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 traditionally the time when we bagpipers brush up and rebuild our skills. But sadly, the piping summer school season is all but over. What to do when you’re needing that piping fix? Dojo University trots out a semester of classes that is about as complete as it gets.
Need to retool? Attend the Technique Development class with one of the greatest Pipe Majors of all time, Robert Mathieson.
Who better to get your MSR playing up to higher level than Willie McCallum, one of the top MSR players in the world? (How many Silver Stars is it now? I’ve lost count.)
Crazy for piobaireachd? Certainly one of the world’s leading authorities on ceol mor, the big music of the Highland bagpipe and current president of the Piobaireachd Society, Dr. Jack Taylor, will take you through the Piobaireachd Society’s Set Tunes for 2013. A course you will surely not want to miss if you’re passionate about your piobaireachd.
Build your piobaireachd repertoire with Donald Lindsay as he continues his piobaireachd course through the fall where you can easily cover a tune a week.
Fresh from bringing the Scotia Glenville Pipe Band to a World Championship in the Novice Juvenile grade, Maureen Conner will share her methods for turning piping beginners of any age into world class bagpipers.
Do you really want to miss this learning lineup? You could attend summer schools for years in a row and still not get instruction of this kind from such renowned sources, all in one place, and all at once. What are you doing this fall?
Pipesdrums’ recent brief interview with Denny & Dunipace Gleneagles PM David Clunie highlights the very important challenges that face a band making the jump from Grade 2 to Grade 1. Rightly so, a higher grade can certainly become a “graveyard” and mean certain destruction for some bands. Clunie covers the very important nuts-and-bolts that should be the focus of an up-and-coming band: build good technique, good sound, etc. All the stuff that is required to make it in any grade. Is that really it, though?
Yes, it’s a challenge when pipe bands move up a grade, but what about the challenge to actually stay there? It’s not just about “making the grade” and the psychological effect of wins and losses. I would say that is a very small and shallow part of the challenge. There are plenty of bands already in the higher grade making a go of it—and keeping it together while doing so. How do they do it?
I think this short video from TED sys it perfectly:
When 500 extremely successful people share common aspects at the core of their success, it’s worth listening. What’s striking is success in any endeavor is never just about the nuts-and-bolts stuff. We bagpipers spend a lot of time dwelling on the quality of our technique, our music, and “what it takes.” All necessary mind you, but bands shouldn’t dwell on “what it takes” to play in a grade above, or whether wins will come their way. They should instead hone those qualities and attributes at the core of their own success, the things that got them there in the first place. Yes, developing the nuts-and-bolts of it—the sound, the technique, the music, etc.—are important, but those things can’t take shape unless the band is presenting certain core attributes, and committing themselves to those attributes as a group. I think if you looked at any successful pipe band in any grade, you will see all of these eight attributes in action. Let’s take a look:
Passion—Check. Is there any group of musicians who are more passionate about what they do than bagpipers and drummers?
Work—No band progresses without hard work, both as a group or individually. Period.
Good—This is where the nuts-bolts-enter. Working on your sound, your music, your technique, all of these help you become good at this thing we do.
Focus—Singleminded commitment to the group is a requirement for any successful band.
Push—Successful bands have leadership that pushes its members to be better in all ways. The best bands are never satisfied with where they are at and always strive for bigger and better things, and inspire the same thing in their members.
Serve—Put simply, the best bands serve up great music.
Ideas—Great bands typically have a unique approach to their effort that stands out. Unique ideas are few and far between in bagpiping but all the best bands put their own unique twist on the the things most of us take for granted.
Persist—This should be at the top of the list, really. Good bands take their competitive lumps and move forward, the great bands don’t even let wins and losses slow them down or deter them from their efforts. Persistence is as much a part of a truly successful band’s DNA as the color of their kilts.
The shorter advice? Working such things as technique and tone are only part of a broader list of things a pipe band should develop if they wish to be successful. Moving up a grade? Take these eight attributes and make sure you are developing each and every one in some way. If you do that, I would be so bold as to say that lack of success is impossible.
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