Greetings, I've been helping drum up support for the blog Alternative Pipers of North America. If you haven't checked it out, you should; it's a great collection of articles on pipes (generally non-GHB/UP) from the North American perspective. Loosely a North American complement to the LBPS, but with an even wider net of less-common pipes.
I've been drumming up some articles from the sackpipa (Swedish bagpipe), zampogna (Italian), and Balkan piping scenes in the US, and I think it'd be a great addition to have an article on NSP piping in the New World. If anyone is interested in writing an article (with pics?) about their experiences as an NSP piper in North America, that'd be great to read, and a good way to inform a wider piping audience about the NSP. Just as a few suggested topics: what community exists of NSP players; is there any area where there's a sizable community? What experiences have you had trying to explain to Americans/Canadians exactly what kind of pipes you play, and deal with their pre-conceptions of piping from the popularity of the GHB and UP? Maybe an article on the experience of being a solitary learner in America and having to teach yourself from tutorial materials in the physical absence of fellow NSP pipers. Just fielding the idea, hope some folks might take interest, and definitely hope many of you will check out the blog: [1]http://theotherpipers.org/index/ Happy piping, -Matthew Arlington, Virgina, USA -- References 1. http://theotherpipers.org/index/ To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
