Month: November 2014

Shotts & Dykehead Juvenile Contest (updated with pictures and comment)

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New Shotts Contest Set to Be an Annual Event after 2014 Success Robert Wallace writes: This was a well-run competition. It was held at Calderhead High School, Shotts (a superb facility), with sponsorship from pipes/drums, RG Hardie, D Naill & Co., TyFry Drumsticks, The National Piping Centre, D2 Percussion, Jim Kilpatrick Percussion, Scott Currie One Stop Pipe Band Shop, Canning Reeds, MacLeod Highland Supplies, McCallum Bagpipes.  Well done to all of them…

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PP Editor’s Blog 28/11/14

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Firstly I must express my personal sadness at the passing of Denver Cardwell. A real character he was; a man to make you laugh but with a humour underpinned by a profound knowledge of piping and pipe bands. Firm in his views and in his friends; loyal to the last. If life’s about laughing then Denver lived it to the full. Who will forget the stairheid clash between him and…

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Denver Cardwell

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It is with regret that we report the passing of respected pipe band adjudicator Denver Cardwell (74) of Portadown, Northern Ireland. He was a member of the RUC band in the 1970s and 80s and later joined the RSPBA’s Adjudicator Panel. Denver had been unwell after suffering a stroke last weekend. The Northern Ireland Branch of the RSPBA said: ‘We express our deepest sympathy to the family of Piping Adjudicator…

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Breadalbane’s Pipers

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Two interesting items today for our readers. They will be of particular interest to those with an eye and an ear for piping history concerning as they do pipers in Perthshire in the late 19th century. Firstly we have a letter about a piper, James Robertson (left), who, his descendents tell us, was piper to the Earl of Breadalbane. Then in an article we take a longer look at a few…

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James Campbell, Piobaireachd Expert and Gentleman

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The final excerpt of Jonathan Gillespie’s lecture on his tutor James Campbell of Kilberry is published today. In it Jonathan discusses some of James’s favourite tunes and names the performers. He also records James’s uneasiness with placing too much reliance on old manuscripts and allowing them to dictate the way tunes should be played in the modern era. He highlights the importance of James’s writings, in particular his ‘Elusive Appoggiatura’…

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