Piping Today Issue 51

PROMOTING THE MUSIC, HISTORY & STUDY OF THE BAGPIPES

Ross Walker Boghall and Bathgate on the rise

Andrew Bonar

The 2010 Silver Medallist makes the most of his opportunities

Dollar Academy and George Watson’s College

THE MUSIC OF THE MACKAYS OF RAASAY

The Piper’s House PART THREE

MacCrimmon family connections Tribute to Malcolm Roderick MacCrimmon

What it takes to be World Champions

Grey’s Notes by Michael Grey Wandering Pipers

Thomas Zöller’s Dudelsack-Akademie

Stuart Robertson’s Nine Notes

With Simon Blackshaw

Apr/May 2011

Piping cultures flourish in Germany

N Y P B o S n e w s l e t t e r N o . 48

PRICE - UK £3.30 • EUROPE

ISSUE NUMBER 51 • 2011 5 • CANADA AND USA $6.50

contents

Editorial 5 Roddy MacLeod News 6

Boghall and Bathgate on the rise Ross Walker

10

The Piper’s House — Part Three The Mackays of Raasay

14

Making the most of his opportunities Andrew Bonar

22

Youngstars newsletter No.48 The National Youth Pipe Band

25

Dollar Academy and George Watson’s College What it takes to be World Champions

30

Stuart Robertson’s Nine Notes and more... with Simon Blackshaw

34

Rekindling MacCrimmon family connections Malcolm Roderick MacCrimmon (1918-2011)

38

Piping cultures flourish in Germany Thomas Zöller’s Dudelsack-Akademie

42

A fitting finale for pipe-maker Duncan Campbell RG Hardie & Co.

46

The Donald MacLeod Memorial Competition Live Review

48

New Products The PipeTech Coolbackpack

49

Grey’s Notes by Michael Grey Wandering Pipers

50

COVER PICTURE: FRONT Angus Mackay by Alexander

Johnston, oil on canvas, dated 1840.

By permission of the Scottish National Portrait Gallery.

(Feature on pages14-19)

www.thepipingcentre.co.uk

EDITOR: Roddy MacLeod MBE, BSc • FEATURES MANAGER: John Slavin • PUBLISHER: © The National Piping Centre 2011 CORRESPONDENCE: The National Piping Centre, 30-34 McPhater Street, Glasgow, Scotland. G4 0HW. Tel. +44 (0)141 353 0220 EDITORIAL ENQUIRIES: pipingtoday@designfolk.com • ADVERTISING ENQUIRIES: gbruce@thepipingcentre.co.uk DESIGN & ADVERT ARTWORK: John Slavin/DesignFolk - email: pipingtoday@designfolk.com • www.designfolk.com

EDITORIAL Patron HRH The Prince Charles Duke of Rothesay, KG, KT, GCB

Noting the Tradition The big news for this editorial is that we have succeeded in our grant application to the Heritage Lottery Fund for support towards an oral history project which we have called “Noting The Tradition”. This project has been three years in planning and we have called on the expertise of past and present employees, Board members and taken advice from a number of recognised academics in the process, so a huge thank you is due to all who have contributed.

The National Piping Centre Founders Sir Brian Ivory CBE FRSE MA CA Lady Ivory DL MA ARCM FRSA Sandy Grant Gordon CBE MA The National Piping Centre Board Sir Brian Ivory CBE FRSE MA CA Lady Ivory DL MA ARCM FRSA Alan R. Forbes BSc FFA Dr Martin J.B. Lowe OBE BSc PhD Allan G. Ramsay BA CA Fraser Morrison MA CA The National Piping Centre is a company limited by guarantee with charitable status.

Registered in Scotland No. 139271 Registered Charity No. SC020391 The National Piping Centre 30-34 McPhater Street Glasgow, Scotland. G4 0HW Tel: +44 (0)141 353 0220 Fax: +44 (0)141 353 1570

The project will involve interviewing people from the world of piping to document their lives in piping, their recollections, relevant recordings, photographs and any other significant historical information that they wish to offer. This information will then be preserved for the future and also made available so that people may learn from their experiences.

So often we have mourned the passing of many of our piping legends and wished that we could have learned more from them. I can very clearly remember our short magazine interview with Ronnie Lawrie which was published only a month or so before his passing. While it was great to have the article which gave an insight into the life of this great man, it was, of course, only scratching the surface.

Also, sitting on the aeroplane coming home from the Donald MacLeod Memorial Piping competition in Stornoway, I had the pleasure of being seated next to Donald’s daughter Susan MacLeod. In just that short flight chatting informally, it was incredibly interesting to hear about Donald’s life and attitude to life from one so close to him A lot of good work is already going on in the field of collecting oral history and Alan Hamilton’s work in the creation of the “Piper’s Persuasion” website, which carries a number of interviews from significant figures in the world of piping and drumming, is a case in point.

Although our project has a finite timeline and will last for two years there can never be completion of a project such as this but there can be a lasting legacy. The legacy we hope to leave will be the collected information but the other part will be the training and education given to the volunteers who will learn the skills of conducting interviews and how to transcribe and document the material for future generations to access. We therefore hope the project will act as a catalyst to stimulate much more oral history collection into the future.

The painstaking detective work carried out by Hugh Cheape and Decker Forrest in “The Piper’s House” articles published within these pages has revealed a great deal about the Mackays of Raasay and the society in which they lived. We learn about their family life on the croft in Raasay, their genealogy, the social gatherings, the hardships, the successes, the migration, the music and the tutelage.

The work we will be carrying out through this new project will similarly provide such information for the historians of the future but perhaps their efforts to look at our present may not have to be quite as painstaking!

by RODDY MacLEOD MBE, BSc Principal, The National Piping Centre

PIPING TODAY ISSN 1479 7143

Editor: Roddy MacLeod MBE BSc Features and all editorial enquiries: John Slavin / Designfolk email: pipingtoday@designfolk.com Mob: 0781 513 1116 published by the national piping centre 2011

Unless otherwise noted, the text, photographs and adverts are copyright © of the writer, photographer or designer.

All rights reserved. The contents may not be copied or reproduced in any manner without written permision of the editor, Roddy MacLeod. Excerpts and entire reviews may be printed as long as credit is given to the author, artiste and/or photographer and the Piping Today magazine.

PIPING TODAY • 5

NEWS OrgaNIsers of a series of successful piping events at Glasgow’s Strathclyde University during Piping Live! have handed over more than £5000 to The National Piping Centre for scholarships.

Willie McCallum and George Wood have staged concerts at Lord Todd’s bar for around eight years to entertain visitors during the week running up to the World Championships.

The money comes from the profits of running events over the course of the last four or five years.

They have also donated a similar sum to a University charity supporting projects in Malawi.

Willie explained: “It was only last year we decided we had enough to make some distribution. Because it had been raised from both piping and drumming events we thought it should go for scholarships and not just for Scotland.”

George added: “The majority of the money we have generated has come from overseas money from the visiting bands. It is appropriate the schools overseas should benefit.”

Even though Willie and George no longer work at the University, the Thursday night piping recital challenge will continue to run this year.

Willie said: “We think it’s quite a high quality event.

We’ve always tried to get people taking part at a really high level. I think the demand is there and people

Photo: John Slavin@designfolk.com

Scholarship boost from Lord Todd’s gigs

Willie McCallum, left, and George Wood, right, present their cheque to The National Piping Centre Principal, Roddy MacLeod

would be disappointed if it wasn’t on.”

George added: “It has been running longer than Piping Live!, that’s why people recognise it as an event.

In the early days people were here for the week and there was nothing on so we put on a couple of recitals

and it has grown from there. It was free to start with and very well received.

“The festival’s been brilliant. The way it’s been received and the way it’s been organised. It’s been great to be part of that.”

lThe National Piping Centre sent a team of top-class instructors including John Mulhearn, Glenn Brown and Callum Beaumont to the Piper’s Corner Bruggen Winter School in Germany in February. The Centre is delighted to be a new collaborative teaching partner for the event and it was hailed as a great success. The fifth annual school attracted around 60 students and offered piping and drumming exams. The school is run in association with Wallace Bagpipes, which is a supporter of The National Piping Centre’s tuition schools and has provided very generous support for all their schools and competitions in 2011.

Clan Maclean tune competition The Clan Maclean Heritage Trust is launching a tune competition to commemorate 100 years since the restoration of Duart Castle and its repossession by the Clan.

Composers are asked to create a march in 6/8 time, Duart Gathering 2012, which will be played at the Clan’s gathering at Duart in 2012.

A £250 prize will be awarded to the winner and the judging panel will consist of Major Gavin Stoddart, formerly Director of Army Piping, James MacLean, formerly of Strathclyde Police and personal piper to Sir Lachlan Maclean of Duart and Morvern, the Clan Chief, and Roddy MacLeod, Principal of The National Piping Centre.

PIPING TODAY • 6

Manuscripts should be submitted to the address below without any information marked on it, to ensure anonymity during the judging process. It should be accompanied by a separate letter giving the details of the composer.

An email address must be included to allow confirmation of receipt of the manuscript.

Entries should be sent to The Clan Maclean Composing Competition, FAO James Beaton, The National Piping Centre, 30-34 McPhater Street, Glasgow, G4 0HW. Entries may also be emailed to jbeaton@thepipingcentre.co.uk The closing date for the competition is October 30, 2011.

Schools round-up RG Hardie are the new sole sponsor of The National Piping Centre’s Virginia Piping and Drumming School which will take place from June 19 to 24.

The firm have donated some top prizes including a set of Peter Henderson Bagpipes, a pipe case and a practice chanter and exciting drumming prizes for students to be won at the end of the week.

Great incentives are on offer for booking early for the Atlanta School (June 12 - 17) and also the Munich School (October 11 -15).

The first 20 to sign up for Atlanta will receive $100 but you’ll need to be quick to snap up a place. A range of discounts are on offer for the Munich school.

To find out more visit www.thepipingcentre. co.uk/schools/

Piping Today magazine is published every 2 months. Subscribing is the best way to make sure that you get a regular copy of this magazine with the advantage of getting it “hot off the press”.

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From left to right, Callum Watson, Brighde Chaimbeul, Scott Wood, Lewis Russell (front), Andrew Clark and Sandy Cameron

Juvenile winners are stars of the future The National Piping Centre played host to an extremely successful juvenile competition in Glasgow in February. The standard was very high and the results were as follows: Junior Winner — Scott Wood; Chanter Champion — John Dick; Novice Winner — Brighde Chaimbeul.

Junior — Piobaireachd: 1. Scott Wood; 2. Iain Wilson; 3. Iain Crawford; 4. Angus J. MacColl; 5.

Steven Gray; 6. Callum Watson.

Junior — March, Strathspey & Reel: 1. Callum Watson; 2. Iain Wilson; 3. Angus J. MacColl; 4. Ciaran Sinclair. 5. Ross MacKay; 6. Scott Wood.

Junior — Jig: 1. Amy Rose Shanks; 2. Scott Wood; 3. Angus J. MacColl; 4. Steven Gray; 5. Iain Crawford; 6. Callum Watson.

Novice —Piobaireachd: 1. Brighde Chaimbeul;

2. Lucy Ferguson; 3. Rebecca Tierney; 4. Harry McLachlan; 5. Andrew Clark; 6. Connor Sinclair.

Novice — Piobaireachd Ground Only: 1. Lewis Russell; 2. Robbie MacIsaac; 3. Scott Young .

Novice — March: 1. Sandy Cameron; 2. Daniel McDermott; 3. Connor Sinclair; 4. Rebecca Tierney; 5. Brighde Chaimbeul; 6. Lucy Ferguson.

