Pipehacker Presents the Small Tunes Podcast—Vintage Melodies from the Bagpipe Tradition

Posted on | December 14, 2011 | by Vince Janoski | No Comments

Regular readers of Pipehacker will be familiar with the “Small Tunes” feature post: Occassional postings of new arrangements to old and forgotten tunes that are part of our piping tradition. In a new twist on the feature, the “Small Tunes” post will be converted into a short podcast and become what is essentially the first-ever serial audio bagpipe tune book!

Below you will find “Episode 1: An Introduction to Small Tunes,” where I espouse on the philosophy behind the settings and other nostalgia. In future episodes of this series I hope to provide short bits of background on a tune along with some historical notes and a rendition on the bagpipe to accompany the set score. Hopefully there will be something new to learn each time in addition to the tune itself. The tunes pull from the earliest known sources—sources such as Donald MacDonald, Simon Fraser, David Glen and earlier manuscripts—to find short tunes that either were tossed aside or ignored as the more modern collections arose, or have morphed into something completely new or unrecognizable.

The settings that come about may or may not be suited to everyone’s taste. Some would be very much at home in the pipe band circle with snare accompaniment, others more suited to a soloist’s performance. Hopefully though, players of all levels will find something of interest and perhaps add a few small tunes to their expanding repertoire.

Stay tuned here at Pipehacker.com for updates and new tune postings as they happen. Each podcast will likely be no more than three to five minutes long. Perfect for a quick listen in your busy schedule. You can subscribe directly to podcast feed by clicking here. I’d also love to hear your feedback. You can submit comments here on the blog or email me at pipervin at gmail.com. For now, enjoy Episode 1 of Small Tunes. Happy piping!

Small Tunes: Vintage Melodies from the Bagpipe Tradition 001 [ 5:26 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (509)

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