Tag: Roderick Cannon

The elusive appoggiatura

The elusive appoggiatura

In the spring 2000 edition of The Voice, Dr. John A. MacAskill conducted an interview with James Campbell, the son Archibald Campbell of Kilberry. When MacAskill asked him what he considered to be his greatest legacy, Campbell replied: “… I have taken pride in my contribution in the Piping Times […]

A fresh start for pibroch inclusion

A fresh start for pibroch inclusion

The altpibroch website, which has lain dormant since the death of ceòl mòr scholar J. David Hester, has been rebranded and relaunched as The Pibroch Network. The website curates a network of digital resources devoted to the learning, teaching, performance and wider public appreciation of pibroch. Known as The Alt […]

The Glen shop pictured in 1977. Through the initiative of Professor Hugh Cheape, the National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland purchased the bagpipe collections from the family in 1983.

Pioneers of bagpipe notation

The literature of the Highland bagpipePioneers of bagpipe notation – Angus MacKay (Raasay) By Captain John A. MacLellan Much of the early bagpipe music was published by the Glen family who came to Edinburgh from the Kingdom of Fife, just across the Firth of Forth. By the mid-1830s the brothers, […]

Piobaireachd Society Secretary, Bill Wotherspoon plays at the grave of one of piping's great figures of the past, Major General C. S. Thomason. 2011 was the centenary of his death.

The Piobaireachd Society salutes its first president, General Thomason

By John KS Frater Major General Charles Simeon Thomason, one of the leading figures of the great Highland bagpipe, died on July 12, 1911. The first President of the Piobaireachd Society (PS), he had become quite an obscure figure until fellow Sapper and piper, Brian MacKenzie brought him to life […]

Those alternative settings are sometimes worth an airing

Those alternative settings are sometimes worth an airing

By Peter McCalister For better or worse, tune settings in the Kilberry book, and in the Piobaireachd Society’s (PS) collection, have become known as the ‘usual’ versions – and other versions as ‘alternative’ settings. Why play an alternative setting of a tune? The PS has, over the last 80 years […]

Cha Till mi Tuille

Cha Till mi Tuille

By Roderick Cannon The piobaireachd MacCrimmon will Never Return is famous from the setting published in Angus MacKay’s book, and from the song which is still sung, both in Gaelic and in an English translation. But the oldest pipe setting we have is much less well known. It is one […]

Roderick Cannon.

Salute to Roderick Cannon

By Hugh Cheape, MBE Pìobaireachd is not an easy subject but Roderick Cannon was its master. This was his chosen field in the study of the music of the Great Highland Bagpipe and, more particularly, of the type of composition regarded as its ‘classical music’. In spite of the prominence […]