It is hoped that the presentation of the tune for John Cruickshank VC will take place at a lunch in May and that the winner Dave Mason will be able to attend from the US to play it for him. The promoters, the Royal Northern and University Club, Aberdeen, are planning to present Mr Cruickshank and the winner with a memorial plaque to mark the occasion. Mr Cruickshank (98) does…

After a long day of competition across multiple categories for pipes, snare, tenor and bass, the prize giving ceremony in the grand ballroom of the Marriot Hotel celebrated the 2019 winners. With some of the best prizes on the circuit being presented (pipes, drums, travel stipends), not to mention the classic Winter Storm medals, a packed house awaited the pronouncements.  Attendees will go through workshops today with the judges now…

A new teaching item has been aded to the Piping Press Shop, writes the Editor.  Classic Strathspeys & Reels features many of the standard competition tunes. Each is played by myself at practice tempo and then closer to performance tempo on the practice chanter. This means the student can play along with the recording and get a good idea of how the tune should be presented. Here’s a free sampler:…

Fifty years ago P/M Donald MacLeod was intoning against learning piobaireachd ‘parrot fashion’. (See the advert he ran in the ‘Piping World’ magazine issue we highlighted last week.) This is the great danger in relying on CD or archive recordings as the sole source of your study. Almost as bad as following printed scores to the letter. Rote learning can only ever take you so far. An educated ear will…

Congratulations to Dave Mason on winning the John Cruickshank VC composing competition. I think his tune is one that will be played and thus serve the memory of a true war hero. It was a very difficult competition to judge made all the easier working with legendary figures such as Ian McLellan, Richard Parkes and Stuart Liddell. On going through the entries one was struck by how difficult it is…