With the onset of the New Year, this is normally the time to make New Year’s resolutions.  Before doing that, however, think back to just last year and ask yourself if you accomplished your goals for the year.  Since most of my topic is bagpipe-related, I will probably be aiming this at bagpipers. However, it could apply to everyone.  After you have evaluated your resolutions from last year and you find that you didn’t keep them all, don’t be discouraged. Goals are not all or nothing.  If you don’t set any, you drift from one year to the next and wonder how you got there.

What do you want to do with your bagpiping this year?  If you’re new to this, I think your goal should be to get pipes as soon as possible.  If you have pipes, your goal should be twofold:  learn some new tunes and practice playing your pipes for longer durations.  If you’ve been playing for a while, maybe you should think about competition.  Your instructor will certainly give you a heads-up when he/she thinks you’re ready for the next step.

As I said in previous posts, playing any instrument, including the bagpipe, is a habit.  Habits are formed by taking one day at a time and working your bagpipe time into your schedule.  The people who get frustrated and quit usually do so because of guilt and not because of performance.  The guilt comes from not practicing regularly.  Again, I would tell you to make sure that you do something about this before you leave the house in the morning.  At that point, the job is done, and anything you do at night is a bonus.  If you’re a young unmarried person, I would definitely tell you to get the job done now as the majority of my students are people over 40 who had good intentions too when they were young and single.  If you get the hard part done early then your kids will grow up with the pipes as part of their lives and may want to be part of that someday as well.

All of what I have said could apply to anything that you do.  The dream is to be able to do something, the goals are the steps to get there, the plan of action is what helps you reach your goals and the only thing needed is regular effort.  You can do it!  Have a great year!

Personally, I can’t think of anything that I would rather have less than a job.  In this economy, it’s possible that I could be like him; out of work! But I’m not because I’m my own boss. I wanted to be independent and did everything I could think of to create that.  I make a good living in the suburbs of Philadelphia, all centered around the “Great Highland Bagpipe of Scotland”.  Who would’ve thought that was possible?

What are you good at?  Is that thing, service, etc. something someone else would buy from you?  Do you have a skill that would allow you to trade your time for money?

Here’s the thing.  What I like about being self-employed is that I am not dependent on any one person or business for income.  Security is created by not having all of your eggs in one basket. That chance meeting led me to think about some new endeavors. Perhaps another commodity that I could sell in addition to bagpipe stuff is how to create independence.

As we get closer to the New Year, we all start thinking of resolutions for the upcoming year.  At my age, I feel like I need a gym membership. A lot of my friends, family and students have one.  I was thinking, however,  that I could save both the time and  money involved with a gym membership because I already have a built-in exercise program.

If I played my pipes while marching in place for 15 to 20 minutes each day, I could give myself a lower body workout, an aerobic workout, and  – if I concentrated on squeezing more - a little bit of an upper body work out as well.  If I don’t like my “ lats and pecs”, I could put my pipes in the case and use them as the weights needed to accomplish that.

Here’s a challenge to all of you who don’t feel like they practice enough.  Quit your gym this year and pick up your pipes.  You might be surprised at the results.

When I first started my bagpipe business, I had a bagpipe band that resulted from a night school program.  One of those students purchased a set of Dunfion Bagpipes from a distributor in Texas.  I had never heard of Dunfion, but was amazed by what I saw and heard.  As I walked around the group tuning each player’s instrument, I was intrigued by the sound of the Dunfions.  Over the years I established a relationship with that Texas company, sold many Dunfions for them, and eventually took over the Dunfion business here in the states.

Personally, I like good products and good service.  The Dunfions are made by one man on the Isle of Arran in Scotland, Henry Murdo. Henry played the pipes as a boy, influenced by an uncle that played them.  When he grew up, he was a furniture maker and wood carver. He never thought that he would be in the bagpipe business.  However, Henry was a friend of Angus J MacLellan, a Double Gold Medalist bagpiper in Scotland, and that friendship moved him in the bagpipe-making direction.  Together, the friends experimented with different drone and chanter dimensions to create the Dunfion Bagpipe.  Personally, I think they hit a home run.

