Piping Press

Welcome back! I hope everyone who celebrates Christmas had an enjoyable and fulfilling time. I can say, festivities excepted, that the judges for the John Cruickshank VC composing competition have been hard at work. P/Ms Ian McLellan, Stuart Liddell, Richard Parkes and myself have narrowed the 42 entries down to three finalists and will be spending the next couple of days identifying the best tune for the £1,000 first prize….

Bruce Beavis in Chicago: ‘I’m the P/Sgt for a start-up Grade 5 band and I was thinking about tuning practice chanters.   ‘I’ve been giving a lot of thought to the general topic of musicianship in bagpiping and wonder what your thoughts are.  ‘It seems odd to me that we treat the bagpipe like a musical instrument but spend most of our time practicing on a practice chanter that has…

Pipe Bands South Australia and the RU Brown Piping Society of South Australia have released details of an Australian Solo Piping Championships for light music and associated events in Adelaide on 13 and 14 April 2019. Pipe Bands Australia granted the South Australian branch permission to hold the solo piping championships for light music following the branch’s request for approval of the initiative in commencing the nation’s premier solo piping…

Film producer Alexander Menu has writen to PP: ‘I am contacting you to proudly announce my team and I are working on a European short film about a young bagpiper during the First World War. This has been a passion project of mine for many years. ‘The short film, ‘Sound of the Somme’ is about the last day in the journal of 20-year-old bagpiper James C. Richardson, awarded the Victoria…

By Andrew Reid I am looking for some help in finding out the regimental tunes of the Highland Light Infantry.  As those who know me well will know, I’m the piper for the Highland Light Infantry City of Glasgow Veterans Association.  They’re a good bunch of lads with a keen interest in the history of the regiment and all to do with it. To this end, I thought it’d be only…