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 [...]

4 Steps for Getting Your Drone Reeds to “Point Zero” by Vince Janoski

“Point zero” is exactly what it implies. It is setting the strength of your drone reeds at the starting point before you begin adjusting for pitch and chanter reed strength.

5 Tips to Get You Searching Bagpipe Tunes With Purpose by Vince Janoski

We pipers love the latest and greatest music produced by our favorite soloists and pipe bands, don’t we? We want to play the same exciting stuff we hear. This impulse inevitably leads us on a search for the scores of said tunes. Unfortunately, these half-hearted searches lead many to internet forums asking others where it [...]

Pipehacker Project: Recording Your Professional Personal Piping Performances by Vince Janoski

You’re serious about your bagpiping, right? Of course you are. You take all the necessary steps to treat your instrument with care and acquire all the skills and knowledge you need to play good music. So why wouldn’t you treat other aspects of your bagpipe progress with the same import? It always surprises me that, [...]

Hacking Your Inner Bagpiping Judge by Vince Janoski

There are those who would claim Highland piping is difficult. It may be, but perfecting a crunluath a-mach is nothing compared to the art of perfecting your own self-critiquing skills. It is the hardest thing of all to become your own judge and lend an objective ear to your own playing. After running through your [...]

Bagpipe TLC by Vince Janoski

The long hours of practice and competition can make the average piper take his or her instrument for granted. All pipers have their regular maintenance routine to keep their pipes in top shape, but think about it, you’ve taken your stand up and down the bumpy roads to the games in trains, planes, and automobiles. You’ve carried them around the field and played in all kinds of weather. It’s time to take some extra effort to make sure your instrument has held up.

Chanter Reed Selection—The Match-Up by Vince Janoski

The ideal bagpipe sound starts with selecting the ideal chanter reed. Obvious? It is not always as easy as it seems. Personal preferences and taste coupled with what amounts to unlimited choice in makers and quality of chanter reed makes that initial task of selecting your ideal reed a bit more daunting. But unlimited choice [...]