My Most Painful Performance FAILURE Story
When I was in my late teens, I made a mistake at the Worlds playing with the SFU Pipe Band. A bad mistake. There’s a…
Category: News & Blog
Posts of news and events from Dojo U
Bagpipers: How to Play FAST
Some pipers think that it is really hard to play fast, but they’re wrong. It’s very easy to play fast, even at a tempo that comes close to matching that of Stuart Liddell. Thus, a fast tempo is really no problem at all. The problem arises when we expect to play fast and at the same time make anything that sounds close to good music.
Dojo U Live! Atholl and Breadalbane Gathering - Parts 3 and 4
Dojo U Live! Episode 014 Join Carl and Andrew as they review student performances from the week at Dojo University! This week's challenging tune -…
Visualizing ALAP/ASAP—Part 1
On the bagpipe, we cannot play a note with more volume in order to add expression to a phrase. Indeed, our goal is to play at a steady pressure so that the pitch of the chanter and the drones remains constant. Nor do we have techniques such as staccato or legato available to us on the Highland bagpipe. On the Highland bagpipe, we express our music by holding notes longer than we would normally hold them, playing them As Long As [Musically] Possible (ALAP) and playing contrasting notes As Short As [Musically] Possible (ASAP).
How to Use a Metronome to Learn a Strathspey
When you play a strathspey, does anyone ever tell you that it “sounds like a march”? Is it difficult to get the correct strathspey rhythm, no matter how many times you play through the same tune? One method of learning a strathspey correctly is to use a metronome from the outset, and hear your playing improve.
Using Science to Describe Playing “On the Beat”
We pipers know that playing “on the beat” is critical, not only for unison in a group, but also to attain total musicality in the music we’re playing. However, as an individual how many of us have been told that we play “consistently ahead of the beat”, or that we are “sometimes on the beat, but not always”?
Drone Reed Calibration—Wow, What a Difference!
Have you ever felt that you were struggling with your pipes, or that they were too hard to blow, or that you just couldn’t blow enough air into the bag to maintain the correct pressure? Can you play for no more than 10-15 minutes, even with an “easy” chanter reed? Have you answered "yes" to any of these questions?
Chanter Reeds: Differences and Uses
While each chanter reed may look mostly the same, individual reed makers will often incorporate individual design changes that make subtle changes to the shape, configuration and construction of the reed in order to produce different harmonics. Different reed makers also use different sources for cane (the material of the reed blades), making the quality reed to reed from maker to maker, different. Chanter reeds from maker to maker will also perform differently from chanter to chanter.
Understanding Harmonics—Part 1
This article was written by Dr. John Holcombe
How many of us pipers have a firm grasp of the physics of sound that causes the unique and rich sound of our bagpipes? We are told that we should maintain a pressure in the pipe bag that is at the chanter reed’s “sweet spot”, that pressure that causes the reed to maximally vibrate and bring out the most “harmonics” and richness of sound of the reed. But what, really, are harmonics?
Bagpipers and Copyrights
Every now and then, heated discussions arise online about bagpipers sharing copyrighted material. For as long as I have been a bagpiper, copyrighted material has been freely shared in every community that I have been part of. Let’s discuss.