I hope children who currently have to learn their piping using eletronic chanters won’t have to do so for too much longer. They have to press the fingers much too hard on the ‘holes’ and as we all know the lighter the grip the better. Learning pipes this way will be like learning piano on an electric keyboard; the sensitivity is all wrong. John MacDougall Gillies advocated treating the chanter…

November 14-15, 2020: The 14th Annual Balmoral Classic, featuring the US Junior Solo Piping & Drumming Championships, began on Saturday morning with piobaireachd contests streaming via YouTube starting at 8:30am EST.  This was the first Balmoral Classic that was online, remote and virtual. Scheduling and logistics were intensive and very competently organized and executed by Sean Patrick Regan, Co-ordinator of Online Programs; Leslie Clark, Balmoral’s Associate Director; Elaine Lee, Marketing…

Further to our concluding episode on pipers and pipe music of WW1, leading piper, composer and adjudicator Bob Worrall of Ontario, Canada, has submitted a poignant retreat march in memory of his grandfather who died in the conflict. Bob writes: ‘My grandfather Albert James Worrall was killed at the Battle of Vimy Ridge on Easter Sunday, 1917. He was 29, leaving behind his wife and five young children.  ‘About 3000…

Now to conclude this series, we will begin with more on Pipe Major William Lawrie, 8th Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders and other famous pipers. Willie Lawrie, a native of Ballachulish in Argyll, was a pupil of John MacColl, Oban, and won both Gold Medals at Oban and Inverness in 1910. Like MacColl, Willie was a gifted composer; his tunes include the competition 2/4s John MacDonald of Glencoe and John MacColl’s March…

A report by leading musicians and scientists has labelled the media’s demonising of the playing of pipes and other woodwind instruments during the Covid-19 pandemic as ‘simply wrong’ and that when suitable mitigations are in place the practice posed no aditional risk at social gatherings. Their comprehensive report is entitled ‘Following the Science: A systematic literature review of studies surrounding singing and brass, woodwind and bagpipe playing during the COVID-19…