Category: Solo Piping

Editor’s Notebook: Willie Ross and Robert Reid/ Book Plea/ Gordon’s Tune/ Clan MacRae and Glasgow Skye

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I am sure P/M Willie Ross did seminal service to piping when he streamlined the playing and writing of our ceòl beag technique. Gone were the doublings on C with the two D gracenotes, the open style of taorluath writing, the heavy D throw, the gracenoted birl. His six books also provided a catalogue of standard settings of many of the classic competition tunes in versions that everyone agreed were…

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Were Wallacestone Pipe Band the First World Champions 120 Years Ago?

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We have received this intriguing information from expert piping historian and author Jeannie Campbell: ‘In 1903 a contest was held in the Waverley Market, Edinburgh. ‘Thirteen bands took part and the contest was reported in the papers as the World’s First Pipe Band Championship. The winners were Wallacestone and their opening march was Bonnie Anne.’ The band is pictured above with the handsome trophy with all the personnel clearly named….

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William Grant Foundation Leads the Way in Supporting Piping and Pipe Bands

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There can be few companies around that have done more to support piping than William Grant, the independent whisky distillers, writes the Editor. True to the wishes of their founding philanthropist Sandy Grant Gordon, the company continues to pour money into our art, these days through its charity wing, the William Grant Foundation. It states: ‘William Grant & Sons has always taken a long-term view to support its people, its…

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The KOSBs, Willie Bryson and a Mysterious Name Change of One of His Tunes

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I am fortunate to have in my possession an army piper’s manuscript book. It is dated August 1941 and it belonged to Corporal W.E. Grieve, 6th Battalion of the King’s Own Scottish Borderers. It contains many competition tunes well beyond regimental basic requirements. As I was searching for tunes relating to WW2, one four-parted 6/8 march, Crossing the Odon, by the well-known Willie Bryson (pictured), caught my eye immediately. The River…

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Black Watch Regimental Museum in Perth is of Considerable Interest to All Pipers

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Many years ago I did an article for the Piping Times detailing the must-see piping monuments and venues dotted around Scotland. They included the Angus MacKay Cairn on the Nith, the College of Piping, the Bobs of Balmoral Cairn on Deeside and Calum Piobair’s monument in Badenoch. To that list you may now like to add the Black Watch Museum, Perth. Among the many hundreds of items on display are…

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