Category: Pipe Bands

78th Fraser Highlanders Concert Remembered

Posted on      by     

Our main feature today is an article by Northern Ireland piper Kenny Stewart on the historic concert given by Bill Livingstone’s 78th Fraser Highlanders Pipe Band in Ballymena, Ken’s home town, in 1987. Ken tells us of the origins of the show, how it was organised and how the band impressed so many people with their playing only a few days before they lifted the World Champion crown, the first…

More 78th Fraser Highlanders Concert Remembered

PP Editor’s Blog: Canntaireachd Explanation/ RACPADS Donation etc

Posted on      by     

Reader Thomas Mitchell asks about canntaireachd: ‘Thank you for posting the link to the Piping Press Shop for the Gesto Canntaireachd PDF book which I just downloaded. I remember watching a video years ago of interviews with pipers. One gentleman discussed the merits of pipers learning to sing canntaireachd as it was his contention that the singing could show subtleties of phrasing that are more difficult to put into standard musical notation. Have…

More PP Editor’s Blog: Canntaireachd Explanation/ RACPADS Donation etc

PP Ed’s Blog: Tuition Funding/ Vale Recruiting/ Govan Pipers/ SFU/ FMM Tickets

Posted on      by     

Both Les Hutt and Barry Donaldson make some very good points about the demise of our mining communities and their contribution to piping and pipe bands and the lack of recognition thereof. It is apposite that their comments should come in the week that we saw the closure of the last deep coal mine in the UK – an industry which at its zenith, in 1913, employed a million men, men who fuelled an…

More PP Ed’s Blog: Tuition Funding/ Vale Recruiting/ Govan Pipers/ SFU/ FMM Tickets

Wheel of Fortune Date Announced as Edinburgh Band Remembers its Mining Roots

Posted on      by     

The ninth annual ‘Pipe Majors’ Wheel of Fortune’ competition will be held on Saturday 13th February 2016 in Danderhall Miners Club, near Edinburgh.  Hosted by the City of Edinburgh Pipe Band, the event is a well-established and highly popular fixture on Scotland’s solo piping calendar. Some facts: The City of Edinburgh Pipe Band competes in Grade 2 and is the senior band in Scotland’s capital. The ‘Wheel of Fortune’ competition provides…

More Wheel of Fortune Date Announced as Edinburgh Band Remembers its Mining Roots

PP Ed’s Blog: Tumbledown Mountain/ BB Results/ Piping Tuition

Posted on      by     

My report the other day on P/M Peter MacInnes and his tune for Captain John Young brought to mind Peter’s own heroism and that of his piper colleagues in the 2nd Battalion Scots Guards during the 1982 Falklands War. Many youngsters now learn the tune Crags of Tumbledown Mountain by P/M James Riddell, Scots Guards, but how many know the story behind the tune? The picture above was taken on…

More PP Ed’s Blog: Tumbledown Mountain/ BB Results/ Piping Tuition