PP Editor’s Blog: Highland & Islands/ May’s Funeral/ BB Championship/ MacArthur Book Deal

All roads lead to Oban this weekend for the annual Highland & Islands Festival. A good entry in all piping events. Check out the order of play for the seniors here. Check here tomorrow evening for results. Still on solo piping, the entry form for Ardrossan on June 9 can be downloaded here. Check out the updated 2016 Guide to the Games here. May McLellan‘s funeral will be held next…

Choice Tune: Dugald MacColl’s Farewell to France by John MacColl

We are indebted to Calum MacLean, Tobermory, Mull, for this unique, handwritten copy of the famous 2/4 march Dugald MacColl’s Farewell to France – handwritten by the composer himself, the great John MacColl. It was given to Calum’s grandfather by John MacColl and is rightly displayed with pleasure on the wall of Calum’s piping room. The tune was written to commemorate the safe delivery from WW1 of John MacColl’s son…

PP Editor’s Blog: PP Advertising/ Worlds Tickets/ FM Concert/ Johnstone PB/ Lochaber Gath./ Donald Bain

Firstly a message to those commercial enterprises that keep posting their goods on our Facebook page. I’m afraid you cannot get a free ride gents. Advertise with Piping Press and post all you like on our Facebook pages.  Producing Piping Press  costs – but is totally free to readers thanks to the generosity of our current advertisers. It is wrong that they should be expected to subsidise your enterprises too….

How We Won the Worlds – Interview Part 3 by P/M Robert Mathieson

In this concluding part of the interview given after his band, Shotts & Dykehead Caledonia, had triumphed in the 2000 World Pipe Band Championships, the popular pipe major talks us through the actual day of victory. Read the first part of this revealing and informative interview, first published in Pipe Band Magazine, here. ‘I think this year our MSR was better than when we won in 1997, and though people might think…

How We Won the Worlds – Part 2 of P/M Robert Mathieson’s Interview

Now a respected member of the RSPBA’s Adjudicators’ Panel, P/M Robert Mathieson won no less than five World Grade 1 Pipe Band Championships in his highly successful career at the helm of Shotts & Dykehead. Here we run the second part of the interview he gave to Pipe Band Magazine after winning his third in 2000. It will be of great interest to everyone aspiring to similar success. Robert is pictured…