it always amazes me …
Read more “Winter bagpiping in Vancouver, White Rock and Surrey”