Novice — Strathspey & Reel: 1. Andrew Clark; 2. Sandy Cameron; 3. Connor Sinclair; 4. Brighde Chaimbeul; 5. Eireann Innetta MacKay; 6. Daniel McDermott.

Chanter — Slow Air: 1. John Dick; 2. Shannon Gould; 3. Ross MacNaughton; 4. Ryan Weatherspoon; 5. Katie MacDonald; 6. Christy O’Hanlon.

Chanter — March: 1. John Dick; 2. Katie MacDonald; 3. Shannon Gould; 4. Christy O’Hanlon; 5. Lewis Kerr; 6. Findlay Cameron.

NYPBoS will light up the stage The National Youth Pipe Band of Scotland stage their hotly-anticipated concert Illumination on Saturday, April 23 at the Old Fruitmarket in Glasgow.

This show will feature a variety of traditional and contemporary music infused with the NYPBoS twist including Pachelbel’s Canon and a piece of music entitled 1915 which is a suite dedicated to those who have lost their lives due to war.

The “illuminating” part of the concert will be a fantastic light show.

Working closely with Adrian Turpin, who previously worked with Runrig, the band has created an

audio visual spectacular, the like of which has never been seen at a pipe band concert.

In the last issue of Piping Today, they were hailed as “not so much a band as a musical tour de force” and reviewer Chris Mackenzie wrote of their Celtic Connections performance: “There are few bands in the world that can consider themselves in the same league as the NYPBoS when it comes to giving concerts.”

Don’t miss your chance to see them in action.

The concert starts at 7.30pm. Tickets are £10/£6 and are available from www.thepipingcentre. co.uk/youth-pb or 0141 353 8000.

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51

PIPING TODAY • 7

NEWS

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NEWS Photos: Derek Maxwell

Duncan Johnstone Memorial Competition

Darach Urquhart

David Shedden

Jonathan Graham

Bradley Parker

News in brief...

SIMON Fraser University Pipe Band has announced an impressive new recruit — Robert Mathieson.

The former pipe major for House of Edgar Shotts and Dykehead will play for the Canadian outfit this year.

A spokesman for SFU said: “We are thrilled to have the experience, musical talent and class that Rob

The Duncan Johnstone Memorial Competition was held at The National Piping Centre in March in collaboration with the Competing Pipers’ Association.

Congratulations go to all the winners, especially David Shedden who is shop assistant at The National Piping Centre.

The results were: B Piobaireachd —1. David Shedden; 2. George Stewart; 3. Chris Gibb; 4. Keith Bowes; 5. Peter Hunt.

Judges — John Wilson, Patricia Henderson.

B March Strathspey & Reel — 1. George Stewart; 2. Keith Bowes; 3. James McPhee; 4. Gavin Ferguson; 5. Graham Drummond.

Judges — Ian MacLellan, Donald McPhee.

C Piobaireachd — 1. Darach Urquhart; 2.

Bradley Parker; 3. Colin Campbell; 4. Sarah Muir; 5.

Gavin Greene.

Judges — Willie Morrison, Brian Donaldson.

C March, Strathspey & Reel — 1. Bradley Parker; 2. Sarah Muir; 3. Andrew Gray; 4. Emmet Conway; 5. Mael Sicard Cras.

Judges — Tom Spiers, Tom Johnstone.

Jig — Each competitor was required to play a Duncan Johnstone jig as a special tribute.

1. Jonathan Graham; 2. Emmet Conway; 3. Bradley Parker; 4. Derek Midgley; 5. Sarah Muir.

Judges — Ian McLellan, Donald MacPhee.

brings to the SFU table and we are looking forward to what the 2011 season has in store.” l THE first three heats have been held in the new season of knock-out competitions at the Scots Guards Club in Edinburgh.

Andrea Boyd triumphed over John Mulhearn on March 13. Alasdair Henderson saw off a challenge from Cameron Drummond on March 27 and Craig Muirhead took top honours against Kevin McNulty on April 3.

Kintyre Piping Society marks its 60th year Kintyre Piping Society celebrated its 60th anniversary with a dinner and recital in Campbeltown in March.

To mark the occasion, Roddy MacLeod, Princpial of The National Piping Centre presented six scholarships to Society secretary Willie McCallum, below.

They will be used to reward competition winners and encourage promising young pipers.

The Society has been busy preparing for their junior competition on April 16 and are looking forward to the Springbank Invitational Solo Piping Competition on September 17.

l THE Piobaireachd Society has revealed the set tunes for the major competitions next year.

For more details on the tunes for 2012, see www.piobaireachd.co.uk. l Our series of features about playing the pipes with other instruments will continue in the next issue of Piping Today.

Space is at such a premium in this issue that it had to be held over until next time.

ScottishPower Pipe Band started their competition season in style by winning the second annual Lomond and Clyde Grade 1 Invitational Competition in Glasgow.

The competition on March 19 was split into two heats with the top performers qualifying for the final.

The finalists played a March, Strathspey and Reel of their own choice and a medley.

The winners’ MSR was Lord Alexander Kennedy, Blair Drummond and John Morrison of Assynt House and they also played the Castle Dangerous Medley.

Boghall and Bathgate Caledonia took second, Inveraray and District were third, Fife Constabulary were fourth and House of Edgar Shotts and Dykehead were fifth.

PIPING TODAY • 8

Photo by Donald Mackay, ScottishPower Pipe Band

Powerful performances secure the top prize

NEWS

Major project award for The National Piping Centre A MAJOR project spearheaded

by The National Piping Centre to record and preserve the nation’s rich piping heritage and has been given significant support from the Heritage Lottery Fund.

The two-year oral history initiative, called “Noting the Tradition”, has also received generous financial backing from the Thriplow Charitable Trust, Lord MacFarlane, W.M. Mann Foundation and Cruden Foundation, as well as from The National Piping Centre.

The scheme has been almost three years in the planning and now it is ready to move to the next level with the appointment of a project manager.

Roddy MacLeod, Principal of The National Piping Centre, explained why they are so keen to record the history of some of our best-known pipers and make the material as widely available as possible.

He said: “There are many great piping figures we would have liked to have known more about, and this was brought into focus with the passing of characters such as John D. Burgess and Ronnie Lawrie.

“It’s about getting out and getting interviews and information from wellknown piping figures from around the country, recording their stories and seeing what information they can give us.”

Significantly, the public will be invited to participate in the project, as the information will be gathered by a team of volunteers, who will be given training on how to conduct oral history interviews.

A key part of the project is to make the information as accessible as possible. The oral history and other artefacts, such as manuscripts and photographs, will be stored on a web portal to allow internet access and exhibitions will also be staged at key piping events.

Roddy added: “There is also be funding for the installation of a number of listening posts in The National Piping Centre to allow people to listen to excerpts of interviews and music.”

It is hoped that the project will be fully up and running by early summer and the target for completion is summer 2013.

Roddy added: “We have had great support from a number of key figures in education and music and their backing helped make this possible.”

All those involved in the project are grateful for the support of: Professor Hugh Cheape; Dr Margaret Bennett; Dr Margaret Mackay, School of Scottish Studies, Edinburgh University; Dr Josh Dickson, Head of Scottish Music, RSAMD; Almut Boehme, Head of Music, National Library of Scotland; Dr Alison Gilmour, University of Glasgow (and member of Field Marshal Montgomery Pipe Band).

Job Title: ‘Noting the Tradition’ Project manager Purpose: ‘Noting the Tradition’ is an oral history project that will be administered by The National Piping Centre and supported by the Heritage lottery Fund. over a two year period, the project manager will be responsible for the development, implementation and administration of ‘Noting the Tradition’.

Reporting to: The Principal of The National Piping Centre Duration of Post: Two years

McCallum Bagpipes are the business McCALLUM Bagpipes received a top honour from the business community in Ayrshire.

The Kilmarnock-based firm beat off competition from big multinational companies based in the area to win the Ayrshire Excellence Award for Manufacturing at the Ayrshire Chamber of Commerce annual dinner in March.

The event was hosted by comedian Fred MacAulay and was also attended

Job Description: Project manager

Working Hours: 35 hours per week, including some evenings and weekends Location: The National Piping Centre, Glasgow with occasional travel throughout the British isles Salary: The appropriate salary will be paid subject to qualifications and experience Closing Date: Friday 6 may 2011 by former Miss Scotland Aisling Pearson.

Jim McGeehan, Managing Director of Business Excellence Ayrshire, said: “The standard of competition for these awards was amazing. All the judges were very impressed with the quality, enthusiasm, range of talent and skills shown by the winners.” l From left, Fred MacAulay, Kenny Macleod and Stuart McCallum from McCallum Bagpipes, Aisling Pearson and Jim McGeehan.

Application Procedure: Please visit www.thepipingcentre.co.uk for full job description. Send a CV and a one page cover letter stating why your skills, abilities and experience make you a suitable candidate for the job to: Contact: andrea Boyd, email: aboyd@thepipingcentre.co.uk The National Piping Centre, 30-34 mcPhater Street, Glasgow, G4 0HW

PIPING TODAY • 9

PROFILE

by Chris MacKenzie

Boghall and Bathgate on the rise Pipe major Ross Walker

PIPING TODAY • 10

Photo: John Slavin@designfolk.com

T

he results speak for themselves — second at the Scottish, second at the British, third at the European, first at Cowal and for about an hour, third at the Worlds, which was so cruelly later changed to fourth on ensemble preference with the Simon Fraser University.

There is a wind of change blowing through the world pipe band scene as the triumvirate of Shotts and Dykehead, Field Marshal Montgomery and SFU finally faces some serious challenge from, of course, the new World Champions St Laurence O’Toole, but also from that quietly ascending Scottish band Boghall and Bathgate. They have never been the glamour boys (and gals) of the Scottish piping scene that Shotts, Strathclyde Police, The Vale under Ian Duncan, or ScottishPower under Roddy MacLeod (with ranks filled with Gold Medal winners) have been.

Nevertheless they have diligently worked their way up so that they can now hold their own with any company and can certainly claim to be the best band in Scotland — not that they would make that claim, but it’s a fair one anyway — and a band that is clearly not just knocking on the door for the big one but kicking it in with size 12 ghillie brogues.

The one thing all the great bands have in common is they all have a pipe major who has the drive, skill, and dedication to take the band to the top. Boghall are no different and, in pipe major Ross Walker, they have someone who clearly has all those attributes. I caught up with Ross recently to try to discover what it takes to get a band to the rarefied upper reaches of the pipe band world. It is immediately clear that for Ross, Boghall is not just a pipe band he plays for, it is his pipe band. That isn’t meant in a dictatorial way, indeed it is the exact opposite. Boghall is the band Ross was brought up in from the moment he started learning, from his older brother Craig and later from the then Boghall pipe major Bob Martin.

I suspect that Ross has Boghall and Bathgate pipe major written through his very bone marrow and indeed even tattooed into his DNA.

Ross Walker

PROFILE As he put it: “I’m able to represent my home scheme, not even my home town, and potentially be the best in the world at something — what a privilege. I think it’s that which has kept me going, particularly in the lean years when the band hasn’t been very good.”

