Category: Pipe Bands

World Online Contest Entries Open/ New Tune for Norman

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Jori Chisholm has launched the spring edition of his ‘World Online’ competitions for pipers and drummers. To enter the band/ duet contest click here. To enter the solo contest click here. Here’s how the online competitions work:• Register by March 8, 2022• Video entries by March 23• Judges watch videos and write comments for every performance• Results and winning performances posted online March 30 Prolific composer Niall Matheson has written…

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No New Classics and ‘Same Old, Same Old’ with our Competition Marches, Strathspeys and Reels

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I suspect that what I write will attract comments from others who do not share my opinion. I hope we can have an interesting dialogue.  GS McLennan, John MacColl, Willie Lawrie, Roddy Campbell, where have you gone?  We miss your music, your composing genius. (That’s MacColl’s masterpiece, Dugald MacColl’s Farewell to France, in the composer’s hand above.) By Dale Brown Today’s new music seems concentrated on hornpipes and jigs.  Admittedly, they often…

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WW2 Piping: As the Battles Raged Abroad the Music Continued at Home

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On the Home Front, many pipers who were either too old or two young for service in the forces, or who were in reserved occupations, joined the Home Guard and many pipe bands were formed within that organisation.   John Seton served with the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders during the First World War and afterwards joined the Glasgow Police. For many years he was the Drum Major of the police band….

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

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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,…

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WW2 Piping: John Wilson ‘Not Dead’ and the Reel of the 51st Highland Division

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In January 1940 John Wilson went over to France with his regiment. He was taken prisoner at St Valery in June 1940 and lost his pipe case and all the contents. He spent the rest of the war in prisoner of war camps.  His ‘death’ was reported in the pages of Piping and Dancing magazine but in the issue of the following month it was reported that he was not…

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