Dr. Angus MacDonald 2020 marks 200 years since Donald MacDonald produced his first volume of piobaireachd in staff notation. This is the oldest comprehensive written record of ceòl mòr by a piper. A pioneering work, he tackled the difficult problem of committing intricate piobaireachd embellishments to staff notation. He was […]
The 2020 Barbados Celtic Festival takes place on May 19-24. The festival has been held annually in the Caribbean island for 24 years and has grown to involve local schools learning Scottish and Gaelic culture through music and dance. Scotland has strong historical links to Barbados, with the purging of […]
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 […]
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 […]
Yesterday’s pictorial from the 2009 World Pipe Band Championships included a great photo of the late Andrew Bonar of Simon Fraser University Pipe Band. Andrew was a member of the Canadian band for many years. Before he died in 2017 at the age of 51, Andrew initiated an annual invitational […]
2020 began on a happy note for some and a terrible one for others. Yesterday, the Royal Scottish Pipe Band Association (RSPBA) announced the completion of the £1million restoration of its headquarters. The building, in Washington Street, in the Anderston part of Glasgow, was engulfed in flames in March of […]
Yesterday, we kicked off the new year with the results of Michael Grey’s survey of pipe bands over the last century, the results of which were interesting indeed. Today, we feature another pictorial from the camera of John Slavin. This time it is the 2009 World Pipe Band Championships. That […]
Survey Summary: 100 YEARS OF PIPE BANDSby Michael Grey With over 200 respondents, a summarised view can now be passed along of the “100 years of pipe bands” survey offered last month to readers of bagpipe.news (and those of my blog). In my working life (corporate communications) I’ve always found […]
By Stuart Letford (for bagpipe.news) I don’t know about you but that was a quick year. It does not seem like nearly a year since I sat in The Mackintosh Church in Maryhill, Glasgow to enjoy the ‘Seinn Air A ‘Phiob’ show held during Celtic Connections. All too soon, the […]
