Features

John Mulhearn in The Pipe Factory at Celtic Connections 2024

John Mulhearn in The Pipe Factory at Celtic Connections 2024

John Mulhearn is Head of Piping Studies on the BMus (Traditional Music – Piping) Degree run by the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland and delivered by The National Piping Centre, and his day is filled with admin, teaching and lecturing the students on the course. He grew up as a solo […]

Fifty year-old editorial on conducting a pipe band

Fifty year-old editorial on conducting a pipe band

Every so often we hear suggestions about opening the pipe band competition circle to make it more audience friendly. This Piping Times editorial from Seumas MacNeill shows it was being discussed 50 years ago along with an even more radical suggestion of adding a conductor to the performance! By SEUMAS […]

Piping 100 years ago: 1923 part two

Piping 100 years ago: 1923 part two

The second part of Jeannie Campbell’s 1923 retrospective looks at the early summer months and finds reports on pipe band competitions and solo piping results from around the Games. There are also reports on two pipe bands from Inveraray; PM Willie Ross’s three-week visit to South Uist for piping tuition […]

New Product: PitchGuard™ Split-Stock System

New Product: PitchGuard™ Split-Stock System

New products don’t come along very often in the piping world, and this split-stock with an on/off switch looks very different to anything seen before for Highland pipes. But it does much more than simply switch the chanter on and off. It has been designed by reed maker Chris Apps […]

Pipe-makers return to native woods

Pipe-makers return to native woods

By MORGAN HOLMES • Piping Today 2017. Environmental depletion and resource sustainability have been of critical concern the world over for several decades. These issues were brought home to pipers in January 2017, when African Blackwood (Dalbergia melanoxylon) was added to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of […]

The Piper’s House on Raasay: Taigh a’ Phìobaire 

The Piper’s House on Raasay: Taigh a’ Phìobaire 

PART ONE • By HUGH CHEAPE and DECKER FORREST • Piping Today 2010 Most players of the Great Highland Bagpipe will come to recognise a significant list of place names that are associated, in one way or other, with pipe music. Names such as Anapool, Borreraig, Gairloch, Chillicassie, Kilberry and […]

The beating hearts of FDNY

The beating hearts of FDNY

The FDNY Emerald Society Pipes & Drums By STUART CURNOW. Piping Today December 2012. FDNY (Fire Department of New York) firefighters work 24-hour shifts in rotating rosters. They cover 322 square miles from more than 200 firehouses with in excess of 10,000 uniformed firefighters. The FDNY attend over 480,000 emergency […]

Piping 100 years ago: 1923 part one

Piping 100 years ago: 1923 part one

By JEANNIE CAMPBELL MBE • PART 1 • JAN to APRIL 1923 Looking back one hundred years to 1923 shows that some events were similar to those of today but there were many differences. In 1923 the piping world had to rely on word of mouth or the newspapers to […]

Dr. Andrew Bova: presenting an enjoyable recital

Dr. Andrew Bova: presenting an enjoyable recital

By DR. ANDREW BOVA. Piping Today #97. August 2019. For most of us pipers, our performances are confined to a few standard stages. For some, this may be competition, either solo or band. For others, this may be playing in a ‘street band’, performing mostly at parades and social functions. […]

Final years of the Glasgow Celtic Society’s Grand National Gathering

Final years of the Glasgow Celtic Society’s Grand National Gathering

PART THREE • By JEANNIE CAMPBELL MBE In 1860 the Glasgow Celtic Society announced that: “The directors having resolved on suspending for a season their Annual Games have arranged an Excursion Trip per the ‘Craignish Castle’ to Arrochar on Thursday 5th July at 8.30am returning from thence at 6pm. At […]