Be a Better Piper: Dre and Edre and the Crunluath

Reader Paul Eschenburg in Plymouth, Michigan: ‘A question from the trenches…I have always played the dre movement as instructed by my tutor. ‘When I mentioned to him that Jimmy McIntosh espouses the pre-1895 version as described in his ‘Ceol Mor in the Balmoral Tradition’, page 29, I was just told ‘we are not going to do it that way’. By Robert Wallace ‘Jimmy is very adamant regarding this movement as…

Editor’s Notebook: Spotlight on London/ Ross of the Guards/ Sunbelt Contest/ Lachie Robertson

London’s piping heritage will come under focus this evening in the fourth of the Piobaireachd Society’s season of ‘Talk Piobaireachd’ sessions. In the hot seat will be the Society’s Treasurer Roddy Livingstone. The ‘first city of the Empire’ has always had a prominent role to play in pipng too. Consider the regimental bands of the Guards, the Queen’s Piper, Campbells at nearby Cambridge, Dr MacPhail, the Bratach Gorm, Les Cowell…

Editor’s Notebook: Hopeful Signs for 2022 Season/ Dale Brown/ Ken Eller/ Northern Meeting 1971

Whether coincidental or by design, the considerably more positive statement which has appeared on the RSPBA website subsequent to my comments of last week regarding the forthcoming pipe band season, are to be welcomed. The Association is working hard on the majors (judges, stewards, compilers), is filling in gaps on the minors, and has their promoters, our cash-strapped Scottish local authorities, in constant and close contact. The feeling in Washington…

Editor’s Notebook: Pipe Band Season/ Cameron Kirk/ Kids Pipes/ James’s Album/ Northern Meeting 1971

I am told that the form the 2022 pipe band season will take will be decided at a Board of Directors meeting prior to the online RSPBA AGM on March 12. The fact that the AGM itself is online is a worry, although I can see the benefits of the wider reach it gives the Association. A frisson of fear runs through the spine when, on checking the RSPBA calendar,…

How Lanarkshire Bands Led the Way in the Development of the ‘Long’ 2/4 Competition March

Yesterday’s story on the eight-part Maggie Cameron brought to mind an article I wrote 20 years ago about the development of Marches, Strathspeys and Reels from four to six and eight part mega pieces, writes the Editor. It was all to do with giving the pipe band more of a stretch. The top outfits were sick of puny wee Rejected Suitor and four-part Loch Loskin to say nothing of Charles…