All Dunfion Bagpipes are handcrafted by Henry.  The most unique feature is that all of the drones are lined in brass.  That creates a smoother tone, but also creates a more stable drone that stays in tune longer.  As a person who makes a living playing the bagpipes, I play in all kinds of weather.  I play when it is freezing outside and when it is hotter than you-know-what.  The amount of time needed to say the mass at the grave was enough time for my other pipes to go out of tune.  The Dunfions are still in tune when I strike up to play Amazing Grace.  That might have something to do with those brass sleeves.

Because Henry was a woodcarver, he has done some unique things to bagpipes.  I personally haven’t seen other pipes carved like his.  Every time I open a box from Henry, my mouth falls open in amazement!  I sell a lot of Dunfion Pipes.  I sell them because I play them.  I also feel that they are fairly priced in the market place and are a great value for the money.  I would say that the average bagpiper will buy one set of pipes.  I believe that the Dunfions, because they aren’t made in a factory, will be an instrument that you can cherish for generations.

The problem with this is that in order to play the pipes well, the music needs to be memorized. Don’t get me wrong, I am a bagpipe tune junkie too, except that I have created a process for myself to process and digest this music.  I have a solution to this problem that I’m eager to share with you.

The first thing you need to do is make a list of tunes.  You should all have a list from which you work.  I personally would suggest that you put your local Pipe Band Association Tunes on that list first.  This gives you the ability to have tunes in common with most of your fellow bagpipers.  From that point, you should put the tunes on the list in a sequence of variety.  I personally like a list that builds in tempo and excitement.  My list consists of: 4/4 marches, 6/8 marches, 2/4 marches, Strathspeys, Reels, Jigs and Hornpipes.  This variety will keep you and your future audiences entertained.  Every time you hear a tune that you think that you want to learn, put it at the end of your list.  That means your list will always be growing.

When practicing your list, you should always practice from the top down until those tunes are memorized.  It’s sort of like a train moving from one town to the next.  Your “engine” may be on tune number 6 and your “caboose” may be on tune number one.  When your caboose passes number 1 and goes to number 2, tune number 1 is now memorized.  Over a period of time, your tune train will gradually work down the list.  At some point your caboose will pass tune number 50 meaning that you have 50 tunes ready to play at any time.  You should go back and review your memorized tunes with music just to keep them fresh and in shape.

What kind of plan do you have now?  Is your plan working?  If it is, continue what you’re doing.  If it isn’t, you might try my approach.  The worst thing, in my opinion, is to be practice chanter bound for 5 years.  That sort of defeats the whole purpose of playing the pipes, doesn’t it?  If you are teaching yourself, and have been for some time, are you getting the results that you want?  You might find that an investment in instruction might get you on track to accomplishing your musical dreams sooner rather than later later.

I think the first step is to become musically literate.  You should listen to all types of music.  Have you ever been moved to tears by a performance?  Think about that for a minute. The goal as a performer is to “emotionally move” people. People who are moved by your performance remember you, creating possible opportunities for you in the future.  If we are trying to connect to other people’s souls through music, how could you do that if you haven’t made that connection before?  You should listen to a variety of music until you find the music that touches your soul.

Learning to be a musician is a lifestyle.  That means that you need to do something musical on a daily basis.  The first thing you should do is to make sure that you practice daily.  Actively listen to music.  Study with someone who has the skills that you desire.  How’s your technique?  Practicing isn’t playing through the music the same way hoping that it gets better.  It’s about finding and isolating problems to be worked out.  If they are technical problems, then you improve those through slow to fast repetition.  The ‘musical line” improves by education as stated above and your ability to become vulnerable to the music.

There are three facets to blowing the pipes:  the breath, the lip and the arm.  The lip begins developing the minute a new bagpiper blows on the practice chanter.  (That is the downside of electronic chanters.)  The lip improves in the process of playing the practice chanter.  Developing the breath and the arm are like a pendulum.  On one side of the pendulum is the breath and on the other side is the arm.  The goal is to start at the extremes of the pendulum and work toward the middle.

