Piping Press

So there we have it. All the judges for the 2020 season of pipe band major championships issued timeously by the volunteers of the RSPBA. Regular as dawn, year after year. The season begins to take shape and bands feel the excitement grow as May approaches. Remember this when next you read of these attempts to undermine Willie Sloan’s 90 year old creation. It has been, and remains, a force…

RSPBA Headquarters in Washington Street, Glasgow, have confirmed the judging panels for this year’s five major championships. Beginning with the Worlds in Glasgow August 14/15 we have for the Friday, Grade 1 Qualifier: On Saturday the judges for all grades are as follows: More….. For the first Major of the season, the British at Paisley on May 23 we have: This information appears courtesy the RSPBA. Adjudicator allocations for all…

By The Editor A couple of days ago we reported on the 1938 spat between DR MacLennan and an Oban Times reviewer (anonymous) who had the temerity to question GS McLennan’s predilection for G gracenotes on birls at the ends of marches. The subject of the review was P/M Willie Ross’s Book 3, first published that year. There are some other interesting points of information in the text and we…

We are grateful to reader Steve Thomson from Dumbarton, but now resident in Detroit, Michigan, for alerting us to this previously unknown piece of pipe band history. The Ford band is pictured above in 1939. The story is from ‘The Henry Ford’ an innovation and history project. It reads: If you’re out celebrating St. Patrick’s Day you’re sure to hear the sound of the bagpipes. In America, you’ll most likely…

Pipe Major William Ross’s third book of ceòl beag appeared in 1938 and was reviewed anonymously in the Oban Times newspaper. The review was positive, congratulating the author and publisher on ‘a notable addition to the literature of the Highland bagpipe’. However one paragraph set the fans and family of piper and composer GS McLennan all aquiver. It read: ‘…..but Pipe Major Ross has avoided the grosser forms of exagerration…