Category: Tuition

P/M Iain Robertson 1976-2023: A Tribute

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It was with great sadness I heard of the passing of my friend Pipe Major Iain Mitchell Robertson. Iain died peacefully at his home in Palmerston North, New Zealand, on Saturday, 14th December, after a long battle with cancer. He was 46. Affectionally known as ‘Robbo’ by most, he was one of New Zealand’s top solo pipers, judges, teachers, and a long-time member and Pipe Major of the Grade 1 New…

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Review: Recording the Folklore and Pipe Music of Nova Scotia

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Twenty five years ago Professor Dan MacInnes gave the annual John MacFadyen Memorial Lecture. His subject was piping in Nova Scotia and the wider Canadian Maritimes. The winters were so severe for the first settlers, said the professor, that hardly a bagpipe survived. They literally cracked up – no doubt along with some of the early adventurers. By Robert Wallace They had never experience the biting bitterness of the ‘big…

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Editor’s Notebook: ‘Pipeline’ Axed/ Copyright Appeal/ Highland Dress/ Andrew Wright/ Florida Academy

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So it seems the mainstream media has caught up with Piping Press and our story about the axing of key BBC Radio Scotland music shows including ‘Pipeline’. We even had one scribe claiming as an exclusive his report a full month after you read it here first. That’s how it goes and is not really important. What is is that we do all we can get the management at BBC…

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History: GS, Bob Nicol and the 1926 Northern Meeting

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The results below, and the photograph above, are of undoubted interest to all pipers. The photograph is of George S McLennan and Robert B Nicol, clearly at a Highland Games. Not surprisingly, the original photograph, almost 100 years old, has faded due to age and the bottom of it has been torn off. What you see is one considerably enhanced thanks to modern-day technology. I found the picture in the effects of…

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The Musical Passion of a Victorian Amateur Piper – Part 3

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We conclude our illuminating article on Charles Keene, 1823 -1891 (above), the Victorian illustrator, piper and contributor to the satirical magazine ‘Punch’. Excerpts are from the ‘Life and Letters of Charles Samuel Keene’ by Georgew Somes Layard, London 1892… I have to thank you again for the loan of the books which I am packing up for you and will send off today, but I would not practice from them,…

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