I spent a pleasant afternoon at the Shotts Junior contest last Saturday listening to the performances in the 18 and under ceol mor, writes the Editor. There was an outstanding Daughter’s Lament from Luke Kennedy, the winner. One is reluctant to praise too highly youngsters for fear that it goes to their head, but all things being equal this young chap will go far, make no mistake. He tackled this…

Is the Dora MacLeod strathspey now prescribed by the RSPBA’s Music Board for Grade 4 and Novice bands the same tune I remember struggling with in my youth? Is it the same finger twister Peter MacLeod Jnr. wrote for his sister? Surely not. Grade 1 bands and professional pipers shy away from this tune for goodness sake, so how the authorities are going to elicit excellence from the minor grades…

It may have been a financial failure, but 2009’s ‘Homecoming Scotland’ project brought a focus to all the things that are good about the country, certainly from a piping point of view. Ten years on they are just as relevant and brought to mind an encounter I had on a cruise holiday just before HS kicked off, writes the Editor….. Reg was in full flow. ‘I’ve been all over the…

By The Editor I travelled many times to the Canadian province of Saskatchewan in the 1990s to teach under the auspices of their pipe band association. Each time I heard stories of the huge impact P/M Donald MacLeod had made with his pioneering visits in the 1960s. Together with John MacFadyen, Seumas MacNeill and Captain John MacLellan, Donald established the North American summer school piping tradition, a tradition which has…

Another successful Northern Winter School in Germany and I would like to thank all the students in my class for their hard work over the six days of intense study. The full school picture is above and features the majority of the pipers, drummers and drum mjors who attended. The dates for next year’s school have already been announced by Principal Ronnie Bromhead: November 6 -13. The response has been…