Category: History

Editor’s Notebook: Bands Get Ready/ RSPS Results/ Tune Search/ NPC Logo/ Norway Query

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Up at Oban last weekend fellow judge Robert Barnes was telling me his Methil band are struggling to make the first Major at Forres in a month’s time. They’ve lost their drum corps. This is a story we’ve all heard before – and all over the country. There is a real need for some structured teaching programme for drummers (and pipers) that helps a band like Barney’s. Maybe it is…

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History: Famous Composer John Balloch

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My great grandfather was John Balloch [above], the composer of such popular tunes at the 25th KOSB’s Farewell to Meerut and Auchmountain’s Bonnie Glen. His son Donald, my grandfather, was also a piper. Auchmountain’s Bonnie Glen is a well known beauty spot near Greenock where P/M Balloch settled before WW1. There may be other unattributed tunes of his in the Royal Scots Collection by James Robertson. By Stuart Herron His…

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Revisiting the Past: 2/4 Marches and a Letter from Archibald Campbell

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Until the advent of recordings, music was ephemeral. Performances faded from memory, save for occasional outstanding examples imprinted on our minds. Memories become clouded in time, however.  Historic recordings can remind us of what we heard in the past. I am old enough to detect that march playing has arguably deteriorated, even at the highest level.  I can assure readers this is not just a personal view – it is shared…

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Jimmy Anderson 1946-2024

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Jimmy Anderson, who has died aged 77, was a World Pipe Band Championship winning piper with Muirhead and Sons and the man who half a century ago led the introduction of bagpipes into folk groups. His successes at the Worlds came in the legendary Muirheads band of the 1960s, and he was the proud owner of three plaques commemorating wins in 1967, ’68 and ’69. With brothers Peter and Tommy,…

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Royal Honour for the Piobaireachd Society

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His Majesty The King has agreed to become Patron of The Piobaireachd Society. The news was received by President Robert Wallace in a letter from Buckingham Palace last weekend. It was timed to coincide with the first anniversary of the King and Queen’s Coronation. In a message to the Society’s 1,000+ membership Mr Wallace wrote: ‘I am delighted to be able to tell you that HM The King has agreed…

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