This is a trait Ross shares with many of the band who have risen through from the Juvenile

“Sometimes it’s just talking about things — having an open forum and shutting the door to allow a ‘what is said in here, stays in here’ approach. So the guys feel it is their band. In the 80s under Craig (Ross’s brother was pipe major before him) the bulk of the pipe core were all from within a 400 yard radius of each other. We all grew up together, played football

‘Because of the rarefied level we are trying to find you are lucky if even 10 per cent of a good juvenile band are going to make it. When you teach kids and they are really good but they aren’t at the level required, you have to shake their hand and say sorry — and that’s tough’ ranks to the grade 1 band. This is clearly one of the bedrocks of the band’s success as Ross explained: “You look at other bands and when lean years come along everybody goes to the four winds — in Boghall they don’t as everybody is committed to the band.”

That togetherness, that sense of belonging means, as he put it: “We don’t lose a lot of players to other bands, we tend to lose them to family or work commitments. We feel that as the guys have been around for a long while there is a real feeling of being a team — we do have guys from outside of Boghall but they have come up through the ranks and ‘their heart is local’.”

This team-building is something that Ross now feels needs working on to keep it fresh and real.

together and drank together. So the team-building just happened. We had a bit of a reputation as hellraisers. The youngsters today are different and there is a different vibe in the band so we need to work a little harder at it.”

So as teams the world over from sport to business have discovered, a tight focused unit working as a high performing team will take you a long way towards your goal. This sense of belonging is amplified by the fact that Boghall have a very effective novice juvenile and juvenile band set-up. The importance of these bands as a source of piping talent is hard to overstate and Ross, who had a stint as pipe major of the juvenile band culminating in them taking all five majors in 1988, is keen to stress the point.

“High quality bands are produced from people who learn from high quality people.

If you look at that Juvenile group, there are four trailblazers ­— Simon Fraser, Boghall and Bathgate, George Watson’s and Dollar — the high standard within the Juvenile grade where the bands are all pushing each other on means that integrating the young players into grade 1 is very easy.”

From a broader perspective, this investment in the development of young players has positive benefit on the quality of not only the Boghall band but also on the broader piping community in Scotland.

Ross explained: “This is a two-way street as the Boghall grade 1 band gets more successful you can see the guys in the juvenile band wanting a bit of that action and really pushing on to try and get there. They work a lot harder at the practices and take it far more seriously than I did at that age.”

He also feels that playing in a pipe band from an early age teaches you more than just how to play the bagpipe. “A lesson I learned, although only realised it in my adult life, was that playing in a juvenile band teaches you a lot of life lessons. Things like working hard and if you get a knock you didn’t feel you deserved then you need to dust yourself down and go out again the next Saturday. You don’t realise you are learning these lessons and then later in life you’ll hear folk say — ‘he’s a good worker that lad’, and that discipline has come from being in the band.”

However, when you are trying to be the best in the world, some difficult choices have to made about who to add to the band and who

The Cowal Gathering 2010

PIPING TODAY • 11

PROFILE Up to the line at the Worlds 2010

misses out. “The difficult thing is because of the rarefied level we are trying to find you are lucky if even 10 per cent of a good juvenile band are going to make it and that’s the hard bit. When you teach kids and they are really good but they aren’t at the level required, you have to shake their hand and say sorry — and that’s tough.”

At this level, some will always be disappointed, as the days of a ‘good band player’ just doesn’t cut it any more, everyone needs to be a quality player. The obvious solution to this is to have another adult band and indeed, this is a route Boghall went down.

On the surface they had great success as their second band took the grade 2 title. A win-win situation for all you may think. Not so.

Ross said: “With the best will in the world, with two adult bands, the second band want to come up and stoat you on the jaw — we went through some painful times with the grade 2 band just because they were ambitious, and you can’t fault them for that. Two adult bands in an ambitious organisation just doesn’t work; you end up pulling in different directions. While I’m pipe major with Boghall there will never be another adult band, so you have to take that handshake, that’s very tough to do with a kid of 18.”

There’s no two ways about it, even in as friendly a band as Boghall, life at the upper echelons is not for those faint, or bleeding, of heart.

For those that look like they may make the grade, Ross is careful to nurture them. “Once the lads and lasses get to a certain level what we’ll tend to do is start to stretch them and get them at the grade 1 practice through the winter, and get them playing gigs with the band — just to get them used to it. It gives them a wee taster so they start to think I could really do this. This obviously helps the juvenile band PIPING TODAY • 12

Boghall and Bathgate Pipe Set-up Pipes: Variety of old sets; mostly Henderson, Lawrie, MacDougall, with some newer sets mixed in.

Chanters: Shepherd Pipe Bags: Primarily Bowes Bags and some Begg as well,” he added. Invest in your youngsters and they will pay that back with interest is the message.

One area that many pipe bands have great difficulty with is integrating the pipes and drums into one coherent sound where both sides of the equation are adding to the overall sound.

Ross is blessed with having Gordon Brown as his leading drummer. Gordon, a two-time World Solo drumming champion, led his core to numerous successes across the years including the Worlds in 2001. On the face of it, this seems a match made in heaven, yet Ross admits there have been tough times in getting the two corps to gel. “In terms of the piping and drumming within the band we have come a significant journey over the last four or five years and that is one of the reasons we have got significantly better over those years,” he admitted.

“Gordon and I used to really struggle with MSRs. In simple terms pipers wanted to play one tempo and drummers another and there was a lot of butting heads. We had a tough year and weren’t playing particularly well and realised we were going to have to sort it out.

“It was November and, I remember it vividly, Gordon and I got together and said we need to

Ross Walker, Gordon Brown and Ian Bowden, pipe major of the Boghall juvenile band, at Cowal 2010, with the grade 1 trophies for piping and drumming and the juvenile trophy.

sort this out as we had got to the stage where we just didn’t understand each other. So we got into a classroom at the school for two hours and had a very painful conversation with honesty on both sides — but there was a joint lightbulb moment when I mentioned we shouldn’t be having the discussion because: ‘I play pipes for you (Gordon) at the solo drumming competitions and have done for nigh on 20 years and I do it because I really enjoy it. Playing for you at the solo drumming is like having a piper play the drum. You know how the tune is supposed to be played, and if you had 10 drummers playing the way you play an MSR we wouldn’t be having this conversation.’

“What we have realised, is that before that meeting the vocabulary we used was wrong. We used to argue about tempo — what we now talk about is the phrasing of the tune. Gordon naturally understands how the tunes work and that’s the discussion we now have and in these last years we have never once had a discussion about tempo. The discussion now is about why we are not quite playing together, and then discussing the phrasing of the tune. Now we are a formidable team.”

This is a lesson that will probably strike a note with pipe majors and leading drummers the world over — there is no substitute for open and honest dialogue. Even with a pipe and drum corps who are in harmony, there is still the difficulty of what approach to take to the medley. New tunes, old tunes or show tunes — what are the judges going to take a liking to? Ross explained it simply. “Ten years ago, all a medley needed was a strong spine. A good starting tune, a good slow air and good finishing tune and you fitted tunes around that.

That’s still there, but the stuff around it has got to earn its spurs as well. You can’t just bung in

PROFILE a couple of tunes to pad it out. Everything has now got to earn its place and that’s where the biggest change has come “It used to be that the colour and the excitement came from the tune plus harmonies, but bands are getting smarter now and often the colour comes from something the drum core is doing — or maybe something the drum core is not doing. Drum cores are often guilty of thinking they only value they can add is when they are playing, but sometimes if they stop playing, and come in again, it can be very effective and this applies to snares and/or bass sections.

“Pipe bands, I was going to say pipe majors, but it is bands that are learning that the full palette of stuff they have to play with can be used to create a ‘flight path’ through the medley. I used to be in a school of thought

On that other thorny issue of how the bands are presented at the Worlds, or indeed any competition, Ross has a clear view.

“At a concert setting the sound from the entire instrument fills the auditorium, but outside if I’m facing you with my chanter to the front and drones facing away there is only one sound you are going to be hearing and it isn’t the drones. Okay we have our backs to the audience but the balance of sound we are getting from the drones and chanter is, I think, pretty good. We also shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that the Worlds isn’t for the audience, it’s for the bands — it’s not like the Royal Highland Show where it’s a display.

“Bands are there to be judged and are trying to be the best. We need to be careful we don’t throw the baby out with the bath water. The

‘You have got to have some kind of format where the adjudicator is judging apples and apples. If someone is doing something completely different then you are asking the adjudicators to do the impossible’ that new material was really important — you had to get an exciting tune in at the end that nobody has heard, but to be honest the world has changed.

“SFU changed it about three years ago when they played a 6/8 as a jig (Atholl Highlanders) and a lot of traditional stuff. There is nothing better than playing something well known in a modern style, with harmonies and colour in the drum section, because you can sit back and enjoy it, assuming the band is playing well and tuned right. If it is something new then the listener and the judge aren’t sure what you did so if you can put them at ease you are quids in.”

Ross is equally clear on the issue of what should and shouldn’t be in a medley.

“Freestyle is good for concerts, but there is plenty scope in the medley as is; do we need cymbals, do we need drums that change pitch?

I don’t think we do. Have a listen to a medley five years ago and compare it to one today, it’s a different thing altogether. The overriding thing I come back to, is you have got to have some kind of format where the adjudicator is judging apples and apples. If someone is doing something completely different then you are asking the adjudicators to do the impossible.

You might as well give the band 10 minutes each and ask the crowd to choose a winner.”

fact that the BBC are promoting the event to the degree they are is fantastic, and it is maybe from that angle that questions may be asked about whether the format is good for TV. I come back to it — it’s not for TV, it’s for the bands, and the people that enjoy coming along to listen to it.”

At the very top of the pipe band world there is no, zero, nada, nil room for error. An early E, a drifting drone or a blooter mid-set will all leave the band trailing in the wake of the rest.

How does Ross set the band up to cope with the inevitable pressure that comes with high expectations?

“It is all about the practices being rehearsals so that when you stand on the line you aren’t thinking about anything. You are a lab rat, just doing what you are conditioned to do without thinking about it.

“What I say to the new guys at the Worlds is just forget about the cameras and all that stuff. It’s just scenery. What you are doing is just the same thing as we do at practice. Intros are always nervous, but once you are in, and if you are in the zone, you don’t see the cameras and any of the other stuff. We have a two weeks prep for the majors and that is all about setting up the instruments for the championship.”

It is tempting for those in bands lower down

the pecking order to think that the top bands are all in on some secret that guarantees a good tone. This as Ross points out just isn’t the case.

“It is just meticulous preparation. There is no secret sauce that we pour into the bags, it is just about being meticulous. If you don’t have 100 per cent confidence in what is under your arm then you are not going to play confidently. We have taken significant steps since around 2003 in the quality of our sound and it is just about being really fussy.

“It’s a pain in the neck and as a pipe major it is hard to stay motivated, so that when it is 99 per cent of what you want you are still looking to improve and that’s what I believe Richard Parkes has. He is just so fussy and meticulous and that is who I guess I am trying to emulate, and that’s what Ian McLellan had in the 80s — just meticulous attention to detail.”

There may not be a secret sauce but the fundamentals are clear: a strong team ethic, only the best make the band, a clear policy of bringing young talent through the grades, a pipe and drum core in unison and a meticulous approach to all of these. Yet that still wouldn’t ensure glory at the Worlds. So what will it take for Boghall to crack the big one Again Ross is very clear on what he sees as the bands primary focus. He explained: “Sound: that’s how we can crack the top three — it’s a combination of perseverance and getting things stable. Everyone needs to be very confident to blow like they were playing a piobaireachd for 10 minutes, and not let anything rattle them into subconsciously altering their blowing a little bit. That is what we are working on. I believe we are equal to anyone in the other departments and I’d go head to head with anyone on those but we are rightly criticised at the moment for the consistency of our sound — you are talking tiny margins but that tone is the key component with the flawless nature of the playing.”

