by Fergus Muirhead, at the Glenfiddich Piping Championship 2019 One of the biggest decisions a competitor has to make during his or her preparation for a competition is the tunes they are going to submit. In some events they have a free choice of music while in others they have […]
Tag: Dougie Pincock
Playing the Highland pipes with other instruments – why B-flat and not A?
A Beginner’s Guide • By John Slavin. I have often wondered why the notes on the Highland pipe chanter have the wrong names, and thought it might point to a time in history when the pipe chanter’s low A note did actually sound an A note at 440Hz. I took […]
Playing the Highland pipes with other instruments part four
A Beginner’s Guide • By John Slavin. Part four of this series is to give pipers some understanding of what other instruments need to do in order to be in tune with our concert pitch B-flat chanter, or even allow you to tell your musician friends what they should be […]
Playing the Highland pipes with other instruments – extra interviews
A Beginner’s Guide • By John Slavin. As part of the interviews conducted for this feature in 2011, I focused on a few topics which are crucial, or closely related, to the whole subject. These discussions are not all about the theory but more about sharing the experience of the […]
Playing the Highland pipes with other instruments part three
A Beginner’s Guide • By John Slavin. If you have followed part one and part two of this series you should now understand the importance of playing a concert pitch B-flat chanter, and the following points summarise the other important aspects covered in the previous features. Your low A sounds […]
Playing the Highland pipes with other instruments part two
A Beginner’s Guide • By John Slavin. The first part of this feature focused on the basics of setting up your pipe chanter to allow you to tune to concert pitch when playing with other musicians, and to recap the main points: you must have a concert pitch B-flat pipe […]
Playing the Highland pipes with other instruments part one
A Beginner’s Guide • By John Slavin. THE GREAT Highland Bagpipe is a versatile instrument capable of producing breathtaking music in the hands of the finest solo performers and Grade 1 bands, or of stirring the emotions of the listener when a pipe band parades down the street with a […]
Stuart Letford reviews the Duncan Johnstone Memorial recital
By Stuart Letford Duncan Johnstone wasn’t really one for competitions – his 1964 victory in the Scottish Pipers’ Association’s Knockout series was pretty much his only foray into solo piping contests. As he put it himself: “I was never interested in whether I could beat this man or the next. […]
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 […]