When you haven't touched your Highland pipes since June, and it's now September.

Oftentimes, when a favorite vocal artist uploads something I would often upload something in return to "cash back", as it were, their fandom. In this case, my favorite singer Madilyn Bailey just released a new SUPER HOT original song, "Impossible"! Because I'm running out of cool shtuff to upload, it might be a better idea to just wait for any of my favorite artists, whether it be Christine Elise, Madilyn Bailey, Abby Simone or Lauren Alvarez, to upload something which would be the cue for me to upload another cool recording.
So, the sad fact is, my mom and my stepdad, who have been married since 2015, are sadly getting divorced. I'd rather not give anything else away about it, but that's the toughest thing in the world for my family right now. So what that means is, mom is currently moving out of my stepdad's house in Rockford Michigan. So, last weekend we visited that house for one very last time so that we could go out on their pontoon boat, my sister Lizzie could play the piano for the sadly last time in the world (we're selling our piano because we don't have anywhere else to move it), and for Lizzie to collect some trinkets she loves. I'm just glad I play the actual bagpipes though 'cause I never have to actually part with them, LOL!
Anyway, here's the situation. I actually played my pipes as a sort of test as to how my piping actually sounded after taking a year off from piping, which I've heard is one of the riskiest things in the world a piper could ever do because all I've heard is that you basically would unlearn everything if you do take a year off. But for me, that didn't seem to be the case, and that actually surprised me! And yes, I did record it to prove it to ya! And then when I got back inside, Lizzie played a big megamix because this was one of the most Lizzie-personally bittersweet moments in her life I've ever witnessed, having to part with the piano we've been playing since we were at least 8 years old - yes, back then when we had Abby around (old cocker spaniel!) and when Denise Leigh's album came out! So yeah.
Now, before I played the pipes, we went on the pontoon boat for the last time, and one of our neighbors recently adopted like 30 to 40 GOATS!!!!!!!!! I badly wished I could've gotten a recording, because hearing all those goats bleeting reminded me of a TON of zampogna videos! There weren't bells you could hear, but in these zampogna videos, like let's say you're outside, right, and you hear an old man talking about the pipes he's making and of course he's speaking Italian, right. Then all of a usddensudden you hear a loud bleet straight outa nowhere! Like mixed between the talking and the distant bells. So that was such a bonus! If only I could've recorded the goats! I only recorded me playing the pipes and Lizzie playing that piano megamix. Mom was planning to stop by Huck's or Puck's which is that bar where they have the Irish music sessions, but it was later than we thought so we just dropped the idea, but I did bring my smallpipes and Irish whistle (and Lizzie brought HER whistles) just in case. But yeah. They're all right here with me now, don't worry we didn't forget to leave them at Sunfish! LOL! So yeah. You can imagine all the FUN we just had that day!
So I warm up with "Cabar Feidh" followed by Joe Adler's arrangement of "The Mud Cabin", both 4/4 marches. And then I play a trio of simple 4/4 marches which are "Scotland the Brave", "Rowan Tree" and "Murdo's Wedding", and then Lizzie wanted me to play the famous Joe Adler medley on my own pipes, this time up close - the last time I played it was at a hospitality Ceilidh so it wasn't the clearest when drowned out by the crowd. The set was "Brian Boru's March", a 6/8 march, then the waltz "The Saffron Kilt", and finishing with the 6/8 march "Father O'Flynn".
The pipes I'm using are my 2018 reproduction 1924 Henderson pipes (of Alastair Dunn fame), an Infinity chanter, not sure of the chanter reed (MacMadilyn? LOL!), French Redwood tenor drone reeds, Murray Henderson Harmonic Deluxe bass reed, on a Gannaway extended small bag I used for the Greater Midwest pipe band.
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