What more is left to say about Pipe Major Donald MacLeod? So much has been written about this giant of piping that we would be repeating ourselves to re-run it all here. But we think this personal memoire says something else of the man — perhaps as much as all […]
Features
Scotland’s toun pipers played at every civic occasion of note
By Moses Jenkins Today many Scots towns from Milngavie to Montrose have a resident pipe band. In days of antiquity, however, it was not a pipe band which would be affiliated to a town but rather an individual piper known as the ‘toun piper [toun=town|. These pipers had a number […]
Variation in pipe band competition results and difficulties of change
By Alistair Aitken OBE Differences in pipe band competition results have always been a problem and probably always will be. It is an issue being addressed continually in adjudicator training as human nature tends to immediately focus minds on the credibility of the adjudication process and the abilities of the […]
The John MacKay manuscript, pt. 2
• From the June 1997 Piping Times. By Captain John A. MacLellan My second illustration is a typical page of the manuscript in what is thought would be the original form for the whole manuscript. As you can see it is really a framework with the notes written in crotchet […]
The John MacKay manuscript, pt. 1
• From the May 1997 Piping Times. By Captain John A. MacLellan Some time ago the late Captain John A. MacLellan made a study of the John MacKay Manuscript and gave his findings in a paper to the Piobaireachd Society Conference. We are pleased to publish this important study. We […]
Remembering James MacMillan, 1911-2005
• From the September 2005 Piping Times. By Jack Lee I have often wondered how piping would have turned out in Vancouver if Jimmy McMillan hadn’t taught here. Would Terry and I have stuck with piping? Would the Simon Fraser University Pipe Band (SFU) even exist? Jimmy was the defining […]
Hornpipes – from jaunty dance to finger fireworks in a few years
• From the January 2012 Piping Times. By Iain Bruce The hornpipe has had a long run in the history of music but it is not clear how long. The Oxford Companion to Music describes two meanings of the word ‘hornpipe’. In the first place it refers to an obsolete […]
The Black Chanter of Clan Chattan
• From the October 1984 Piping Times. By Diana M. Henderson “As fierce as the tiger that prowls in their forest, Those sons of the Orient leap to the plain;But the blade striketh vainly wherever thou wanest, Black Chanter of Chattan bestir thee again!”1 A Mrs Ogilvie wrote these lines […]
Boreraig – the first pipers at the cairn
• From the August 1994 Piping Times. A letter from William A. Cromarty of South Orange, NJ, reminded us of the inauguration of the cairn at Boreraig in 1933. He enclosed a cutting from an Ontario newspaper of the time, which contained a report of that famous day. The story […]
Piobaireachd names in Gaelic – curios, mix-ups and puzzles
• From the January 2008 Piping Times. By Angus Nicol The End of the Great Bridge or ‘Ceann Drochaid Mhoire’ (ceown drochitch voiruh) is something of a mix-up. Drochaid is feminine, so it should, in the genitive, be drochaide. But with the article it na drochaide (nuh drochitchuh). So the […]