It is pleasing to see that the Scottish Government’s Education Committee has ruled that music tuition in our schools should be provided free of charge to pupils, writes the Editor. Pleasing, but unless the administration puts money where it matters it will just be another blast of well meaning hot air. It is a fact that pupils learning a musical instrument, and that includes pipers and drummers, do better at…

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…