The goal to ultimate “blowing and squeezing” is to make it look easy to our audience.  Let’s face it, if we look like we are struggling when we play the pipes, no one would ever want to do it.

In order to develop the breath to its ultimate strength, we have to set a goal and break it down.  The average person walking the face of the earth has this much breath /———————-/; however on a daily basis they only use this much: /—–/.  People neither inhale completely nor exhale completely in the course of a day.  The exception might be athletes, wind and brass musicians, and singers.  On the bagpipes, I would say that your ultimate goal is to be able to blow out all three of your drones.

Test your strength:  Put a rubber stopper in your chanter stock and blow up your pipes with all three drones open and see if you can make all of them stop by blowing hard.  If you can, then you have enough breath.  If you cannot do this, you should put in 2 drone corks and see if you can blow out 1 drone. If you can then try blowing out 2 drones.  The goal is three.  In order to blow a steady tone, your bag should be full right before the point that your drones go out.  At that point, the bag should feel like a volley ball.  At this point, the bag is above capacity to where you are now working in “psi” or “pounds per square inch”.

Most people believe that you blow the bag up to 100% and squeeze down to 75%.  If you blow over 100%, you now develop “psi”.  I would say that the best place to be is blowing up to 110% and squeezing down to 105%.  It’s less work and enables you to play for a longer period of time.  Blowing harder to get to this point also develops your lip so that it lasts longer.  When blowing into the bag, some people make the mistake of “bottoming out” their air when they squeeze.  You inhale from the point that you finish blowing; you don’t exhale the rest of the air and then inhale all of the way to blow.  This takes too much time and your bag is severely lacking in air and tone at this point.

The other side of the pendulum is the arm.  Most people that don’t blow steady have arms that are undeveloped.  You want to go to the far side of the pendulum to exercise your arm as well.  The way you do this is to keep the chanter stock plugged.  Blow up the three drones and squeeze for as long as you can.  When you feel like your arm is going to fall off, take the deepest possible breath you can take and replenish all of the air back in the bag.  The goal of this exercise is to squeeze for as long as you can and keep the tone of the drones steady.  If you practice this exercise enough times on a regular basis, you will develop an arm needed to play the pipes well.  You will always have some pressure on the bag even when you are blowing into it.  Blowing and squeezing is like hydraulics and moves in a parallel motion.

Again, the ultimate goal of these exercises is to make playing the bagpipes look easy for your audience.  People who love bagpipe music will not consider learning the instrument if it looks difficutl.  The aforementioned exercises and proper instrument maintenance will accomplish these goals. (More about maintenance at a later time.)  Good luck and keep playing!

Tapping With Elmo

As I work with people learning our great instrument, I find that sometimes we forget that the bagpipes are indeed a “musical” instrument.  My goal as a teacher is to develop not only bagpipers, but bagpipe musicians.  Along the way, we develop not only fingering skills but also rhythmic skills.  I’ve talked a lot about this in the past – about active techniques to develop your ability to read and produce rhythm.

Specifically, as a musician, I find that I am constantly in motion while any music is playing.  It’s like Pavlov and his dogs.  Hence, I think that you should condition yourself to be in motion whenever you’re playing the pipes. You can do this while listening to music or playing music.

With technology being what it is today, we definitely can’t say we don’t have any opportunity to listen to music.  So, you’ve been playing the pipes for a while; how many CD’s do you own?

If you don’t have any, you can buy some from me.  I have recently updated my list at: http://www.bagpipelessons.net .  After you have them, here is what you need to do:

• Play them in the car while you are commuting.
• Tap along with the music, even if it’s with your thumbs, as you want to become an active listener of music
• Tap one thumb first then practice alternating them.  You’ll be surprised at how easy it will be to change your thumbs to your feet.
• Tapping your feet, alternating between left and right while playing, simulates marching. And since the bagpipe is a marching instrument, it’s a great idea to get used to marching while playing.

So, don’t sit still! It’s time to get moving!