Theory Top-Up by Tim Cummings Piping Today #75, 2015. I have a hunch that you might be familiar with something called fish and chips. I’m also willing to bet that each time you’ve partaken of that meal, there was a fair bit of salt added, which no doubt enhanced the […]
By Dr. Bruce Thomson The only way of fulfilling the mission described in our headline is to literally develop a new tune from scratch. I can only show you how I set about it, not having had the privilege of looking over another composer’s shoulder. As previously, this is being […]
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 […]
Theory Top-Up by Tim Cummings Piping Today #74, 2015. In the last article in this series, we examined a scale and its associated tunes which contain fewer than the usual seven notes that make up standard Western musical scales. Specifically, we explored a ‘gapped’ scale in A — that is, […]
Theory Top-Up by Tim Cummings Piping Today #73, 2014. When people refer to musical scales, they are normally referring to the conventional major or minor, seven-note, “diatonic” scales. If you’ve been following the recent Piping Today articles on music theory, you’ll know that seven-note scales can also be something other […]
Theory Top-Up by Tim Cummings Piping Today #72, 2014. This article is the third in an on-going series focusing on specific musical keys found in our Scottish piping repertoire. Having already looked at the two most common musical keys in our light music, D-Major and A-Mixolydian, we’ll now put a […]
Theory Top-Up by Tim Cummings Piping Today #71, 2014. In the last issue of Piping Today, we took a close look at the key of D-Major. That article was the first of what will be a series designed to supplement previous articles1 that painted broader pictures of multiple musical keys2. […]
Theory Top-Up by Tim Cummings Piping Today #70, 2014. Piping Today published a series of articles in issues 57, 58, 63 and 64 that addressed the topic of musical keys and how they relate to our music. I understand that some readers have enrolled in therapy since trying to digest […]
By Stuart Letford I stood on the railway platform waiting for the train. My belly rumbled like a lion’s den. It was the postman’s fault for making me miss breakfast. He was early this morning. Despite this we had our usual intense and inspirational chat. We laughed, we argued. We […]
Even for the experienced piper the variety of different bagpipes and prices can make buying a new, bespoke instrument seem a daunting process. Today, there are a healthy number of manufacturers and it’s fair to say that, in contrast to a generation or two ago, most are producing excellent instruments. […]
