GREY’S NOTES by Michael Grey Piping Today #68, 2014. Angus MacKay. He’ll be known, at least by name, to many of you. Born on September 10, 1813 — under the astrological sign of Virgo — on Raasay, an island off the north-west coast of Scotland, he was to become one […]
More information has come to light on the life of Angus MacKay and of his family. Angus was the musical genius who became the first piper to hold the post of Sovereign’s Piper. He took a mostly oral tradition and put in on the stave and his music collections became […]
Continuing the story of James MacHardy, second piper to Queen Victoria from 1878 until 1881. It was the duty of the pipers to play on the terrace each morning and at dinner each evening. On the occasion of, I think, the Duke of Connaught’s wedding for some reason [Pipe Major […]
Pipe Major McHardy (1863-1938), a native of Aberdeenshire, was a boy piper to Queen Victoria at Balmoral and at other royal residences. From 1878 to 1881 he was assistant to the Queen’s piper, PM William Ross, 42nd Highlanders (Black Watch) who was in that role from 1854-1891. McHardy was one […]
By Archibald Campbell of Kilberry There can be no one alive now who ever heard Angus MacKay play, and few who have heard his playing described at first hand. Sandy Cameron remembered him playing piobaireachd at Maryburgh in his father’s house but he must have been quite a young child […]
At present 60 issues of the Piping Times are out of print, including almost all of volumes 2, 4, 13 and 16. We receive many requests for important articles which appeared in these issues so we have decided to reprint the most essential ones. Every piper should know something of […]
Part 2 of Iain MacInnes’s 2000 John MacFadyen Lecture Competition is very much part and parcel of the piping culture here in Scotland, and its shaped not just the music, but also the style of performance. It all goes back to 1781, when the Highland Society of London started the […]
An interview with the current Sovereign’s Piper, Pipe Major Richard Grisdale, featured in the July 2019 Piping Times. With this year being the bicentenary of the birth of Queen Victoria, who in 1843 instituted the position, we reproduce on bagpipe.news a series of articles written on the subject by Neville […]
From the April 2001 Piping Times “The pipes must lead.” So stated Queen Victoria to her Army top brass in the 1870s, thus ending an unseemly squabble over whether pipes or drums should form the front or rear ranks in the newly formed musical ensemble known as the pipe band. […]
