• Where are you from and how did you get into piping?I am from Ayr and started learning on the chanter at age seven. Piping was something I wanted to do from a young age after attending a pipe band competition held in the town in the early 1970s. • […]
The first lessons MacLeod and I had from Roderick Fraser were often interrupted when he would send us into Helensburgh for a jar of beer, which he would consume with a pot of potatoes and salt herring boiled together, and being fortified with this he would then proceed to play […]
Archie MacNeill (1879-1962), is probably best known as the composer of Donald MacLean’s Farewell to Oban, The Detroit Highlanders, David Ross of Rosehall and a few other great tunes that have stood the test of time. Archie, though, was an important figure in piping and, in fact, could be regarded […]
The next member of the Competition League for Amateur Solo Pipers (CLASP) to be profiled is Gill Cairns, who is currently domiciled in Malta. • Where are you from and how did you get into piping?I’m originally from Inverness, Scotland. I’ve lived around the world, most recently in Singapore, Madrid […]
The latest member of the Competition League for Amateur Solo Pipers (CLASP) to be profiled is young Rebecca Paterson from Scotland. • Where are you from and how did you get into piping?I am from Strachur, a village in Argyll, Scotland. I was taught firstly by my Dad as he […]
• Where are you from and how did you get into piping?I’m from Columbus, Ohio, USA. I was five years old in a park when I first heard a piper. I sat and listened to him for what seamed like forever. When my mother found me I told her I […]
Regular readers will recall our post on Jeannie Campbell’s discovery of a rare photograph showing Willie Lawrie receiving his Gold Medal at the 1910 Northern Meeting. The post also included two other rare photographs from that year’s competition, one of which [pictured] shows four judges who were seated, hidden from […]
Where are you from and how did you get into piping? I was born in western North Carolina but I now live in South Carolina. As a young boy, my dad took my sisters and me to the Grandfather Mountain Highland Games in Linville, NC. This was in 1957 or 1958, […]
In our report last week of the passing of Jock Duncan we made mention of 19th century Aberdeenshire piper, Francie Markis. In an article published in March 1990 in Common Stock, the journal of the Lowland & Border Pipers’ Society (LBPS), Jock unearthed information on Markis. Although the article shed […]
Anthony Kelly from Ireland is the latest member of the Competition League for Amateur Solo Pipers (CLASP) to be profiled: • Where are you from and how did you get into piping?I’m, originally from Dublin but now living in Roscommon ireland with my wife, Nicola, son Gavin and two daughters, […]
