Jimmy McIntosh on the archive report on Willie MacDonald, Benbecula’s Clasp in 1967: ‘My late friend Peter Forbes and myself stayed with Willie at that time. (Peter served in the HLI with Willie.) That morning when we were getting ready to go to Rose Street [the venue for the competition], Willie didn’t have his kilt jacket. His wife Margaret had forgotten to get it from the dry cleaners so Willie…

Paul Brown at Kingdom Thisle pipe band supplies in Fife sent the YouTube link below and this question: ‘I know this is a bit strange but we played a tune with Dysart and Dundonald a while ago and I’m trying to get the name of it. I think it’s one of Robert’s compositions. Do you think he could tell me the name of it?‘ The tune is the Isle of…

The music here is by the hand of the legendary John MacDougall Gillies and belonged to his pupil Robert Reid. Check out the full score below where you can just make out Reid’s signature bottom right ‘Property of Pipe Major Robert Reid’. All piobaireachd players will recognise the tune as MacFarlane’s Gathering or, as is given here, ‘Togail nam Bo’ (Taking of the Cattle’), rustling to Western fans. I read…

Congratulations to Inveraray Pipe Band for being chosen as ‘Pipe Band of the Year’ and to Iain Ruari Finlayson as ‘Music Tutor of the Year’ at Saturday’s Scottish Traditional Music Awards. It was the third time that Inveraray, the current World Champions, had won this award sponsored by the Gordon Duncan Memorial Trust. Their prize was picked up by band members Ross Miller and Callum Brown. Iain Ruairi is the…

It has been a long haul but the UK’s bagpipe manufacturers have finally been released from the red tape that added greatly to their costs and paperwork. From December 14, 2019, they will no longer have to comply with strict export and import licence requirements which cover African blackwood. From that date they will only have too prove that their raw material comes from a licensed supplier (who in turn…