Pipehacker Tip: Create Your Bagpipe Practice Infographic by Vince Janoski

Do you know what it is you spend your time on? Previously, I’ve talked about treating your bagpiping like finance and money and taking stock of your intangible assets. Well, also like finance, you also must take stock of your spending if you are to see where your money goes. Like money, time is an [...]

Pipehacker Tip: Tracking Your Practice by Vince Janoski

Time is a valuable thing. Given the demands of everyday living, it is often hard to fit in the full amount of time one needs for good practice. An active solo competing piper can reach a point where he or she is developing and polishing 15 or more separate pieces of music. A band player [...]

5 Steps to Building Your Bagpipe Music Repertoire by Vince Janoski

Developing one’s musicianship as a solo bagpiper or pipe bandsman can be hard work, and it’s easy to fall back on the competitive music that demands so much of our time to polish. But, as musicians, we owe it to ourselves to develop a broader view.

The 5 Best Recording Devices for Musicians by Vince Janoski

The Bullettproof Musician blog is a great place for performance advice and the psychological side of playing music. The latest post lists the five best music recording devices favored by readers. A great snap review of the best tools available to playing musicians. Pipehacker’s favorite, the Zoom H2, features third after the iPhone! You will [...]

The 3-Step Path to Better Bagpipe Goals: “Goal Chunking” by Vince Janoski

The fall and winter months are the perfect time for setting musical goals and developing and building skills to improve your bagpiping. Sometimes though, setting goals can be daunting and the day-to-day trappings of life distract us. We lose track and the work toward our goals, even if you eventually get there, seems never ending. [...]

Get Ready to Hack Your Piping with Dojo University’s Fall Lineup by Vince Janoski

Get ready for your fall bagpipe-gasm. Dojo University, the world’s first online piping school, has announced an autumn “semester” lineup with all drones a-blazin’. The instructor list views like the best of piping summer schools smashed together. And all in the “off-season” from the comfort of your ain hame. The fall and winter months are [...]

Hack Your Learning: 5 Places to Expand Your Music Education for Free by Vince Janoski

Those of us who try hard at this Highland bagpipe thing for a decent length of time will realize that it is not enough to simply consider oneself a “piper.” If you are to keep making significant progress, you must consider yourself a “musician.” Learning how to play the Highland bagpipes can make you a [...]

No-Nonsense Bagpiping by Vince Janoski

It is a month past, but the SFU Highland Arts Festival held the weekend after the band’s terrific performance at New York’s Lincoln Center is still fresh in my mind. I had several fits and starts for a post about the workshop but nothing I wrote captured the right tone. I could talk about the [...]