A five-year long revision of the Piobaireachd Society’s collection of Books 1-16 has been completed. It took many hours of work by myself and Society Music Editor Jack Taylor but the results are very satisfying.
Many of the anomalies and errors accumulated in the 100 years since the collection was begun by Sheriff Grant of Rothiemurchus and Archibald Campbell, Kilberry. No one plays a crunluath a mach in Lament for the Children (did anyone ever?) yet it there it was in Book 3. Now gone.
The popular Kilberry setting of Lord Lovat’s Lament – not in the old collection. Now inserted. Lament for Donald Duaghal MacKay – the setting everyone plays is now given pride of place.
Loads of other smaller corrections have been made and neglected settings introduced. On the technical side, fonts have been standardised, headlines matched, and layouts are much easier on the eye.
You can get all 16 books in digital download form for £100, just over £6 per book. Click here.
Ian McLellan
Thanks to everyone for their comments regarding the great Ian. I can do no more than echo the sentiments. Ian’s funeral arrangements are as follows:
Friday, 19th December, Glasgow Cathedral 1.30pm; thence to Dalnottar Crematorium, Clydebank, 3.30pm; thence to Windyhill Gold Club, Bearsden.
Breton piper Patrick Molard captured Ian’s march playing at Oban in 1971. I think there is a bit of tape acceleration here, but the class shines through in his performance of Arthur Bignold:
Thanks for forwarding Patrick.
Drum Solos
Well done to Cam Lawson for organising the professional drum solo contest in Glasgow in January, and for ensuring that the piper accompanying the winner will receive a cash prize too. The piper is so important to the competing drummer. They must work together if the stick man is to find success.
More generally the competition shows the interest there is in developing a solo circuit for the top drummers. I’m sure the RSPBA, who run the World Solo Drumming, will applaud this initiative and help wherever they can – freeing their judges to take part for example.
Kintyre Collection
Iain Duncan tells me he still has a few copies of his excellent Kintyre Collection left. The book was mentioned in his article on Campbeltown’s Ceannloch band this week. Iain says: ‘I still have six copies of the Springbank Kintyre Collection left.
‘I’ve never actually tried to sell these residual copies although Eric Stein took six after the Worlds last year and sold them at the 2024 Sun Belt Invitational.’
The book is full of great tunes. Contact Iain here.
Ben Duncan Recital
Ben is front and centre at the Gordon Highlanders Museum tonight in Aberdeen. Here’s the poster:
Correspondence
Bruce Erskine: ‘Looking forward to the 17th of January to hear those amazing sets from the ‘Live ‘n Well’ concert played by some of the world’s best pipers including my good friend Andy Wright. Andy actually played at ‘Live ‘n Well’ and played two brilliant up-beat matches. This is going to be a blast from the past; got my tickets.’
Stephen Beattie: ‘I’m seeking clarification on the wording of a piece of text in an advert in Lt. G de M H Orpen Palmer’s book ‘Irish Airs for the War Pipes’. The page in question is shown below:
‘If anyone can confirm the text in the three lines towards the foot of the page and immediately above ‘G BUTLER & SONS’ (beginning with ‘As supplied to ……’) I would be very grateful.
Stephen can be contacted on: stephen_beattie@yahoo.co.uk
Crispin Lewis: ‘This is a long shot, but you never know! I was reading with interest the history of Paterson’s Publications on your website, written by Geoff Hore. He mentions Michael Diack’s part in the story, during the 1920s.
‘I am writing a biography of a colleague and friend of Diack’s, Herbert Murrill, and am keen to track down any correspondence which might have taken place between the two. I would be extremely grateful if you had any ideas of anyone I could talk to about this. It is just possible that the family of Diack has kept his correspondence. Very many thanks.’ Contact Crispin here.
Bagpipes – DN1, High Quality Instrument
The DN1 bagpipe by David Naill is a high quality, entry-level bagpipe in African blackwood, fully beaded and combed with beaded nickel ferrules and caps, imitation ivory projecting mounts, polypenco pipe chanter, Canmore synthetic bag (zipper bag extra – hide bags on request), with velvet cover and silk cords.
There’s a choice of green, blue, wine or black. Pipe supplied without reeds. View …
