As reported yesterday, this month’s edition of the Piping Times features the last article written by Dr Roddy Ross. It is a ‘deep’ article, one that dwells on Celtic mysticism, the MacCrimmons, and ceòl mòr. Today, we reproduce an article written by written by Roddy in the late 1990s and published […]
Chris Armstrong has played bagpipes for all but six years of his life. His piping was first nurtured in the Torphichen and Bathgate Novice Juvenile Pipe Band and from those early beginnings, his piping career has been one of sharp, upward trajectory. He’s a complete all-rounder in the piping world: […]
It’s been a quite a decade. I took over as Director of the National Youth Pipe Band of Scotland (NYPBoS) in 2009 shortly after moving to Scotland from Australia. Ten years later, I’m looking forward at marking that decade with an NYPBoS concert on February 8 in Edinburgh at the […]
By Major (Retd) Bruce Hitchings MBE BEM Pipe Major Alasdair Gillies was one of the most outstanding pipers of modern times. Born into a piping family in Glasgow in 1963, he first studied the bagpipe with his father, Norman, himself a leading exponent of ceòl beag. In the early 1970s, […]
By Archibald Campbell of Kilberry There can be no one alive now who ever heard Angus MacKay play, and few who have heard his playing described at first hand. Sandy Cameron remembered him playing piobaireachd at Maryburgh in his father’s house but he must have been quite a young child […]
At present 60 issues of the Piping Times are out of print, including almost all of volumes 2, 4, 13 and 16. We receive many requests for important articles which appeared in these issues so we have decided to reprint the most essential ones. Every piper should know something of […]
By Bruce Thomson The 6/4 time signature is not found frequently in pipe music, but I can quote a few examples. The most familiar is perhaps, Farewell to Nigg, by Duncan Johnstone on page 68 of the Scots Guards volume two. They are quite scarce. For example, there is only […]
GREY’S NOTES by Michael Grey Piping Today #66, 2013. Winning isn’t everything, but it beats anything in second place, said the American poet, William Cullen Bryant. Competing pipers and pipe bands might swear by Bryant’s words. The driven need to compete is firmly soldered very near the heart of the […]
Among the men who fought and died at the Alamo during the Texas War of Independence were several Scots. The best remembered of these brave Celts was John MacGregor. Born in Scotland, he was 34 years old and held the rank of Second Sergeant when the Alamo fell. During the […]
By John KS Frater Major General Charles Simeon Thomason, one of the leading figures of the great Highland bagpipe, died on July 12, 1911. The first President of the Piobaireachd Society (PS), he had become quite an obscure figure until fellow Sapper and piper, Brian MacKenzie brought him to life […]