Last year was a good one for the band but there is a desire to make 2011 better. Can they do it? The top of the pipe band tree is a brutal place to be, but it is a safe bet that the close knit group from Boghall and Bathgate will make the cosmopolitan bands around them feel the heat, and who knows, with that meticulous planning and that little bit of luck every World Champion needs, there could be a new name on the trophy in 2011. One thing is for sure, if it doesn’t happen Ross, Gordon and the rest of the gang at Boghall and Bathgate will dust themselves down and regroup for the next attempt. l PIPING TODAY • 13

RESEARCH

by Hugh Cheape and Decker Forrest

Part Three

The Piper’s House Taigh a’ Phìobaire

I

n the last issue, we looked at the substantial musical legacy of Angus Mackay and his family. As well as books and music, another tangible link with Angus is his image. He is remarkable for being probably the most illustrated Highland piper before the age of photography. Possibly more than half a dozen ‘portraits’ of him survive, ranging in quality from an exquisite portrait in oils of 1840 to a series of engravings both contemporary and posthumous. This latter class of imagery is less significant as portraiture than for its heavy use of symbolism with thistles, a castle or royal palace (usually Windsor Castle), a version of the Royal Arms, and the piper in Highland dress of the latest (early 19th century) fashion.

Portraits In the history of piping in Scotland, we have principally names, and images or portraits of pipers are rare though bagpipes and players appear widely on the broader canvas of European art; but these are generally anonymous figures and tend to represent genre art-styles with artistic elements and moral messages for a contemporary audience. The instruments depicted in these genre portraits were represented in the same spirit of educating and entertaining but mostly serve to frustrate the musicologist or historian of piping. An interesting and important case in point is Richard Waitt’s much re-produced Piper to the Laird of Grant of 1714 in which the viewer gains an impression of William Cumming as a real person and yet the bagpipe is intriguingly strange and the chanter seemingly modelled on a shawm or Baroque oboe. The instrument may have been ‘reconstructed’ when the artist returned to his studio and found himself without sufficient information to represent the Great Highland Bagpipe. A later example is of the ‘portrait’ of MacCrimmon by Robert Ronald McIan published in The Clans of the Scottish Highlands in 1847. Here, the figure is essentially a ‘vehicle’ PIPING TODAY • 14

The music of the Mackays of Raasay lies at the heart of Scotland’s piping tradition although our conventional wisdom tends not to engage further with issues such as the origins of the Mackays or the Hebridean context, cultural and social, in which they flourished.

In this third and final part, piping scholars Professor Hugh Cheape and Dr Decker Forrest, both programme leaders at Scotland’s Gaelic college, Sabhal Mòr Ostaig in Skye, look at the portraiture of Angus Mackay and investigate further into the history of his family, Clann Mhic Ruairidh, before returning to Raasay to recover something of the life and music within the Piper’s House.

Angus Mackay by Alexander Johnston, oil on canvas, dated 1840. By permission of the Scottish National Portrait Gallery.

for depicting a distinctive tartan and historic mode of Highland dress. We presume that he is playing a ‘Great Highland Bagpipe’ but there is no material evidence for this MacCrimmon bagpipe as depicted here. In contrast, the majority of portraits of Angus Mackay, while

still heavy with symbolism, reveal much closer attention to technical detail, giving us more convincing representations of the household piper of the early-to-mid 19th century and his instrument.

This series of portraits of Angus begins, as far as we know, with the very striking portrait in oils by Alexander Johnston (1815-1891). This was painted about 1840 when Angus was piper to Walter Campbell of Shawfield and Islay. The beautifully detailed image shows him playing the Prize Pipe won in the Highland Society Competition in 1835, with an inscribed silver shield clearly shown on the chanter stock.

Surviving evidence otherwise tells us that the inscribed prize ‘shield’ was indeed fixed on the chanter stock. The same detail appears in the same position on the earlier engraved portrait of Neil Maclean, having won the Prize Pipe in 1784 and a Prize Pipe by Hugh Robertson of 1802 carries the shield on the chanter stock.

The Angus Mackay painting is small and neat, 90.2 cm by 70.5 cm, prompting a comparison with the huge life-size image of William Cumming at 213 cm by 154 cm. This is one of the notable series of portraits painted between

RESEARCH 1713 and 1726 of the Laird of Grant, his family, relatives, cadet chiefs and tacksmen – the Luchd-Taighe or traditional retinue of the clan chieftain. What is immediately striking is that the portraits of the ‘Piper’ and the ‘Champion’ are life-size and all the rest – including the Laird and his wife – smaller, head-and-shoulders, portraits. Significantly, perhaps, the portrait of Angus Mackay is very small by comparison and compares more readily with the late 18th and 19th century genre portraits of the ‘servants’ of royal and aristocratic households. Another small portrait of Angus Mackay, of the subject’s head and shoulders only, was commissioned by the Highland Society of London but remains to be further researched.

A later portrait of Angus Mackay is in The Royal Collection. The watercolour is by a London-born painter, William Wyld (18061889), who worked in France and Italy but occasionally returned to the United Kingdom.

On a trip to England in 1852, Queen Victoria invited him to Balmoral to draw and paint the surroundings. A portrait of the ‘Queen’s Piper’ seems to have been a legacy of this Royal commission in 1852. The composition of William Wyld’s portrait bears comparison with engraved images of Angus. A further ‘portrait’ in an extravagant style was published as frontispiece in W L Manson’s The Highland Bagpipe in 1901, ‘from a drawing in the possession of Duncan Munro, Kyleakin, Skye’. It is heavy with symbolism of Angus’s appointment to the Royal Household and his bagpipe – we assume – is a grotesque caricature.

Queen Victoria’s interest in her Highland ‘servants’ is further reflected in the fine watercolour portrait of the next Royal piper, William Ross, appointed in 1854 and painted in 1866. This image of her Scottish retainers is one of the series commissioned by the Queen from Kenneth Macleay (1802-1878) and published in 1870 as ‘The Highlanders of Scotland’.

Traditions of Clann Mhic Ruairidh According to island tradition, the Piper’s House in Oighre or ‘Eyre’, at the south end of the Island of Raasay, was where Angus’s father, John, raised his family and taught his four sons. His eldest son, Donald, won the first prize in the Highland Society of London’s pìobaireachd competition in 1822. His next son, Roderick, born in 1811, won the first prize in 1832. In 1835, Angus won the first prize and his younger

The Queen’s Piper, Angus Mackay, by William Wyld, about 1852.

With grateful thanks to The Royal Collection ©2011 Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.

brother, John, won the fourth. It was said that John Mackay had other oileanaich or ‘students’, such as Archibald Munro, Angus Macpherson who was related to the MacLeods of Suidhisnis, a farm next to Oighre, and John Bàn Mackenzie whose father, William, was married to a Raasay Mackay.

Raasay tradition still has more to tell us of John’s immediate family than do the conventional sources of piping history; we know that he had a brother Donald – Dòmhnall Ruairidh – and a sister, Catriona, and two or possibly three other sisters. It would not be impossible therefore that William, the father of John Bàn Mackenzie, might have been a brother-in-law

of John Mackay. Close relationship or not, John Bàn Mackenzie (1796-1864) must have been about the same age as John Mackay’s son, Donald, and came second to him in the 1822 Highland Society competition and then took the first prize in 1823. John Bàn was born in Achilty, Contin, Strathpeffer, and is said to have been taught by Donald Mòr MacLennan and John Beag MacRae, as well as by John Mackay of Raasay. It is interesting to speculate as to why John Bàn crossed the country or was sent for teaching in Raasay. Doubtless, as a pupil with ability, he was welcomed into the Piper’s House and probably stayed with the family while in Raasay.

PIPING TODAY • 15

RESEARCH WORLDS John Mackay was born about 1767, according to his age as given in a later census record.

He is listed aged 75 in the 1841 Census, living together with his wife, Margaret, aged 70, in Kyleakin in the household of his son, Roderick, described as ‘Merchant’. By 1792, John Mackay was piper to MacLeod of Raasay, that is, James MacLeod who had succeeded his father, John MacLeod, 9th of Raasay (and the host of Johnson and Boswell), in 1786. John Mackay was listed as winner of the Highland Society’s pìobaireachd competition in Edinburgh in 1792 when he won the first prize of a Great Highland Bagpipe. In 1823 or possibly 1824, aged 56, John Mackay left the Laird of Raasay’s service. His son Donald, the eldest of his four sons, who had won the prize pipe in 1822, had taken over the role of Raasay’s piper. MacLeod of Raasay had died in 1823 and, with a change of regime, John Mackay was said to be contemplating emigration. Family tradition in Raasay is more explicit, that John Mackay had left Raasay in disgust at the way people were being treated. Instead of leaving the country, he was taken on as Piper to Lord Willoughby D’Eresby at Drummond Castle, Crieff. King George IV’s visit to Scotland in August 1822 had been heralded with the recreation of a Highland army which included an impressively prepared and equipped contingent from Drummond Castle. Clearly Lord Willoughby was keen to consolidate his Highland credentials by adding a reputable Highland piper to his strength. In 1961, Archibald Campbell of Kilberry recalled a tradition that John Mackay, with his wife and children, arrived at Drummond Castle on foot with all their possessions in four creels slung over the backs of two Highland ponies. This had been told to him by Pipe Major Meldrum who was at Drummond Castle in the 1880s and had been given the account by an old man working on the estate. This memory and this image have a strong ring of truth about them.

John Mackay remained at Drummond Castle until after 1835 although it is not certain when precisely he left Lord Willoughby’s service. By 1840, at the latest, he was living at Kyleakin ‘in retirement’. He died in 1848

PIPING TODAY • 16

and was buried at Kilmoluaig in Raasay where his burial place has now been marked by the Raasay Heritage Trust. Aged 80 or 81, this is a longevity not all together typical of the 18th or 19th centuries, but reminiscent of the patriarchal ages of piping families such as MacCrimmon and Mackay. It was a fact noted in the 1790 Statistical Account for the Parish of Snizort (in which Raasay was) by the Rev Malcolm MacLeod who wrote that ‘the air, on the whole, is not thought unsalubrious, and some instances of longevity tend to confirm the opinion… many are now living in this district above eighty years of age’.

John Mackay’s age, as mentioned, can be established, not by parish registers of birth and baptism, but according to his own version of his age as given to the census register.

By the late 1830s, Donald son of the Piper – Dòmhnall mac a’ Phìobaire – was said to be the only male Mackay remaining in the area.

His descendants have been known as Clann Mhic Ruairi, thus identifying them all as the descendents of Roderick Mackay of Raasay, father, of course, also of John. Angus Mackay himself wrote in the early 1850s how his father was ‘commonly called Iain Mac Ruairi’. It is evident that Donald’s brother John Mackay and John’s sons, Donald, Roderick, Angus and John, had all left Raasay and the Piper’s House.

Dòmhnall mac a’ Phìobaire was evicted from Oighre about 1839 when the township was cleared for sheep. A summons of removing, dated 23 March 1839, was served on behalf of the laird, John MacLeod of Raasay, on the six tenants in Oighre, one of whom was Donald Mackay. Donald went to Rona, that is, the island to the north of Raasay, an enforced move typical of the process of clearance. The tenants emigrated, moved to Skye or were unceremoniously dispatched to the north of Raasay to subsist as crofter-fishermen. The choice was a harsh one since there was no living to be had in the rocky northern tip of the island, in Eilean an Taighe or in the even less favourable and hitherto virtually uninhabited Isle of Rona.

