The National Piping Centre offers a wide range of tuition to people from very different backgrounds, and thanks to the rise in popularity of online tuition the NPC has pupils all over the world. One such student is 11 year old, Ella Stewart, who lives in Saudi Arabia and who […]
Features
The art and mystery of composition for the bagpipe: part 2
by BILL LIVINGSTONE. Piping Today #101, 2020. My own experience of composing music started when I was in my teens, creating rock and roll songs in the simple three or four-chord form of the times. But still I was doing it, and they gathered some local popularity. Of course there […]
Royal visit to Edinburgh 1822 – the background
PART ONE by JEANNIE CAMPBELL MBE. Two hundred years ago Edinburgh was in a frenzy of Royal celebrations equal to those in London in 2022. This was to mark the visit by George IV, the first of the Hanoverian kings to visit Scotland. George IV succeeded to the throne on […]
Retired life filled with music, piping competitions and bespoke tuition of the highest order
Luciano Lanaro doesn’t let the grass grow under his feet. When Lou retired seven years ago he increased his musical ability by adding the Highland pipes to the range of instruments he already played. Like many pipers it is not just a pastime, but a full blown obsession that he […]
Piping in London – part 12
1892 – 1894 by JEANNIE CAMPBELL MBE In May 1892 papers mentioned that the Scottish Gathering at Stamford Bridge would be on June 18, but when June came the papers reported that it would be held on July 16. As usual, there would be only two open events, piping and […]
Bob Worrall shares an old tune and a new tune
NINE NOTES AND MORE… by Stuart Robertson. Piping Today #47 2010. Bob Worrall is one of North America’s leading teachers, adjudicators, performers and composers and is the weel-kent face of the BBC’s World Pipe Band Championships programme. Prior to retiring from competitive piping in 1983, Bob won the North American […]
Teachers & Students: Blackley of Hillsdale
GREY’S NOTES by Michael Grey. June, 2022. The writer, Ami McKay, has a great string of words about life in a small town, and that is, “no matter what you do, someone always knew you would.” Cue the local curtain rustler’s chat with the TV reporter, “oh, they was ruthless […]
Highland Pipers with Royal Appointment: Donald MacKay junior – the Prince of Wales’s Piper
PART 3 by JEANNIE CAMPBELL MBE The stories of Queen Victoria’s pipers are well known and there is no need to repeat them here, but there were several more pipers, perhaps less well known, who were employed by other members of Queen Victoria’s family. Donald MacKay junior In December 1873 […]
Highland Pipers with Royal Appointment: Colin Cameron; J.F. Farquharson; William MacDonald
PART 2 by JEANNIE CAMPBELL MBE The stories of Queen Victoria’s pipers are well known and there is no need to repeat them here, but there were several more pipers, perhaps less well known, who were employed by other members of Queen Victoria’s family. Colin Cameron In late April 1866 […]
Murray Blair shares a tune
Murray Blair gives us one of his new tunes (including a sound file), and a few older ones, in this article which has been updated for 2022. NINE NOTES AND MORE… by Stuart Robertson. Piping Today #55 2011. Our featured composer for this edition is Murray Blair, one of Australia’s […]