Bellingham Highland Games Recap

I won the Professional Solo Piping Aggregate on Saturday at the Bellingham Highland Games, with a first in the Piobaireachd and fourth in the March, Strathspey, and Reel.

The band played twice in competition on Saturday and got all firsts from the eighth judges. The band played again on Sunday, a wee show of 10 or so sets.

Here's are some nice high res photos of the band in action:

And here are videos from the band's two competition sets....

The Medley:


The MSR:

Ten New Tune Lesson Downloads

I am excited to announce the addition of Ten New Tune Lesson Downloads available for instant download. The lessons are a complete learning solution, so you'll be able to learn these tunes faster than ever before. The lessons include a high quality mp3 recording of the tune, sheet music that perfectly shows how the tune should be expressed, a detailed audio lesson, and BONUS material.

This brings the complete list of Tune Lessons Downloads to sixty-four, including sixty of the best known piping tunes and four classic Piobaireachds.

Check out the new tunes!

Double Gold!

Over the weekend I was in Kansas City for the annual Winter Storm piping festival and U.S. Gold Medal piping competitions. I'm thrilled that I won the Gold Medal for Piobaireachd for the second time. I won the first Gold Medal back in 2004 and now I'm the first piper to win it twice.

You can watch my winning performance thanks to the modern day miracle of YouTube.

Part 1:


Part 2:

What is Piobaireachd?

Piobaireachd ("pee-brock") is the classical music of the great highland bagpipe. It is less commonly referred to as Ceol Mor, meaning Great Music. It is an entirely different from the category of music known as Ceol Beag (or Little Music) that includes marches, slow airs, and the various idioms of dance music (jigs, reels, strathspeys, and hornpipes).

Piobaireachd tunes are often several hundred years old, dating as far back as the 1400's. It is distinct from the other forms of Celtic music in that it is only traditionally played by a solo piper on the great highland bagpipe.

The tunes tend to be much longer than light music tunes, and feature a theme called the Ground or Urlar and several variations. The variations take the basic melody established in the ground and present it a variety of different rhythmic contexts with a variety of different technical embellishments. Common variations include the use of the Taorluath, Crunluath, and Crunluath-a-mach movements.

Piobaireachd tunes are often associated with particular individuals or clans or historic events. Colorful titles include: Too Long in this Condition, The Piper's Warning to his Master, The Lament for the Children, Beloved Scotland, The Little Spree.

Many pipers consider Piobaireachd to be the highest form of bagpipe music and also most satisfying and challenging to play. The world's most prestigious piping competitions, such as the Gold Medals at Inverness and Oban, are won by pipers who compete by playing Piobaireachd tunes.

I'm very pleased to offer for the first time Tune Lesson Downloads for Piobaireachd. The first batch of these tunes includes:

• The Glen is Mine
  
• The Little Spree
  
• The Munros' Salute
  
• Too Long in This Condition

With each Tune Lesson Download you receive:

• A high-quality, studio-produced audio recording of your tune played by one of the world's top pipers.
  
• A professionally-typset printed sheet music for your tune -- perfectly matched to the audio recording.
  
• A detailed audio instructional lesson on the tune, including learning tips, practice strategies, suggestions for improvement, and demonstrations played on the practice chanter.
  
• An additional sheet of BONUS written instructional materials related to your tune.
  

For more information on these tunes, please visit the BagpipeLessons.com Tune Downloads page.

Here's a complete list of all the tunes that you can download and print.

Here's a brief video of me playing some of the Piobaireachd Mary's Praise at the National Piping Centre in Glasgow, Scotland.

Piobaireachd Lessons

I'm not sure how else to do this so I guess I'm enquiring about your method of teaching over the internet. I'm looking to take piobaireachd lessons because they've never regionally been available to me before and figure it's better late than never.

Piobaireachd lessons work great across the internet. I'd be happy to teach you! Lessons are as frequent as you would like. I recommend lessons every other week or weekly.