The comparison with the Piper’s House in the

Angus Mackay by an unknown artist. Versions of this image appeared on the title pages of contemporary collections such as The Piper’s Assistant (c.1843) and A Collection of Ancient Piobaireachd (1838). This ‘portrait’ has been taken from an undocumented third edition of The Piper’s Assistant, 1851.

lush shallow valley of Oighre is vivid and cruel.

Sliochd nam Pìobairean, ‘the Descendants of the Pipers’, never forgot their inheritance and it was recalled particularly when the oral traditions of Raasay began to be recorded by the School of Scottish Studies in the 1950s.

An interesting and no doubt significant stream of information on the Mackays of Raasay was retailed by other Ratharsairich from the township of Osgaig. These were the MacLeans of a generation of seven that achieved particular academic excellence. John MacLean, Rector of Oban High School, and brother of Sorley, the poet, and Calum Iain, the folklorist, was himself a piper and contributed a significant lecture to the Gaelic Society of Inverness in 1952. Entitled ‘Am Piobaire Dall’, his piece added Raasay traditions to the history of the Mackays of Gairloch. John MacLean described how a Rory Mackay, the eponymous Ruairidh, came to Raasay from Sutherland, probably in the early 18th century, a pattern mirroring the family of Am Pìobaire Dall, whose father, also Rory, came south from the Reay country to Gairloch. John MacLean wrote that he derived his information from Pipe Major

RESEARCH Raasay tradition on the decedents of Ruairidh Mackay showing two branches of the family.

William Maclean, Kilcreggan, a pupil of Malcolm Macpherson (Calum Pìobaire). Calum Pìobaire is strongly associated in our collective memories with Badenoch, but he was born in Raasay and was related to a MacLeod family who were Tacksmen of Suidhisnis, the farm next to Oighre. Calum’s father, Angus, had been taught by John Mackay.

Angus Mackay wrote a biographical note on his father and family which is bound in with the manuscript volumes of his music in the National Library of Scotland. This fluent and possibly rapidly-written account is on one side of a single sheet of paper. It is bound together with two sheets, with four sides of writing, with an account by Angus of his being confined to Bethlehem Hospital on 29 November 1854. It reads verbatim as follows (in a version here in which the spelling has been ‘normalised’ for readability from the original text): ‘This is a brief account of my father’s family, John MacKay, commonly called Iain Mac Ruairidh of Eyre in Ratharsair, Isle of Skye. He was, I believe, left an orphan with one sister; he was reared up by Malcolm MacLeoid, commonly called Fir Aoighre.

He was there employed as a herd boy &c. and in the house. Fir Aoighre played the Pipes and was teaching a young lad. My

father used to overhear them and pick up his lesson, and play the same on the moor while herding, and that on a Feadan Seileastair. He was overheard by Fear Aoighre who taught him and afterwards sent him to the College of the MacCrimmons and to the MacKays of Gairloch. He married Margaret Maclean or Mairearad nighean Aonghais: Issue, Katherine Mhòr, as child who died in infancy, Donald, Mary, Margaret, Cursty, Katherine Og, Roderick, Angus (self ) and John. Katherine married Norman MacFhionghain, now in Prince Edward Island & has a numerous family. Mary married John MacKenyie in Castle, Raasay; she died in Raasay and is buried there. Margaret married Wm Robertson of Badenoch and died there; the other left a family. Cursty married A Maclean, her cousin, and she has one daughter in Prince Edward Island.

Kathy Og married John Munro and has one son, Duncan, alive at Kyleakin, Isle of Skye.

Roderick married Elisa Gillies of Raasay; he died in Edinburgh in 1854, leaving 4 children. I, Angus, married Mary Johnston Russell and have 4 children alive. John died in London, England. Donald died in London leaving three orphans; their mother Caroline [Lucas?] had died previously and is buried at Kensall Green. AMK’

The Piper’s House in its Raasay setting, looking from Oighre to Skye.

This is a precious piece of biography which is not available elsewhere in print in its entirety.

It is of course contradicted in a sense by family tradition in Raasay. The naming in the manner of a sloinneadh is very important, as Iain mac Ruairidh, and a detail which is rarely offered in piping histories. Reaching back effectively one generation only to an eponymous ‘Roderick’ may be significant, for example, for status and for descent – in other words both seemed in short supply – and Angus Mackay seems clear enough about modest family circumstances with the words: ‘…he was, I believe, left an orphan.’ However, another version might suggest that an alignment with the Mackays of Gairloch is implicit, in so far as Iain mac Ruairidh signalled this identification.

In terms of a Hebridean and Gaelic community, the sequel is entirely credible, that John was taken into the tacksman’s household, effectively fostered by him, and worked as a herd laddie, in a role which at one time or another every child in the Hebrides performed for the family, the family group or the township. The circumstantial detail which adds immeasurably to the account is that John taught himself his music on a home-made chanter. This seems like good family tradition and says much for Angus Mackay’s own style and artistry.

PIPING TODAY • 17

RESEARCH PIPING TODAY • 18

Learning In the last article, a story was told concerning John Mackay’s sister, Catriona, hearing the sound of the pipes from a boat out in the Sound and recognizing the playing of her brother.

The initial informants were the two brothers, Calum Ruairi Nèill Dhòmhnaill and Iain Ruairi Nèill Dhòmhnaill – their names telling us that they were the sons of Neil son of Donald, the brother of John Mackay. Calum Ruairi who lived in Fearns on the east side of Raasay died about 1947 and told the story of the Pìobaire on his way by boat to a competition where each piper was to play his own composition – am port aige fhèin. On the journey, another competitor joined the company and was not recognised. The Piobaire sat on a thwart of the boat fingering the notes of his tune on his stick. The rival watched him closely, learnt the tune and, having arranged matters at the competition so that he himself played first, played the Piobaire’s composition as his own and naturally won.

The motif of learning covertly and surreptitiously by close observation occurs elsewhere.

Curiously, the unnamed Pìobaire of the story could have been Donald son of John who twice went away to the Highland Society competitions in Edinburgh, in 1820 and 1821, and was ‘cheated’ of the first prize. In terms of piping, this mode of picking up music is entirely comprehensible and a pointer as to how bagpipe music was transmitted before the written or printed musical score. The readiness and ability to learn a tune from observing the player’s fingers has already been discussed in Piping Today (2005); a pupil is advised to get the tunes from his teacher, not in written form but ‘off his fingers’ where the technique clearly involves a combination of listening and watching. Angus Mackay later wrote that he had written down pipe music ‘from the Canntaireachd of John Mackay, his father from the year 1826 to 1840’, telling us that the teacher sung the music or ‘chanted’ it in a way then specific to piping. Learning the bagpipe then involved listening to the teacher singing the music either in vocables, which would have the implicit advantage of conveying grace-noting, or in song, in which the port-à-beul or ‘mouthmusic’ matched the rhythm and signalled the notation by assonance.

While we have no description of the teaching that went on in the Piper’s House, the reminiscences of two pipers, Angus Macpherson and Pipe Major William Maclean, gave

an illuminating account of their experiences as boys learning from Calum Pìobaire whose Raasay-born father, Angus, had lived ‘a stone’s throw away from the great John Mackay’ and would have undoubtedly learned in the Piper’s House in much the same way as the two boys.

Having just arrived at the home of Calum Pìobaire (known also as Taigh a’ Phìobaire) some 16 miles from Dalwhinnie, Pipe Major Maclean recalled: ‘It was November... it was beginning to darken and I was taken into the highland house, thatched and a typically highland house. I was warming myself at the fire... it was very cold and I got a good heat up from the peat fire and then Malcolm [Calum Pìobaire]... picked up his bagpipe and he always played with his bonnet on in the house... and started to play and I was just fairly carried away with the beautiful crisp strong notes that were coming from his fingers; and he was looking over quietly to me and he turned round and seeing me swallowing it all in with my ears and enjoying it. So we started then the following day; and he was very strict in his teaching... we got up at a little after eight in the morning; we had our breakfast at nine, and then we started the practice chanter at ten o’clock; and I had to keep going with the chanter, himself on one side of the fire and I on the other; and that went on until dinner time. Then he took me out in the afternoon, from two o’clock to three, or half past three, for a walk, and then we started the chanters again, until just about six o’clock. And the chanters were set aside then we had to wash up and prepare for their supper old highland style substantial plain good food and then everything that I had learned on the chanter through the day; we had to play it all on the bagpipe from seven o’clock until near bedtime. He would not give you any time to play much; no; but he never taught us on a Saturday; he gave us the Saturday off; he and his son Angus, who is now my friend up in Sutherlandshire; he is a good piper also; and he and I used to go away out and hunt for hares and rabbits in the snow with a stick; to keep the pot boiling with rabbits and hares and things like that; and enjoying ourselves climbing the hills; and the same procedure started again on the Mondays.’

RESEARCH Angus Macpherson corroborated Pipe Major Maclean’s account adding that ‘at night we memorised all those tunes together; humming them over together; William Maclean and myself; and we slept together... and hummed those tunes until we fell asleep...’ This was in the wintertime of course, and Angus Mackay’s account of his father practising on a homemade chanter on the moor whilst herding is indicative of how the seasonal cycle of piping shifted in the summertime when less time was spent indoors.

Making home-made practice chanters was once common to a number of piping traditions in Europe and was widespread across the Highlands and Islands until recently. Different materials were used depending on what was locally available; ragwort stalks in Perthshire, branches of elder in Skye, water-reeds in Mull and Uist, and so on. Strangely, Angus Mackay gives the only account of the stalk of the yellow iris or seileasdair being used, and experiments suggest that it could not have been manipulated by the usual method of burning a central bore and finger holes with a heated wire and fitting a reed of barley or oat straw at one end.

Perhaps the young John Mackay simply ‘fingered’ the iris stalk much as one uses a pencil or biro today in certain situations. More likely, a fully playable practice chanter, fitted with a reed of straw, and made from an elder branch or length of water-reed was played by John; both of these plants would have been readily available in Raasay and are known to produce excellent practice chanters.

The motif of learning covertly arises again in Angus Mackay’s account of his father overhearing the lessons being given to another boy and then practising unaided on his home-made practice chanter. That John Mackay achieved some level of competency in this manner before

John Mackay first learned his piping on a home-made practice chanter, or feadain.

This example, with a barley straw reed, is made of an elder branch which tradition describes as once being typical in Skye.

attracting the attention of Fear Oighre tells us something of his musical aptitude from an early age but is also an indication of the accessibility that home-made practice chanters and aural/oral learning afforded children in the days before more formal teaching methods.

Return to the Piper’s House For most Highland pipers, the early stages of learning were within the house and round the fire during the long winter nights. Typical of the environment of teaching and learning was the Piper’s House. The true ambience of the longhouse or ‘byre-dwelling’ combining shelter and living space for people and animals under the one roof is largely irretrievable. A parish minister writing an account of the parish of Kilmuir in the adjacent Trotternish peninsula in Skye about 1840 has left us a detailed insight into a house interior which would have been much the same as the Piper’s House 20 years or so earlier:

‘The houses generally consist of three apartments, which are separated either by stone walls or partitions made of wattled-work, straw or reeds. The middle apartment is the one principally occupied by the family, who have the fire in the centre of the floor, over which the crook is suspended from the rafters above. On the one side of the fire, a wooden bench or rude sofa is placed, of sufficient size to contain five or six people, while on the other side is found the good-wife’s sunnag or rustic arm-chair, of plaited straw, near which are the cradle, spinning-wheel, amraidh or cupboard, a large covered pot containing the kelt for family dress, undergoing the slow process of indigo dye, and the other paraphernalia which are indispensable for immediate family use.

