In the final ever edition of the Piping Today magazine published in May 2020, a wide range of people were asked to give their 2020 vision for piping going forward. They were all sent a list of questions and asked to choose one to answer in no more than 200 […]
By Jeannie Campbell MBE The Book of the Club of True Highlanders was published in 1881 by subscription. The author was the Chieftain of the Club, Charles McIntyre North. He was an Anglo Scot, born about 1838. His birthplace is unknown but he grew up in the south of England. […]
1873-76 By Jeannie Campbell MBE After the success of the Highland Gatherings of 1871 and the Scottish Fete of 1872, another gathering was planned for 1873. It took place on Saturday, June 28 at Alexandra Park, with upwards of 10,000 people present. The proceedings commenced at one o’clock with a […]
Champion piper, Finlay Johnston is about to embark on a marathon cycle trip to raise money for Cancer Research. Finlay’s father, Tommy, died last July from cancer. Finlay and friend, Gordon Bruce who teaches piping at St Columba’s School in Kilmacolm, aim to cycle from the National Piping Centre’s Glasgow […]
By Jeannie Campbell MBE The Argyllshire Gathering of 1873 was not the first games to be held in Oban that year. The Lorn Ossianic Society had been formed in the previous year, its object being “the furtherance of Celtic Sports” and it held its first highland games on September 3, […]
The late Tom Dingwall’s pipes will be sold at auction in Glasgow at the end of this month. The sale will include Tom’s outstanding antique Donald MacPhee set, pictured. Donald MacPhee was born in Coatbridge, Lanarkshire in 1842. His parents were natives of Islay. Donald was taught piping by a […]
By Peter Cooke In the first part of this article I described how two distinct performing traditions, which existed at the end of the 18th century, could be exemplified in the way notators chose to write out what is best regarded as one formulaic motif — the echoing beat on […]
Iain MacInnes concludes his 2000 John MacFadyen Lecture One irony of the current pipe band situation is that, at the same time as civilian bands have carried the music round the globe, and have put down firm roots, the cultural institution that created pipe bands, the British Army, has slowly […]
By Seumas MacNeill Probably no period in the history of piping will see such changes as did the 19th century. At the beginning of it, all pipers were Gaelic-speaking highlanders, solo performers whose repertoire consisted almost entirely of piobaireachd. All teaching was by canntaireachd, for no piper could read staff […]
