Small Tunes Podcast: “Home Rule” by Vince Janoski

It’s been quite a while since the last Small Tunes Podcast. Let’s catch up with “Home Rule,” a tune that dates from Ireland of the mid- to late 19th century. Home Rule was a powerful political idea that stood at the heart of much of the social turmoil in Ireland from about the 1860s to [...]

Small Tunes: Vintage Melodies from the Bagpipe Tradition 011 Home Rule [ 2:44 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (1591)

Small Tunes Podcast: “Hodin Hiotra,” One of the Cragich, from the Campbell Canntaireachd by Vince Janoski

On this episode I present an unpublished piobaireachd interpreted directly from the Nether Lorn Canntaireachd, or Campbell Canntaireachd as it is known. The two volumes of the Campbell Canntaireachd have been an inexhaustible resource for students of piobaireachd for nearly two hundred years. The original manuscripts still exist at the Royal Library in Edinburgh and [...]

Small Tunes: Vintage Melodies from the Bagpipe Tradition 010 Hodin Hiotra [ 11:34 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (443)

Small Tunes Online Tunebook by Vince Janoski

The “Small Tunes” series on this blog has been a feature for some time. From it’s earliest incarnation as set downloadable bagpipe scores to a podcast with some history and a performance of the tune on the Highland bagpipe, a goodly collection has arisen—and with more still to come. You can access all the posts [...]

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 [...]

Small Tunes Podcast: “Thump the Bitches” by Vince Janoski

On this episode, I bring you the perky little tune “Thump the Bitches.” Oh my. This tune comes down to us from the eighteenth-century English pastoral pipe tradition. The English pastoral pipe is considered a bridge in the evolution between bellows-blown border pipes and the Union pipes of the 1800s and what would eventually become [...]

Small Tunes: Vintage Melodies from the Bagpipe Tradition 007 Thump the Bitches [ 3:19 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (987)

Small Tunes: “The Favorite Dram” by Vince Janoski

Raise your glass and toast another St. Patrick’s Day! Do it and then play this slip jig “The Favorite Dram.” This lively tune breaks the “small tunes” rule a bit by being three parts, but what the hey. It harkens to a melody likely played to “Ho Ro Mo Bhobag an Dram,” a Gaelic poem [...]

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

This happy little jig is often heard as “Lord Dunmore’s Jig” or simply “Lord Dunmore” but is predated by the tune “Bung Your Eye.” A “bung” is typically the hole in the whiskey barrel where the spigot inserts before bottling or dispensing. It could also be the act of inserting the spigot itself, thus the [...]

Small Tunes: Vintage Melodies from the Bagpipe Tradition 006 Bung Your Eye! [ 3:30 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (848)

Small Tunes Podcast: “The Haughs of Cromdale” by Vince Janoski

I love a good Jacobite rebel song, don’t you? Many of our classic bagpipe tunes got their start as bawdy, Scottish fighting songs during the Jacobite period of 1688 to 1746. The “Haughs of Cromdale” pulls from the melody of a song that commemorates a battle that took place on April 30, 1690. A tiny [...]

Small Tunes: Vintage Melodies from the Bagpipe Tradition 005 The Haughs of Cromdale [ 2:36 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (690)