Pipehacker Holiday Gift Guide No. 1: Gifts for Your Bagpipe by Vince Janoski

Can you believe the holiday season is upon us once more? Here at Pipehacker we love making it yourself, but sometimes there is no substitute for a well crafted, high quality item. This year, send your loved ones over here to Pipehacker.com as a (not so subtle) hint for gifts. Check back each Thursday over the coming weeks for lists of Pipehacker-approved piping gear!

Small Tunes: “Bung Your Eye!” by Vince Janoski

his happy little jig is often heard as “Lord Dunmore’s Jig” or simply “Lord Dunmore” and versions of that tune (although a bit different) can be found in many of the well kent collections of bagpipe music. That title is predated, however, by an earlier form of the tune in the eighteenth and nineteenth century collections as the slow march “Bung Your Eye.”

5 Ways to Become a Better Bagpiper by Vince Janoski

No, you’re not going to find bagpipe hints, playing tips, or tune instruction. Any improvement in your music begins with improvement in yourself. Like expanding your tune repertoire, you can expand your self-improvement repertoire as well.

Morning Comix: PIPRZ by Vince Janoski

Morning Comix: PIPRZ—All dialogue authentically blawn!

EUSPBA AGM Live! by Vince Janoski

Head over to The Piper’s Dojo Facebook page to follow Nathan Wahlgren’s live tweets of the EUSPBA’s annual general meeting. Lot’s of lively stuff already and the new business hasn’t even started! http://www.facebook.com/pipersdojo

Pipehacker Project: The DIY Blowstick Valve by Vince Janoski

Are there any pipers left who remember the days of leather blowstick flapper valves? The little circles of old bag leather that dried up and had to be gnawed back to life in order to function? No? Well, once upon a time pipers had to make their own flapper valves to tie on to their blowpipes.

DIY Guitar Picks by Vince Janoski

This is the probably the coolest gizmo I’ve seen in a long while. Pipehacker does not play guitar but if he did, he would be making hundreds out of old credit cards and hotel keys. I want one for practice chanter reeds.

Small Tunes: “A Fig for a Kiss” by Vince Janoski

Also known as “Gáire Na MBán,” “A Fig for a Kiss” is a favorite Irish slip jig among session musicians. It appears in just about every traditional tune collection there is for fiddle, pipes, and flute—even several that go back centuries.