One of the great pipe bands of days gone by was the Clan MacRae Society. Piping and Dancing Magazine of 1936 detailed the formation of the now defunct band, and its progress up the competition ladder … The Clan MacRae Society Pipe Band was formed in the autumn of 1913 by the late Pipe Major Farquhar MacRae, under the name The City of Glasgow Pipe Band. The majority of the original members…
Forget the house or the car. The most important decision a piper has to make is the instrument he buys. Get it wrong and face years of wasteful and expensive plumbing trying to make something out of a very bad situation. Get it right and you can have hours of musical satisfaction from an instrument that is easy to reed, steady, and an all round pleasure to play. In short,…
Following on from yesterday’s ‘Choice Tune’, Lord Alexander Kennedy, and a letter from Walter Drysdale, we have his obituary and additional information about the tune’s composer, James Honeyman, and its subject. The picture above is of the 42nd Regiment (The Black Watch) in 1852, while stationed at the Citadel in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Lord Alexander Kennedy was an officer in the regiment and James Honeyman a piper. It is likely Honeyman,…
Our focus today is on the 2/4 pipe march Lord Alexander Kennedy. Now more popular with bands than soloists, it is nevertheless a classic of the genre. ‘Lord Alex’ lends itself to innovation and re-write, and many versions of the tune have appeared and been performed over the years. What I’m presenting today, however, is a copy of the original tune as written by the composer, James Honeyman, and passed…
We complete our feature on the life and times of the late P/M Alasdair Gillies with footage from his funeral held in Ullapool in 2011. Alasdair was laid to rest with many of the world’s top pipers in attendance and one, P/M Niall Matheson, played the Queen’s Own Highlander’s regimental piobaireachd ‘Cabar Feidh gu Brath’ at the graveside. Read the earlier features on Alasdair’s life and times here. Listen to his…
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