Editor’s Notebook: Band Sizes/ Piping Centurions/ SPA Professional/ Duncan Johnstone/ CLASP Results

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I hope the RSPBA AGM devotes a good bit of time to a serious discussion on band sizes…or at least appoints a working group to examine properly the reasons for the decline in the number of pipe bands in Scotland. With only six Grade 1 bands and reductions further down the pecking order, this is not something that should be dismissed lightly under the banner ‘it’s all been tried before…

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RSPBA AGM – Order Paper Analysed

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Our experts have had a trawl through the order paper for the RSPBA’s 95th AGM to be held this Saturday, March 14. This will be a hybrid meeting both online and in-person at Washington Street HQ. All bands who have paid their subs should have received an invite……… The order paper gets off to a bad start – the date on the front cover is 2025. The same applies on page…

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Dysart Drumming Title and Amazing Success

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Last week’s feature on the Dysart had merely suggested their drum corps had won the Worlds in 1975 at Corby, I tried to confirm this through a 2023 publication by a pretty reliable source and found it given as Shotts & Dykehead, writes Iain Duncan However authoritative responses to the original article suggested otherwise, so to confirm this one way or the other I contacted Joshua Baird at RSPBA Headquarters…

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Scottish Schools Championship/ Stirling Junior Solos

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Young musicians from a record-breaking 172 schools across Scotland gathered in Kilmarnock last Sunday for the Scottish Schools Pipe Band Championships, marking the largest number of schools ever involved in the event’s 12-year-history, writes Lesley Wilkinson. Held at the William McIlvanney Campus, the Championships welcomed 51 bands and ten quartets from every corner of the country, with 90% of participating schools coming from the state sector. Organised by the Scottish Schools Pipes…

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Review of the 2026 Uist & Barra Professional

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Pity those who weren’t at Otago Street last Saturday for the 79th Annual Uist & Barra Professional. We heard two piobaireachd that would have won any competition anywhere – and I’m talking senior events at Oban/ Inverness – and some flowing ceòl beag that wasn’t to be sniffed at either. By Robert Wallace The two tunes I mention were from Callum Beaumont and Finlay Johnston. There wasn’t a gossamer strand…

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