The death has been reported of Trevor Dear, pipe major, pipe band adjudicator, teacher and pipe music collector. Trevor, who was 79, had been ill for some time and died in hospital yesterday evening. He had been due for discharge but collapsed and could not be revived. Trevor was born in Forfar, Angus, and began piping aged seven being taught by P/M Norman Meldrum of Invercauld, Braemar. After what he…

One of the great advantages of the piping ‘off season’, if there is such a thing these days, is that it gives us the chance to look back through old competition and recital programmes and newspaper clippings, and publish interesting articles which would otherwise be lost to posterity. This is from a recital promoted by the Eagle Pipers’ Society in 1966: There must have been quite a turnout for P/M…

By Robert Wallace A reader in the US has written: ‘I’ve joined a new competition band with another bandmate; we’re competing in about two weeks. Yesterday, there was some contention concerning the correct beating for a taorluath. My friend and I have always played the embellishment with the beat on the E grace note; that’s how we learned it from a book. ‘Several of the other band members, including the…

Speaking to a piper who plays with Closkelt (above) over at the All Ireland’s. He told me that P/M David Chesney is very strict about who he lets into the band hence they never have that superabundance of pipers that seems to be de rigueur with today’s Grade 1s. I hope David’s band don’t suffer a visual deficit when they stride on to the big arena next year. Everyone is…

I write from my room overlooking the Irish Sea. Just north of Dublin. I’m here for the All Ireland Solos. Two hundred and one pipers and drummers. Yes, that’s right 201 and not a penny in prizemoney. The record entry is split 55-45% in the pipers’ favour. By Robert Wallace John Wilson and I are picked up by the Irish Pipe Band Associations’s Vice President Seamus Russell. A fiddle with…