Tag: Piping Today Magazine

Michael Grey’s Notes: Pipe Band tribes all have an Aunt Ethel

Michael Grey’s Notes: Pipe Band tribes all have an Aunt Ethel

GREY’S NOTES by Michael Grey. Piping Today #81, 2016. It’s estimated there are over seven billion people inhabiting our dear blue place — planet earth. That’s a seven and nine absolute zeros. To me, an unimaginable number of anything, let alone a measure of human souls.  And yet, time and […]

Michael Grey’s Notes: you’re the reason our kids are ugly

Michael Grey’s Notes: you’re the reason our kids are ugly

GREY’S NOTES by Michael Grey. Piping Today #80, 2016. The Highland bagpipe can create some of the most rhythmically amazing music imaginable. A well-practised set of mitts can rattle off near endless streams of reels, jigs, strathspeys and hornpipes.  Highland dancers would be lost if not struck dead still without […]

Everything that’s wrong with your pipe band medley

Everything that’s wrong with your pipe band medley

by Dan Nevans. Piping Today #89, 2018. Do you know what the first sign of madness is? It’s repeating the same actions over and over and expecting a different outcome. The second sign is hairy palms. Friends, bandspeople, country folk… lend me your reading apparatus. I am about to attempt to […]

The rise of Inveraray & District Pipe Band – Ascension 2013

The rise of Inveraray & District Pipe Band – Ascension 2013

By Fraser Bruce. Piping Today #63, 2013. It seems every generation produces a notable pipe band rise, but rarely do we see a group catapult themselves to the kind of success and distinction achieved by Inveraray & District Pipe Band. For a band who have annually made giant leaps forward, […]

Michael Grey’s Notes: a magical winter week in Glasgow

Michael Grey’s Notes: a magical winter week in Glasgow

GREY’S NOTES by Michael Grey. Piping Today #79, 2016. I once read something somewhere about the spiritual power of making music in a group. The words I recall spoke to group music creation in a sacred sort of way. Making music with others joined energy and life forces and, well, […]

At the Glenfiddich with Rona Lightfoot and Faye Henderson

At the Glenfiddich with Rona Lightfoot and Faye Henderson

By Fergus Muirhead. Piping Today #49. January 2010. Rona Lightfoot and Faye Henderson had remarkably similar beginnings to their piping careers. Rona had the pipes on her shoulder in South Uist when she was nine-years-old. Her father, brothers and uncles all played and, in fact, at times Rona thought that […]

Michael Grey’s Notes: the gift that keeps giving

Michael Grey’s Notes: the gift that keeps giving

GREY’S NOTES by Michael Grey. Piping Today #78, 2015/16  These days we hear more and more about “ground-breaking” studies trumpeting the health benefits of one thing or another. News in tandem equally pronounces the many things that are seemingly bad for us. One day it’s a daily glass or two […]

A sparkling post-Worlds interview with Bob Worrall

A sparkling post-Worlds interview with Bob Worrall

On the Sunday after the Worlds in 2012, I had the pleasure of interviewing Bob Worrall over a glass of bubbly in the Champagne Bar in Glasgow’s Central Hotel.  Guided by the time of the meeting and the setting I decided to keep my questions light — early beginnings, tutors, […]

Look back to Willie McCallum interview in Piping Today magazine

Look back to Willie McCallum interview in Piping Today magazine

Piping Today #71, 2014. Willie McCallum is one of the piping world’s true greats. The music he makes is universally admired and reliably, over the course of his lifetime, he has performed at the most precise and astonishingly highest levels of sustained excellence.  In the solo piping world he’s won […]