Every so often we hear suggestions about opening the pipe band competition circle to make it more audience friendly. This Piping Times editorial from Seumas MacNeill shows it was being discussed 50 years ago along with an even more radical suggestion of adding a conductor to the performance! By SEUMAS […]
The 50th Glenfiddich Piping Championship is only two days away on October 29, 2023, and one can only hope it matches or exceeds “the best one yet” accolade that Seumas MacNeill gave to the 1977 Championship in his Piping Times report. However, in Seumas’s report below the reader will find […]
In the build up to the 50th Glenfiddich Piping Championship on October 29 we take another look through Piping Times back issues to Seumas MacNeill’s report from the Grant’s Championship in 1976. Seumas gives the contest a big build up in anticipation of hearing world class performances, but a tinge […]
With the 50th anniversary of the Glenfiddich Piping Championship approaching on October 28, we take a look through the Piping Times archives to a report titled Grant’s Championship, as the competition was originally known. Piping Times was edited by Seumas MacNeill at that time, and although the article below was […]
1977 BY JEANNIE CAMPBELL MBE Competitors in the Northern Meeting Clasp Competition and the Argyllshire Gathering Open Piobaireachd competition in 1977 were required to select and submit four from the following list of six tunes: Sobieski’s Salute, The Stewarts’ White Banner, Mary’s Praise, The MacDonalds’ Salute (the tune Fannet would […]
1976 BY JEANNIE CAMPBELL MBE The Gathering had remained unchanged for many years but 1976 marked a watershed with the first of several big changes coming in the force. In January 1976 Seumas MacNeill wrote: “1976 is going to be – for piping at least – a great deal different […]
Dr Masami Yamane, who founded the Tokyo Pipe Band in 1975, and is credited as being the first piper in Japan, died in February 2022 aged 91.
1973 By Jeannie Campbell MBE In September 1972, under the headline ‘Girl Pipers to Breach Male Stronghold’, The Press and Journal had this: “Two girls will challenge a men-only bastion when they enter one of the top piping competitions at the National Mòd in Inverness on October 7. And the […]
1970-1971 By Jeannie Campbell MBE In 1970, the Gathering took place on August 26-27. The set tunes for the Open and Clasp competitions were The Big Spree (including tripling and Crunluath variations), Lord Lovat’s Lament, Craigellachie, Nameless (Hiharin Odin Hiharin Dro), Clanranald’s Salute and The Prince’s Salute. Four were to […]
Gordon Duncan (1964-2005) inspired a whole generation of pipers in his own lifetime in a way no piper has ever done before or since. As the December 2015 edition of the Piping Times stated, his influence on the current generation is apparent even though some are perhaps too young to […]
