Category: Pipe Bands

Argyllshire Gathering Score Major Success with New Intermediate Piping Championship

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The Lochnell Estate lies low on a wooded spit of land jutting out into the Firth of Lorne. Sheltered on its eastern lee sits a castle, home of the Cochrane clan for 100 years and the Campbells for centuries before. For most of last Saturday its ancient walls resounded to the call of the bagpipe. There may have been some unkind things said about the sea-going Cochranes back in Admiral…

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The Progress of the Pipe Band and the Importance of Learning from History – Part 2

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Some of the concerns over ensemble, drumming prizes, tempos and judges in tents, have of course been remedied over the years since the 1950s.  Adjudicators of RSPBA pipe band competitions for many years have no longer been hidden in tents (although that has generated new concerns regarding whether they should be static or move around the competing bands; and whether they should be allowed to share tents and confer with…

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Editor’s Notebook: RSPBA Appointments/ Early Days of the 214/ Norman Matheson/ Book Search

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I see that the RSPBA are holding elections for the jobs of Piping and Summer School Principals. This is a statutory procedure which will be carried out at the first Pipe Band College AGM in November. I understand John Nevans is standing again for the summer school job. In my view it would be remiss of the Association’s member bands and branches not to re-elect him. In John they have…

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History: P/Sgt John Maclean, Scots Guards, the 1930 Northern Meeting and a Tribute to Mary Queen of Scots

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I was interested in the Piping Press article (6th Sept. Donald Morrison Archive) regarding the Northern Meeting piping competitions 1930, which mentioned my father John Maclean (North Uist). Only minor error in the newspaper’s report was that my father was in fact Pipe-SERGEANT, not Pipe-Major. He was later Pipe-Major 2nd Btn. HLI. In the Gold Medal he, like Nicol, played Cille Chriosd (Glengarry’s March). His fellow Guardsman, Malcolm ‘Baggy’ MacMillan was…

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The Progress of the Pipe Band and the Importance of Learning from History

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In any organisation it is always good practice to study its history before attempting to make changes or further develop its structure, policies or procedures.  History has a habit of repeating itself on a cyclical basis, so it is always worth considering the background to previous decisions to avoid repeating previous mistakes.  It is also always worth considering whether seemingly new ideas have actually been tried before and failed.  The…

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