The inmost apartment serves the purpose of barn or bed-room, sometimes both, while that next the door is occupied by the cattle.’

This arrangement of two or three separate internal spaces matches the shell of the Piper’s House – Tobht’ Taigh a’ Phìobaire – in Raasay.

The hearth clearly had symbolic as well as practical roles. It was the focus of the hospitality for which the Highlands and Hebrides had a longstanding reputation. Passing stranger, visiting neighbour or piping pupil would be invited: Thig a-staigh! or Thig suas! This conveyed the invitation to come in at the door, pass through the byre and come up the house to the fireside. Typically, this was the dynamic element of hospitality, the customary friendly visit or meeting – the ‘coming together’ – enshrined in the Gaelic term cèilidh which itself was associated with the fireplace or hearth as the social focus of any household. Hector MacLean of Ballygrant in Islay, writing to the

This is what the Piper’s House might have looked like when roofed and inhabited in the early 19th century.

PIPING TODAY • 19

RESEARCH Gaelic folklore collector John Francis Campbell of Islay in 1860, described the ‘institution’ of the cèilidh as it still prevailed in Barra: ‘The people gather in crowds to the houses of those whom they consider good reciters to listen to their stories’. One of Campbell’s collectors was the Lismore-born exciseman, Alexander Carmichael (1832-1912), whose own collection, Carmina Gadelica, was first published in 1900.

In its Introduction, he recalled with sentimental glow his own experiences in the ‘ceilidh-houses’ of the Highlands and Islands: ‘In a crofting community the people work in unison in the field during the day, and discuss together in the house at night. This meeting is called ‘cèilidh’ ... The ‘cèilidh’ is a literary entertainment where stories and tales, poems and ballads, are rehearsed and recited, and songs are sung, conundrums are put, proverbs are quoted, and many other literary matters are related and discussed ... The house is roomy and clean, if homely, with its bright peat fire in the middle of the floor. There are many present – men and women, boys and girls. All the women are seated, and most of the men ... The conversation is general: the local news, the weather, the price of cattle, these leading up to higher themes – the clearing of the glens (a sore subject), the war, the parliament, the effect of the sun upon the earth and the moon upon the tides.’

With the bright peat fire in the middle of the floor, the cèilidh in the Piper’s House must have passed from news and current affairs to snatches of songs and puirt-à-beul. Cailleach Liath Ratharsair, a local tune as we described in the last issue, must have been a favourite and prompted the pipers amongst them to put it on the pipes. Other favourite melodies would surely have followed, such as Calum crùbach anns a’ ghleann, Tha Biodag Dhòmhnaill mhic Alasdair, Gun do dh’ith na còin na ceannaichean and Tulloch Gorm; and all these tunes are to be found in Angus Mackay’s Piper’s Assistant or in Eliza Ross’s manuscript.

Conclusions In one form or another, the piping heritage of the Mackays of Raasay is with us still and must merit careful consideration and re-examination, not least because its origins lie on the threshold of the ‘modern period’ and stretch back to a less easily perceived past. That past is highly valued in the appreciation of the Highland bagpipe.

The sources are to hand, in music, language, literature, oral tradition and material culture, PIPING TODAY • 20

and allow us to explore that past. Some of these sources have been used in order to propose a number of points: that much of the history of the Mackays has been preserved in the collective memory of generations of Rathairsaich; and that oral tradition has emphasised a probable genealogical link between the Mackay piping families of Raasay and Gairloch. Oral tradition also led us to the site of the Piper’s House, allowing us a precious opportunity to go some way in reconstructing the environment of John Mackay’s home where piping flourished and was passed on to his sons and other pupils. Close examination of the music, as recorded by Eliza Ross and Angus Mackay, highlighted unique stylistic approaches in both ceòl mòr and ceòl beag performance and has suggested that at least some of Angus’s ceòl beag repertoire may be traced back to his musical roots in Raasay.

It would be unrealistic and unfair to credit these musical traditions and characteristics of the Mackays solely with the teaching of the MacCrimmons of Borreraig; by placing the Mackays on the MacCrimmon pedestal, we tend both to over- and to under-rate them.

Finally, examination of the portraiture of Angus Mackay has given us insight into more than just his physical appearance; it has given us, in effect, a broader understanding of the changing cultural status of pipers from the 18th to 19th centuries.

In the first article of this series, it was pointed out that, apart from the importance of his music, pipers today are often aware only of the final, tragic episode of Angus Mackay’s life. It is hoped that the series will have helped to reconnect the present generation of pipers with an earlier, more important and interesting time and place in Angus’s life. This is surely what Angus was trying to do in1854, when he reasserted his roots so poignantly in his hospital log with the heartfelt opening words: ‘...mise Aonghas Mac Iain Mhic Ruari a rugadh ann an Eire, Rarsair...’ (‘I, Angus son of John son of Roderick who was born in Eyre, Raasay...’).

Sabhal Mòr Ostaig Am Màrt 2011 Acknowledgements We are indebted to Dr Nicola Kalinsky, Shona Corner and Philip Hunt, National Galleries of Scotland, and to Katie Holyoak, The Royal Collection, for providing images for this essay and for their guidance and support in iden-

tifying surviving portraits of Angus Mackay.

Reproduction of the two portraits is by permission of The Royal Collection and the National Galleries of Scotland. We are also indebted to John A. Forrest, San Diego, for drawing a reconstruction of the Piper’s House for this issue.

Again, we are most grateful to Rebecca Mackay, Osgaig, Island of Raasay, for sharing with us what she has learnt about the Mackays from Calum Beag Chaluim Ruairidh, ‘an outstanding historian and genealogist’.

Further Reading Campbell, Archibald (of Kilberry), Pìobaireachd Society Book 3, 80 and Book 10, iii-iv.

Cheape, Hugh, Bagpipes. A National Collection of a National Instrument. National Museums Scotland 2008.

Cheape, Hugh, ‘“Get them off his fingers”: idioms of piping in Scotland’, in Piping Today Number 15 (2005), 12-15.

Forrest, J Decker, ‘The Making of Bagpipe Reeds and Practice Chanters in South Uist’ in Joshua Dickson, Editor, The Highland Bagpipe – Music, History, Tradition. Ashgate 2009, 71-94.

Gillies, William and Ann Matheson, Somhairle Mac Gilleain. Sorley Maclean, Edinburgh: National Library of Scotland 1981.

MacLean, John, ‘Am Piobaire Dall’, in Transactions of the Gaelic Society of Inverness Volume 41 (1951-1952), 283-306.

MacLean, Sam, ‘Some Raasay Traditions’, in Transactions of the Gaelic Society of Inverness Volume 49 (1974-1976), 377-397.

MacLeod, Norma, Raasay. The Island and its People. Edinburgh: Birlinn 2002.

National Library of Scotland [NLS], MS 3756; this biographical note has been transcribed and is included by courtesy of the Trustees of the National Library of Scotland; see also Roderick D Cannon, Bagpipe Manuscripts in the National Library of Scotland, Piping Times Volume 38 (1986).

‘The Piper’s Tale’ (from a BBC interview with Calum Iain MacLean), in Creag Dhubh (The Annual of the Clan Macpherson Society) Number 45 (1993), 50-51. l

McCallum Bagpipes are now supplied with threaded mounts for no extra cost

Ne w McCal lum al loy and imitation ivor y with threaded mounts

w w w . m c c a l l u m b a g p i p e s . c o m PIPING TODAY • 21

Making the most of his opportunities ANDREW BONAR

L

IKE most pipers in his 40s, with a young family and a demanding job, Andrew Bonar of Vancouver, Canada, has a lot of priorities to balance.

So, after a long wait to get back on to the boards at the Northern Meeting and Argyllshire Gathering last year, and to this past January’s Winter Storm competitions in Kansas City, he was determined to make the most of it.

At Inverness, he took the Competing Pipers’ Association Silver Medal. In Kansas City, he won the RG Hardie and Co./Midwest Highland Arts Fund United States Gold Medal. At home last season, he also won the British Columbia Pipers’ Association’s piobaireachd trophy for the third time and closed the year as runner-up to Jack Lee for the Grand Aggregate award for the most points won.

He has won the British Columbia Pipers’ Association Knockout competition seven times in the past and in March he took part in the finals for the 19th time.

Andrew teaches several young players. “With my work commitments and two young children, I don’t have a lot of time for teaching,” he said.

“I like to be working with four to six students at different stages of competition.” As chairman of British Columbia Pipers Association grading committee, he finds teaching helps him to better appreciate the levels the various amateur classes are playing at.

Last year he put in his 17th consecutive season as a senior member of the Simon Fraser University Pipe Band’s elite grade 1 pipe corps.

It is the band with which he pretty much grew up in piping.

His parents moved over to Canada from PIPING TODAY • 22

Photo by John Slavin @ designfolk

PROFILE

by Mike Paterson

PROFILE Aberdeen, Scotland. “Both taught Scottish country dancing, my dad was playing the pipes and my sisters were involved too,” he said. “I was going to the Abbotsford Legion Pipe Band’s practices with my father, William, from the time I was four or five-years-old.” As soon as his fingers could span the chanter, he began taking lessons.

It was a young piper, Ian Keith, who gave the seven-year-old his first tuition. “He was maybe 15 when he started teaching me,” said Andrew.

“He was probably the best young player in the band at the time and he taught me until he finished high school and moved on to university.

“Then I began taking lessons from Ian MacDougall, our pipe major,” he said.

“Ian has quite the reputation on the West Coast for having started young players, including Terry and Jack Lee and Alan Bevan. Jack and Terry would have been there in the late 1960s before going on to higher grade bands.

“I started playing with Abbotsford in 1975, then Alan Bevan started with Ian MacDougall in the 1980s so today’s main leadership core of the Simon Fraser University band all got their grounding with the same person.”

play solos in the morning and with the band in the afternoon. The North American system has all these amateur solo grades and I just kept working my way through them. I really don’t remember what it was like to be nine and 10 and playing in those amateur classes, it was just a way of life.”

In 1990, having graduated from Simon Fraser University with a business degree, Andrew moved to Toronto, Ontario. He said: “Toronto seemed to be the business capital of Canada… the place to go to get your career moving.”

There were other attractions too. Andrew explained: “The Ontario solo piping circuit was a lot stronger than circuit on the West Coast. It would have 20 or so players out every week: Bill Livingstone, Jim McGillivray, Colin MacLellan, Bruce Gandy, Michael Grey and others. It was very strong.”

In Ontario, Andrew boarded with Bruce Gandy and his family, and Bill Livingstone welcomed him into the 78th Fraser Highlanders Pipe Band.

“Bill is a very nice person and a great pipe major,” he said. “It was just four years after they

‘You have to be fortunate, even to be one of the 30 players who get into the Silver Medal. The standard is so good. I felt like the old guy in the class; many of the competitors would not have been born when I first competed in it’ A couple of years later, Andrew began taking lessons with Jack Lee and, when he was 14, he was invited by Jack to move up to the City of Port Moody Pipe Band’s grade 1 corps. That was in 1980.

“In the fall of 1981, we got sponsorship from the university and changed our name to the Simon Fraser University Pipe Band.”

By then, Andrew had also established a reputation as a rising young solo player.

“I started competing when I was nine,” he said. “It was just something you did. I was going to local competitions with the Abbotsford Legion band, playing in grade four. When I turned nine, my dad started entering me for the solos.

