Category: Solo Piping

RSPBA Keep Minimum Size for Bands/ EUSPBA Winners/ Oban & Inverness

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For the 2024 outdoor season the RSPBA are to continue with the lower minimum numbers of players in bands first introduced after the pandemic. They say that some bands continue to struggle for player numbers post pandemic and without the minimum sizes some might be faced with having to withdraw from a competition if members fall ill.  Minimums in Grade 1 for major and minor contests will be eight pipers,…

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Vintage Set of Pipes For Sale

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Brian MacDonald, son of double Gold Medallist, composer and teacher William M. MacDonald, is offering an historic set of pipes which once belonged to his father. Brian writes: The bagpipes, might have been made by Thow and are pre-1900 as they were originally presented to Colour Sergeant (later Captain) W.H. MacDonald of Kingussie by the officers of the Badenoch Co. 1st Volunteer Battalion Queen’s Own Cameron Highlanders in April 1900….

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History: John MacFadyen Hails Angus MacKay’s Book as a Work of a Genius

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Fifty years ago John MacFadyen, award winning piper, teacher, administrator, wrote a review of a new edition of Angus MacKay’s historically crucial work, ‘A Collection of Ancient Piobaireachd’. The following is from this review, published in the Oban Times in 1973 in John’s ‘Piping World’ column… Conditioned by the materialism of the society in which we live my first reaction to the news that a reprint Angus MacKay’s ‘Collection of…

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‘Talk Piobaireachd’ Tonight / London Piper and His First Prize in 1937

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The next session in the Piobaireachd Society’s popular ‘Talk Piobaireachd’ series of online tutorials is tonight at 8pm GMT. It features champion piper Jack Lee from British Columbia, Canada. Jack will discuss and play two tunes, Black Donald’s March and the Cave of Gold. The first is the tune with which he won his first Gold Medal, at Inverness, in 1981. The second is a more obscure, seldom heard tune,…

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History of Clan MacRae Published in Book Form

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Piping historian Iain Duncan has compiled a neat booklet on the history of the Clan MacRae Society Pipe Band. It is based on the series of five articles published in Piping Press and contains lots of photos and facts all readily accessible, writes the Editor. Not in the book is the photograph above. It was published in ‘Pipe Band’ magazine in the early 1980s and accompanied a letter. The writer,…

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