Pipe Band Drummer

Have you ever been frustrated when life gets in the way of your practice time? Sometimes, with a busy schedule, it is impossible to find a whole hour to sit down and run through your entire practice routine. As a…

Welcome to the third part of a three part series on slowing down the North American massed band scores. I've saved the 6/8 for last because it has some very tricky parts in it.

1. The very first note of…

This week we'll be discussing the North American massed band 3/4 drum score. The 3/4 is the easiest of the three massed band scores to play but there are still a couple of sections to keep an eye on.

1. Drags: In…

This week on the blog we'll be breaking down the North American massed band 4/4 drum score. The massed band scores have been around a while and they have quite a history. Dave Coleman, from the Fredericton Society of St. Andrew's…

I have a confession to make that I've never told anyone: I hate competing solo. There. I said it. When it's just me, a piper and a judge, I get nervous, my memory fails me, my hands turn to stone and my…

Knowing the point of practicing is the most important piece of information you will ever learn if your goal is to improve your playing. It is incredible to me that ABSOLUTELY NO ONE KNOWS this crucial piece…

Today on the Ups and Downs is the first of what I hope will be many video blogs! Playing slowly is a skill that takes lots of patience and practice but it can have an amazing affect on your personal…

Welcome to the final blog post of "Roll Call"! This week we'll be looking at the execution and use of rhythm syllables for rolls in a strathspey. As I've discussed in previous blog posts the strathspey is the least understood, most…

In part IX of "Roll Call" we will be learning to identify rolls within the most musically complex style we play: the strathspey. A typical strathspey contains the following rolls types:

• Four stroke rolls
• Five stroke rolls
• Six stroke…

The rolls in a 6/8 march are the most complex you'll find in any style. Whereas the rolls of a 2/4 march contain mostly triplet sixteenth subdivisions, rolls in the 6/8 march contain three distinct subdivisions:

• Triplet eighth notes…

This week we'll be discussing the all important but often forgotten style: The 6/8 March. In competitive piping and drumming the 6/8 march is rarely used. It sometimes makes an appearance in march medleys in the lower grades but…

As discussed in Part V, jigs are written in 6/8, a compound time signature based on groups of three. Today we will discuss the rhythmic breakdown of rolls found in the jig style and the use of rhythm syllables (where…

Welcome to Part V of Roll Call! In this ten part series I'll be focusing on the identification and execution of rolls in the five styles of music we play. Today we'll be concentrating on the jig style. The jig…

In "Roll Call" Part IV I'll be discussing the breakdown and use of rhythm syllables for rolls commonly found in the round reel. This has been a very challenging section to write and has been very "eye-opening" as the exact…

This week, in part three of "Roll Call", we'll be discussing how rolls appear in the round reel. In the pipe band drumming idiom there are two types of reels: those that are played with swing (using dot and…

To add to last week's post, it is possible to use rhythm syllables (as found in The Bare Bones Reading System) to help you figure out the timing of your buzz strokes. In an effort to streamline the post I…

Last week we learned how to identify every type of roll used in a march or reel. Now that we know what the different rolls look like it's time to move on to how they are played. Before we begin…

In an earlier blog post (Know Your Roll), I attempted to help drummers identify a five stroke roll across the five styles of music we play. After some reflection, I realized a change in approach was needed. Instead…

Two decades ago, a peer to peer file sharing program called Napster changed the music business. With the advent of Napster the music you used to have to pay for was, all of a sudden, free for the taking. All…

In the early nineties I was playing with the Rob Roy Pipe Band in Kingston, Ontario. Every year, The Rob Roy band would participate in a city wide cultural festival known as "Folklore". Rob Roy hosted the Scottish pavilion at…