Category: Reviews

CLASP 11th November 2023 –  ‘Live Online’ Results

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The Grade 1 Overall winner of this competition receives an invitation to compete in a new CLASP online competition called ‘The World Amateur Solo Piping Champion of Champions’, 2024. This competition launched to celebrate 20 years of CLASP and aims to showcase the best 10 amateur solo pipers in the world using an online platform where audience members can attend. By Margaret Houlihan The competition will run in April 2024…

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Editor’s Notebook: Peter MacFarquhar/ Joint Committee/ J MacDonald Chanter/ Solo Drumming

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Reader Lawrence Macduff has forwarded this fine picture of Peter MacFarquhar, subject of our earlier story, and well known to pipers as the composer of the popular jig, Kenny Gillies of Portnalong. Lawrence writes: ‘Here’s the image of Peter and his second wife Jean, taken as I recall near Kensaleyre on July 4th, 1970, when I was visiting them at their home. ‘Peter, having retired from seafaring around 1969 (I…

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South African Brothers to Publish ‘Binneas is Boreraig’ Using Conventional Stave

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Piobaireachd or Ceòl Mòr, often thought of as the classical music of the Scots Highland Bagpipe, was for centuries passed from master to pupil by chanting the tunes to one another, writes Pat Terry. From about the year 1800, attempts were made to find suitable variations on conventional staff notation to record the music for posterity. One of the more highly regarded of these attempts was published in the 1960s…

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Do Good Players Make Good Judges or Teachers? – Conclusion

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The judging parameters for solo piping have traditionally been less regulated than those for pipe bands. (There has never been any formal criteria for solo drumming either.)  Nevertheless there are grounds for arguing that the skill requirements for adjudicating solo piping and drumming are much the same as for bands.  With bands, these basic requirements and abilities should apply to every adjudicator, irrespective of discipline, piping, drumming or ensemble.  Some…

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Do Good Players Make Good Teachers or Judges?

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The subjects of teaching and adjudication are never far from the surface in the piping and pipe band world. Both can attract widely differing views and can be contentious. There is no doubt that much has changed over the years in methods of teaching piping and drumming. What has certainly not changed is the need to learn properly the basic rudiments, embellishments and musical theory relevant to both musical disciplines. An article…

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