“From that age, it was just what you assumed you’d be doing at a Highland Games. You’d

first won the World Pipe Band Championships and they were also considered the top concert band in the world. It was still a smaller band with a family atmosphere to it and a great group of people to be with. I value having had the opportunity of playing with both of what stand, historically, as the two great Canadian bands, under the two great leaderships.”

In 1993, Andrew was back in Vancouver and back with the Simon Fraser University Pipe Band, but life was different, and in 1996, he began his career as an air traffic controller.

As a student, Andrew had been used to going to the World Pipe Band Championships with his band every summer, then staying on in Scotland to take in the Argyllshire Gathering and Northern Meeting.

“Simon Fraser University’s first trip to the

Worlds was in 1983. Then we next went in 1985,” he explained. “So I was going to the Silver Medal every year from 1985 until 1990.

“When I finished university and started working — from the early 1990s onwards — I pretty much had to make a choice between Oban and Inverness or the Worlds and I chose the Worlds, just because of the time I could get off work. So, in the 20 years from 1990 to 2010, I got to Oban and Inverness just three times, and it’s tough to win if you’re not there.”

Over the past three decades, Andrew has made it to 25 World Pipe Band Championships as a grade 1 player. In that time, he has seen the event become a markedly different experience.

“The format’s changed more than once and the standard of grade 1 has soared. There’s the size of the bands: when we started going over in the 1980s, a band of 12 pipers was ‘big’. The last couple of years, we’ve played 24 pipers.

“Back in the 1980s, the Worlds was just one of the five majors and overseas bands weren’t considered a threat. Only after the 78th Frasers broke into the prize list in 1984, and Simon Fraser took second place in 1985, did the attitude of the Scottish bands change. Now they treat the World Pipe Band Championships very differently.

“The whole atmosphere has changed and, with Piping Live!, you have a week-long event.

You have the grandstands at Glasgow Green, the broadcasts and the big screen and it looks like a ‘world’ championship.”

AT last, it was a change in Andrew’s work demands that let him back into contention for the Silver Medal.

“After so many years as an air traffic controller, you get extra leave but not a free choice of when you take it,” he said. “The company’s concern is to ensure there are enough people at work every day to keep the airplanes going.

“In the area I work, we can only have two people away at any one time, and you can only pick six days of leave each time it’s your turn to choose. When it’s run past everybody I work with, the summer’s pretty much gone.

“They also have a programme that lets you take a longer period off without pay if you have a child under six years of age.

“That’s what I did last summer,” he said.

“I was able to take the month of August off and could do the Worlds and Oban and Inverness and, luckily, it worked out well. I hadn’t expected to win the Silver Medal. So many PIPING TODAY • 23

PROFILE people had told me, ‘If you don’t go year after year, they’re not going to listen to you’.

“You have to be fortunate, even to be one of the 30 players who get into the Silver Medal.

The standard is so good,” he said. “I felt like the old guy in the class; many of the competitors would not have been born when I first competed in it.

“It is difficult to win, especially most years when there are set tunes and smaller set tunes.

Last year, I felt fortunate that you could offer tunes of your own choice. That way, everybody gets the chance to put their best tunes out there and go with it and that’s probably where age and experience helped me.

“My youngest now is three so I can take three more summers off without pay and that’ll give me six opportunities to play in the Gold Medal.

I’m going to enjoy playing among the world’s best. That’s a great honour right there.”

That Andrew’s preparations are in hand was shown by his win in January of the $750 U.S. Gold Medal for Piobaireachd at Winter Storm.

“It encouraged me to believe the tunes I’m working on are at least headed in the right direction,” he said. “It was only the second time I’ve played at Winter Storm and I was impressed. My first time was when they held their first competition, the MWHAF Silver Medal, eight years ago.

“One of the reasons I haven’t been there more often has been that around Christmas. with people taking leave at work, there are so many overtime shifts the company wants you to work it’s difficult to find time to practise. This year, with the opportunity I have to play in the Gold Medal in Scotland, Kansas City gave me a push to get the tunes learned quickly and get them going.

“Going back, I couldn’t believe the size of it.

I believe they had 140 entries for the competitions and more than 300 at the workshops.

It’s huge.

“It’s a great event and the competition and tuning rooms are the best I’ve experienced,” he said. “The organisers go out of their way to make sure conditions are as good as possible.

“They have thermometers in all the tuning rooms and constantly check to ensure that the tuning rooms and competing rooms are close to the same temperature. It’s probably the only contest I’ve been to where competitors are shown that sort of respect. They’re grateful the competitors are showing up to play and know PIPING TODAY • 24

Andrew’s Solo Pipe Set-up Pipes: Henderson

Andrew’s pipes were given to him by the family of the late Malcolm Bokenfohr, a keen member of the Simon Fraser University pipe band who, with fellow band member Robert Barbulak, died tragically in a car crash in 1993. The two are commemorated in the name of the Robert Malcolm Memorial Pipe Band.

Chanter: Niall Chanter Reed: MacPhee Tenor Reeds: Cam Keating Bass Reed: Rocket Pipe Bag: Gannaway with Ross canister system it’s the competitors that make the event.”

Andrew began his preparations for this year’s set tunes at a special gathering in October. “A group of people from the Portland-Seattle area organised the workshop, which is about three hours from here by car. They wanted to keep it small, so participation was by ‘invitation only’ and we had three days with Andrew Wright.

“That’s the foundation of what I’m doing with the Gold Medal tunes right now, and, as we get closer to the season, the decisions will come up about who else I’m going to see and where I’m going to go for more input.

“When you’re a younger player, I think it’s important to take advice from one particular player,” he said. “Until you get a better understanding of the music and the settings and so on, it’s better to be told what you should do, and learn the tune properly. Then, with experience, you start to understand the different styles of different players historically and it gets better to be exposed to different styles.”

AS well as his solo work, Andrew has also composed a number of tunes and over the years, the Simon Fraser University band has chosen to play a number of his compositions.

“It’s an honour to have the band play my tunes,” he said. He published a collection of his own tunes — and tunes by several other Simon Fraser University players — in 2004: Boney Music. “I probably have enough material now for a second book but it’s a case of finding the time to put everything together,” he said, and that is low on his current list of priorities.

“The family is always at the top of my list and piping is my hobby. I’m just very lucky to

have a family that understands what’s involved in playing at the level the band plays at and what I’m playing individually.”

His wife, Jeanette is a Highland dance teacher and judge. “She understands the commitment involved,” he said. “For 30 years, she competed. She still teaches and she’s a judge.

And our six-year-old daughter, Kate, now competes in Highland dancing.”

Over the winter, Andrew typically plays for several local Highland dance contests. “If I’m not there to play, I try to be there to watch,” he said. “Playing for them is enjoyable — a good opportunity to keep the hands going and get the bagpipe working.

“Usually in the winter I have a competition or two of my own coming up, so I see a dance competition as a long day of practice.”

He manages to juggle his family, work and other commitments and remains fully committed to the Simon Fraser University Pipe Band, one of the most demanding corps in the world.

Andrew said: “Players are attracted to the West Coast to go to university and play with the band. I can’t remember the grade 1 band ever having a shortage of players. We have more people wanting in than we have leaving and that’s probably what keeps pushing the standard higher and higher.

“Everybody in the band knows there’s somebody trying to take his or her spot in the circle. That keeps everybody working hard. No matter how many years you have in the band, nobody’s safe.

“That’s probably the key to the band’s success,” he added. “The fact we have so many players constantly pushing each other. It doesn’t hurt that we have so many of the top players in the world in the circle and young players coming into the band have all that talent and experience to learn from.

“Most grade 1 bands would have two or three great players — we have half a dozen for our young players to learn from. Right down through to the junior band organisation, we have Terry and Jack Lee, Alan Bevan and others teaching, so young players are getting the best tuition possible right from the start. Especially over the winter, even grade 3 players, on top of their own practices, get opportunities to come in with the grade 1 band, which gives them opportunities to stand in the circle with top players and improve their own playing and it gets them working that much harder.” l

NYPBoS Question time with...

The National Youth Pipe Band of Scotland Newsletter No.48

PIPER

Youngstars

Lucy Ferguson Q: Where are you from and how old are you?

I am 13-years-old and live in Dollar, Clackmannanshire.

Q: How did you get into piping and when?

I lived in Aberdeen when I was younger and my nursery teacher’s son used to come in to my nursery school and play his bagpipes. I knew then that I wanted to play and have been hooked ever since. It came as much of a surprise to my family as no one else plays the bagpipes. A few years later I moved to Dollar and I started having chanter lessons at school before moving on to the bagpipes when I was nine-years-old.

Q: Who is your tutor and what pipe band do you play with?

I am fortunate to be taught by Hugh MacCallum. During lessons I really take pleasure in hearing about the origins of the tunes I am learning, it’s a bit like having a music lesson and history lesson rolled into one. I play for Dollar Academy Pipe Band and I am taught in school by Matt Wilson.

Q: How many hours a week do you spend on piping and how much practice is on your own, with a band or on the pipes/chanter?

Practice time can vary. I try to spend about 40-60 minutes per day working on my solo tunes and this is split between playing on my chanter and pipes. I also have a weekly tutorial for my solo piping. I practise with Dollar Academy Pipe Band for two to three hours a week and this increases in the lead-up to competitions.

Q: What are your piping strong points and what do you most need to improve on?

I think I have good technique and strong fingering. The steadiness of my blowing has improved over the last couple of years and I would say this is a strong point, allowing me to focus on developing my interpretation of the music. I especially enjoy playing piobaireachd. It can be challenging but so rewarding and I am continually striving to improve my performance.

Q: What is your favourite tune and why?

This is a difficult question as I enjoy so many tunes.

I especially take pleasure in the work of Gordon Duncan.

I find the range of his work inspirational, from his slow melodic airs to his manic hornpipes and jigs. One of my favourite tunes has to be The Lullaby by Alisdair McLaren.

This is such a lovely tune to listen to and I get such a buzz performing this with The National Youth Pipe Band.

Q: What make of pipes do you play, and are they set up with sheepskin and cane or synthetic?

I currently play a set of reconditioned MacDougall pipes with a goat’s skin bag with Canning reeds. I am hoping to get a set of Henderson pipes for playing with the band and keep my MacDougalls for solos. continued on page 28 ☛ Youngstars

Lucy pictured playing with the NYPBoS at Celtic Connections 2011.

Photo: John Slavin @ designfolk.com

Q: What do you want to achieve in piping?

I enjoying competing in solo competitions and my aim is to compete as much as possible this year, both at indoor competitions and at Highland Games. Last year, Dollar Academy Pipe Band was very successful in the juvenile competitions, so it would be great to repeat that success this year.

PIPINGTODA TODAY 25 PIPING Y ••25

The National Youth Pipe Band of Scotland Newsletter No.48

Supported by

Youngstars

NYPBoS prepare to illuminate F

EBRUARY and March have been busy months for the senior members of the National Youth Pipe Band of Scotland as the band travelled to the Scottish Borders, East Lothian and Ross and Cromarty to conduct their annual outreach programmes. These have become a very important aspect of the band’s calendar and the NYPBoS continues to inspire other young pipers and drummers from all over Scotland.

This year’s series of three outreach courses saw the members of the NYPBoS spend time with over 200 young aspiring pipers and drummers. With each programme, band members provided a full day of piping and drumming instruction designed to help pass on skills and knowledge that they have learned themselves from being a member of the NYPBoS. Workshops included lessons on instrument maintenance, performance and technique. Each course was completed with an evening concert, where the band performed to the local community, showcasing the many top young pipers and drummers within the project.

