Category: Letters

Editor’s Notebook: The Never Decreasing Circle/ Develop the Worlds Medley/ Bob McFie/ Miscellany

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For all the detailed, cogent explanation given by Alistair Aitken for judging inconsistency in pipe band competition the main culprit, in my view, is the circle formation used virtually unchanged by the RSPBA for not far off 100 years. I’ve droned on about this long and weary, but with judges wandering about the playing area seemingly at random, different walking patterns for every band, is it any wonder there’s a…

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

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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…

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

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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…

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New Contest to Honour the Memory of James Campbell, Kilberry

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James Campbell had at least two discrete sets of ardent followers. To some, he was a doyen of the piobaireachd world, the son of Archibald Campbell of The Kilberry Book of Ceòl Mòr (who knew all of the tunes in that book off by heart) and a once regular judge of competition. To others he was a superb academic lawyer and much-loved Fellow of Pembroke College, Cambridge, where hetaught Roman…

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

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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…

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