Here’s your chance to catch the grade 1 band in concert, Tuesday, June 23 in Aurora, Ontario.

The band has planned a self-funded trip to the Lorient Interceltic Festival in Brittany, France (July 31st – August 8th) and have scheduled a local  sneak preview of their Lorient concert.  (more…)

Both the grade 1 and grade 3 bands attended the 2009 Georgetown Highland Games and kicked off their 2009 competition season in a big way.  (more…)

On Saturday, May 23, 2009, the Grade 3 Toronto Police Pipe Band traveled to Kingston Ontario to participate in the Fifth Annual “Ontario Power Generation” Celtfest. Scott Bell and members of Kingston’s own Rob Roy Pipe Band organized the event, which was held in the Rideau Acres Campground.
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Tom Foote and I, having spent many an hour on the road together pursuing the pastime of drumming, have developed a certain breed of comedy only available to, and perhaps only understood by, those who have shared similar experiences in the quest of a common goal. This humor emanates from a need for entertainment, and utter road-crazy, both of which I’ll attempt to convey here via illustration and written word.
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The great 1960 Oscar-nominated movie is one of our favourites.  It is available on DVD.  Have a look here:   (more…)

Though I have not been piping for long, I’ve been given lots of good, and -  well – some not so good advice.   

An example of the bad: “Don’t play sheepskin bags. They smell, and require TONS of maintenance.”   

 Well, turns out that I now play a sheepskin bag, and love it!  They don’t smell, and don’t require much maintenance at all.    (more…)

On the evening of January 24, 2009 , Colin MacPherson and I piped in the haggis for a Toronto area Legion celebrating Rabbie’s 250th Birthday. (more…)

Dear band guys:

So, you thought my Sunday, January 9th, 15-hour bus trip from Cincinnati to Toronto Police Pipe Band practice was wild. It ended up being nothing compared to my trip home…
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I finish most emails to the corps by saying “practice hard and practice smart.”  Practicing hard is of course a part of being successful in this game and we all generally understand that, but knowing what to practice is the other and perhaps more important aspect.

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It’s finally here; the last day of the year, 2008…hard to believe that yet another entire year has passed us by.   Hopefully for most, you have had some great experiences over the past year, and have also had some great pipe band moments!   

As both our bands have gone their separate ways for our Christmas break from pipe banding, I am starting to remember that there was something that I was supposed to learn, and of course have off for our first practice of 2009: A huge stack of new music!  This of course raises the question:  how best to learn music?  And a second and more important question:  Do I still have enough time to get it done prior to that first practice?  

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