I wanted to change things up just a bit and give you something different. We’ll get back to The Average Piper tomorrow. Although not entirely savvy of social media terminology and etiquette, I understand that there’s something called “Throwback Thursday” to I’m going to use it to showcase certain aspects of The Bagpipe Place Museum. […]
Author Archive for: Ron
Entries by Ron Bowen
I don’t know of any outstanding piper who will tell you that things came “naturally” to them and that they didn’t really have to work at their craft. In fact, most will tell you the opposite. They will tell you the long hours of practice and the years that it took to reach their goals. […]
I’m going to double-up on today’s post and give examples of two “deadly sins.” I recently encountered the quintessential “average piper”. Please do not interpret this as negative. It’s anything but “negative”. I’m so happy to be working with him. He played some tunes for me and is doing exactly what I’ve been talking about; […]
Highland Cathedral is a beautiful tune, widely loved and played…but I’ve got a problem and I need your help. I hear many pipers and bands being very aggressive with certain notes and I wonder why. I took a brief tour on the Internet and found several versions of the tune. We’ll start off by focusing […]
I’m going to hit “reset” today and go back to our list of 7 deadly sins. #2 was choosing tunes that are too complicated. Most of the tune books today are written by Grade 1 pipers for Grade 1 pipers. There is little that is within the grasp of The Average Piper. This is interesting […]
I’m expecting some push-back on what I’m about to say. I’ve thrown a lot of information at you these past couple of days as we broke down the first measure of Scotland the Brave. Now I’m going to throw a monkey-wrench into the machinery. Scotland the Brave, played as written and up to a typical […]
Following the notion that a “lack of understanding” is a primary issue impacting The Average Piper, let’s continue to explore the first measure of Scotland the Brave. Point of clarification…when I talk about playing a note “on the beat” I’m referring to that precise moment when the beat begins. If you’re using a metronome, it’s […]
What do we mean by “lack of understanding”? How does one go obtaining that deeper knowledge and understanding of the instrument and the music? This series is moving along slowly with the hope that questions will be asked and we can drill down on specific areas that you find of greatest value. When I hear […]
The following list was compiled by several “Average Pipers.” It is intended to provide a glimpse into some of the main challenges that the average piper faces. These “sins” compromise both the music and the experience, mostly leading to frustration. None of this is intended to be mean or discouraging. It’s intended to bring into […]
Dan Bell hit the nail on the head by summing up note errors to “lack of preparedness” and “lack of focus”. We talked about preparedness yesterday so let’s talk about focus. Research tells us that the human brain processes 400 billion bits of information each and every second. You can do the math yourself to […]
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