Features

What Motown can teach pipers

What Motown can teach pipers

GREY’S NOTES by Michael Grey Piping Today #53, 2011. It seems like the more stuff there is on TV and the more channels there are available, the less there is to watch. This way of things has made me an impatient channel-clicker: two seconds on that show, nine on the […]

Hamish Moore: Colin Ross, an appreciation

Hamish Moore: Colin Ross, an appreciation

By Hamish Moore I first encountered Colin Ross at a concert in Edinburgh where he was playing fiddle with The High Level Ranters; what an inspirational evening for me. I was hearing, for the first time, Northumbrian pipes, fiddle, accordion and guitar as an ensemble. Colin’s enormous legacy to the […]

Wandering pipers

Wandering pipers

GREY’S NOTES by Michael Grey Piping Today #51, 2011. A couch that converts to a bed is a good thing to have. A spare bed is right up there with common household conveniences like, say, a toaster, a fridge or a bottle opener.  A spare room may be best and […]

Cameron MacFadyen: Skye high

Cameron MacFadyen: Skye high

By Cameron MacFadyen Skye Highland Games has been held in Portree for nigh-on 150 years, with piping being a constant and important feature but it is improbable to think that there was no competitive piping before that. Given the importance of patronage by the various clan chiefs towards piping and […]

Superstitious Minds

Superstitious Minds

GREY’S NOTES by Michael Grey Piping Today #50, 2011. I’m not a hugely superstitious person. But then again, I’m not not a superstitious person. You won’t see me walk under a ladder. That’s just crazy. What harm’s a little salt over the shoulder when I’m in a spilling way, and, […]

Thoughts on islands

Thoughts on islands

By Thomas Pearston • From the February 1995 Piping Times. CollWhen one looks at the number of tunes produced by pipers from the island of Coll we are surprised how many we can total from such a tiny island. The Laird of Coll’s Galley, Lament for Great John MacLean, MacLean […]

John Dew: Painting a picture

John Dew: Painting a picture

By John Dew Two weeks ago, I, along with four other piobaireachd prize winners from the recent Duncan Johnstone Memorial Competition, was invited to a seminar conducted by Murray Henderson. The subject was piobaireachd performance. We arrived at 09:00 for tea and coffee and by 09:30am the tunes had started. […]

Jimmy McIntosh: my mission

Jimmy McIntosh: my mission

• From the February 2014 Piping Times Unsurpassed as a tutor, renowned on both sides of the Atlantic, let’s celebrate 70 years of piping and teaching in the company of Jimmy McIntosh What age are you now and where do you live?I am 88 years of age. I was born […]

Bob Nicol and Jimmy.

Jimmy McIntosh: part two.

From the March 2014 Piping Times. In Part 2 of his interview with the Piping Times, Jimmy McIntosh discusses piobaireachd playing, his favourite tunes and how he’d like to be remembered man What do you think of the standard of piobaireachd playing today? I have been isolated from Scottish piping […]

Stuart Letford: More cowbell? More pipes!

Stuart Letford: More cowbell? More pipes!

By Stuart Letford The great highland bagpipe never really had a place in popular music until the early 1970s, and, other than in German hard rock music, it’s still not heard very much. It’s fair to say that the pìob mhòr divides opinion when it comes to its inclusion in […]