I’ll just get my coat or Playing with your jacket on without losing your mind By Dan Nevans When you’re a teenager you are obsessed with fitting in. Being cool. Acceptance is the drug you need. Now in my 30s, I have realised that I am a roaster, I have […]
Those of us old enough to have played cane practice chanter reeds will testify to the superiority of them over plastic reeds. Yet, by the late 1970s, plastic was rapidly becoming the preference for pipers and it seems that these days it is extremely difficult to source cane reeds. In […]
By Seumas MacNeill Most gatherings have an atmosphere all of their own, and none more so than Inverness. Last of the season’s contests, equal in stature with Oban, it is the final fling for pipers and enthusiasts before the winter. The Northern Meeting ballroom with its warmth, splendid acoustics, and […]
For years, many of us have been vocal in how to improve the pipe band competition environment so as to avoid the large differences in results that are sometimes reached: “How can one judge give us first for piping and the other one last?” and so on. Is it time […]
Road to the Isles was composed by John McLellan of Dunoon in 1891 when he was a young boy of 16. However, he called it The Bens of Jura. McLellan’s mother, Mary Darroch was born at Keils in Jura, and his father, Neil McLellan, came from the nearby island of […]
(alias The King’s Own Borderers, 25th Regiment, Leven’s Regiment, The Edinburgh Regiment.) By Major C. G. Wood. On March 19, 1689, Leven’s Regiment was formed in a great hurry to protect Edinburgh against Bonnie Dundee and his Highland army. This set something of a recruiting record in that 800 men […]
By Jeannie Campbell MBE The 1/5 Seaforth Highlanders Welcome to France [score below] was one of many tunes featured in the Scottish Pipers’ Association’s 2014-2018 recital series, ‘Pipers and Pipe Music of the Great War.’ A “Cpl. Gamack” of the Seaforth Highlanders is credited with composing the tune, an attractive […]
It doesn’t happen very often, especially in the climate we are in at the moment, but occasionally one of these days comes along: a good day’s piping. With so little to look forward to at the moment, sometimes the motivation to practice and work is born purely out of boredom. […]
This sweet tune is a favourite with most pipers. According to Donald MacDonald (in his manuscript of 1826), Lament for MacSwan of Roaig was composed on the death of the chief of this minor clan who lived in northwest Skye. Like many in the wider region, the clan was of […]
By Thomas Pearston The photograph of four chanters, below, is a confirmation of the rise in pitch over the past 50 years. Chanter A is a chanter from the First World War, B is about the early 1940s and C is a modern chanter as played to-day. D is a […]