On behalf of the NYPBoS I would like to especially thank Stuart Robinson, pipe major of the Stow Pipe Band, Paul Heward and Lee Moore from the East Lothian Pipers and Drummers Trust and Fiona Dalgetty and Allison Watson from Feis Rois Dingwall for all their assistance in making these very successful events.

In April the band will focus on their major concert for 2011, entitled Illumination. The concert will be held at the Old Fruitmarket in Glasgow and is scheduled for April 23. It will be a fantastic event, once again exhibiting the band’s unique style of concert performance, and for the first time it will incorporate synchronised lighting effects as a visual enhancement to the band’s musical repertoire. The concert will feature some new sets, including compositions from members of the NYPBoS, and top class solo performances which have become a custom of our concerts. So if you’re a keen fan of the band or want to see and hear a top class pipe band concert then please come along and see the NYPBoS in action and support Scotland’s rising stars. It promises to be a real spectacle for the eyes and the ears!

Tickets are £10/£6 concession and can be purchased online at www.thepipingcentre. co.uk/youth-pb or by calling the box office on 0141 353 8000.

PIPING TODAY • 26

Youngstars

by ALISDAIR McLAREN

DIRECTOR, NATIONAL YOUTH PIPE BAND OF SCOTLAND

Youngstars

the Old Fruitmarket

Youngstars

PIPING TODAY • 27

The National Youth Pipe Band of Scotland Newsletter No.48 Youngstars ☛ continued from page 28 Q: What is the best trip or playing experience you have had with the NYPBoS? The Dragon’s Lair concert at the Usher Hall was the best concert so far. Playing a great set in a spectacular setting with my family in the audience was very special. However, I have also really enjoyed the recent outreach concerts. Travelling all over Scotland with your friends, to promote the bagpipes and then perform in a concert makes for an exciting weekend.

Q: What is your favourite part of being in the NYPBoS? I enjoy all parts of being in the NYPBoS. It is always great fun, practising and performing with old and new friends, who are all committed to producing quality music.

Q: What are the other band members likely to say about you, or what are you most known for in the band?

There have been many comments about my lack of height but I think I have grown out of that!

I do have the occasional “blonde” moment, much to the other band members’ amusement.

Q: What is the secret of your success?

Hard work. There’s no substitute for practice — and determination.

Q: What would be your ideal uniform if you were allowed to choose it for your band?

I feel very proud to wear the traditional Highland outfit, but would love someone to make a jacket that is sympathetic to the needs of a piper.

I’ve had the misfortune to play in a competition which required jackets to be worn and lost concentration as the pipes slipped.

Q: Do you have any superstitions or any pre performance rituals?

I’m not really superstitious. I like taking my dog Harry along to the outdoor competitions, he is like a lucky mascot.

Q: Who is your pipe idol?

Stuart Liddell is a tremendous piper, he has his own distinctive style of playing which is incredible to listen to, especially his live performances.

His continued success with Inveraray Pipe Band is amazing.

Q: What other music do you like?

What’s on your MP3 player?

I am a big fan of Celtic folk, pop and jazz. Salsa Celtica manage to blend my favourite instruments: pipes and trumpet, so they are a regular on my iPod and even better live.

Q: Who are your heroes?

All my piping tutors have been a great influence on my piping skills and confidence, and I have a great respect for all of them.

Q: What are your interests outside of piping?

Pipes are a big part of my life but I keep myself busy with playing hockey for my school, I’m in the Combined Cadet Force and I play trumpet in the school orchestra.

Q: Are you sporty, and do you follow any teams?

I play hockey at school during the winter and then athletics and tennis in the summer term. I am too busy to follow any teams.

Q: What do you want to do for a career?

I am currently choosing my Standard Grades and I am hoping to go on to study law.

Q: Do you prefer sweet or savoury?

I definitely prefer sweet, I have a sweet tooth.

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Unit 3, Manor Business Park Manor Farm, Stirling, FK9 5QA Tel/fax: + 44 (0)1786 464864 email: trutone@tiscali.co.uk

www.tru-tone.co.uk PIPING TODAY • 28

Youngstars

THE JUVENILES

by Dr Martin Lowe OBE

Pipes and Drums at Dollar Academ What it takes to be World Juvenile Champions

“T

hat band has a better sound than many grade 1 bands I could mention, including the one I was pipe major of!” That was the verdict of a distinguished former grade 1 pipe major on hearing Dollar Academy playing at a Combined Cadet Force Schools Competition a few years ago.

It reflected well on the high standards that both Dollar and George Watson’s College have been achieving, with Dollar winning the World Juvenile Championship last year and Watson’s in 2002, 2007 and 2009.

So what has made such a recipe for success of piping and drumming at the two schools, which for a short while competed in the ample shadow of the phenomenon that is Inveraray and District.

At Dollar Academy, the new Rector David Knapman, originally from Dunblane and returning after many years in the south, explained that the band is a source of great pride not only to the Academy but to the Dollar community as a whole.

Local residents know summer has come when they hear the daily 8.00am practices start up in the summer term, and the band regularly parades in the main street to celebrate success in a top competition. On returning from winning a competition, they play outside the Rector’s house, regardless of the time of day or night.

It is immediately evident from the pride and emotion with which the Rector speaks just how much the band means to the whole school.

That in a place where other extra-curricular pursuits are also highly valued and where many of the youngsters in the band also play another instrument and take part in sport at a high level.

Yet as the Rector explained, it is not primarily about winning competitions but more a matter of each piper and drummer excelling to the highest level they can achieve Playing in the band is seen as contributing directly to the educational process, and this plays a big part in the development of an individual’s confidence. The pupils are expected to conduct themselves entirely professionally, and PIPING TODAY • 30

Dollar Academy Pipe Band in No.1 uniform playing in front of the school

‘There is a long process of reed selection to suit different people which requires an understanding of how each maintains and blows their pipe’ Craig Stewart and Matt Wilson with the World Juvenile Championship Shield

to know how be successful without arrogance The leadership of the Dollar band is provided in piping by Craig Stewart, who has been there since 1993, formerly full-time and who is now with the band three days a week, together with Matt Wilson who joined full-time in 2009.

Drumming instruction is given four days a week by Lee Innes, supported by George Mair (one day a week) for tenor drumming. Matt plays with Field Marshal Montgomery and having been first taught by his father George Wilson (former pipe major of Scottish Gas Caledonia) now draws much of his inspiration from FMM’s Richard Parkes. Indeed Dollar has been described as a ‘Diet FMM’.

It is evident that these instructors operate as an effective close-knit team. Dollar has come far since Craig Stewart joined when

there were only four pipers and the school was coming consistently last in the Combined Cadet Force competitions. Matt is a former pupil of George Watson’s and while there also had lessons from Neil Cameron, Gavin Stoddart and Brian Donaldson. He was the Watson’s pupil pipe major when they won the World Juvenile Championship in 2002.

Matt emphasises that “improvement is a slow and gradual process” which starts many months before the competition season with selection of repertoire that will suit the players. As he put it: “I’d love to play the Cameronian Rant but it’s not going to happen.”

The senior band practises for two hours a week in the first two terms, building up to daily practices in the third term and then a week’s solid practice immediately before the majors. As Craig said: “It’s not how often you practise but how you practise. You may learn to do something badly and if the instruction

THE JUVENILES

COMPETITION

my and George Watson’s College paid, and a few of them supplement that with lessons outwith the school, if for example they want to learn piobaireachd. Those who are good enough are encouraged to audition for The National Youth Pipe Band of Scotland, which is regarded as fitting in well with its accent on performance, not competition, and the social interaction which it provides.

George Watson’s College at the British Pipe Band Championships 2010 George Watson’s College Pipes and Drums at the Edinburgh Tattoo, September 2009

isn’t right, you’re just practising your mistakes.”

Matt added: “The big thing is the sound. There is a long process of reed selection to suit different people which requires an understanding of how each maintains and blows their pipe.” At his interview for his current position he said that his ambition would be to win the Worlds Juvenile title in four years and he’s proud that they did that in his first full season.

Last year, the band competed in the five majors and at Gourock and plan the same for 2011. This represents a very big undertaking, not only for the pupils who are asked to guarantee their full commitment but particularly for the staff who have to be ‘on duty’ during the summer holiday period and also for family members who have to organise holidays round the competition dates. The staff also carry a ‘duty of care’ for the young people in their charge which can be an issue at a competition after they have competed and face a potentially tedious wait of several hours before the massed bands and results. The youngsters are encouraged to make a point of listening to other bands in different grades, to develop a view of their likes and dislikes of different performances, and to observe the routines that the top bands follow before performing.

Typically the ‘A’ band will have around 18 pipers, and Dollar also run a ‘B’ band, with in total some 80 pipers and 50 drummers (snare and tenor/bass) under instruction at various levels. They start all their musicians from scratch and any pupil entering with some previous experience will be taken back to basics to ensure a rigorous grounding in accurate technique.

All are guided through the same process of scales, embellishments and structure, and they are required to master five tunes before progressing to a goose with a practice pipe chanter. On moving on to the pipes, Matt regards the size of the bag and the position of the blowstick as key elements of a good and comfortable posture, tailored to the individual. Normally it can take around two years to reach full playing standard.

From time to time, both bands play together to give encouragement to the younger players.

They also run a weekly ‘fringe player’ session for those not quite ready for the band, and this helps to create some competition and motivation within the group as a whole. Peer pressure can prove very motivational and attrition rates are low.

Pupils also generally receive half an hour per week of individual tuition, for which a fee is

At George Watson’s, there is no Combined Cadet Force and consequently their pipe band is excluded from Combined Cadet Force competitions against other schools. For many years this prevented them from testing themselves against some of their school peers and they concentrated on RSPBA competitions with considerable success, having won some 100 top awards (two bands and drumming) over the past decade. More recently they have been admitted to the annual competition run by the Glasgow Highland Club and have introduced their own schools competition to give them wider exposure.

The Principal of George Watson’s, Gareth Edwards, regards the band as “one of the great success stories of the School in the last 20 years”.

It was “the sheer enthusiasm and guts of parents and some staff that got it back on the road”.

Nowadays, the parents continue to be central to the success of the band, being fully involved in fundraising and pastoral support.

Pointing out that Watson’s “is not a pipes and drums academy or a professional rugby club” but a school where education is paramount, he nevertheless sees activities such as sport and the pipe band as helping to develop confidence both in the youngsters and the staff, with a healthy blend of participation and competition. It’s not all about winning: in 2010 when the band was less successful, the instructors maintained a sense of perspective so that there was dignity in defeat and generally a very professional approach. Band trips abroad every second year to countries such as Japan, Russia and Canada have engendered discipline and give opportunity for older pupils to ‘mentor’ the younger ones. The Principal directs support PIPING TODAY • 31

THE JUVENILES from the school’s budget according to the rate of participation in specific activities, and he acknowledges that the band is seen as a priority which attracts more resource than is available in other schools. The school is able to employ four full-time band instructors and some part-timers. Pupils generally also take individual piping or drumming lessons, for which additional fees are paid. Both the youngsters and staff have to really enjoy what they’re doing because of the sheer amount of time required to prepare for and compete in the five majors each year over the summer period. The Principal, however, added that he would like to see more girls getting involved with the band.

The leading piping instructor Iain Simpson, who is also well-known as a piper with Boghall and Bathgate, has been at Watson’s since 2000 when there were only 20 pipers in the school at all levels. Supporting him full-time is Ross Harvey, and full-time drumming instruction is provided by Mick O’Neill and Jim Clark. Jim Semple (piping) and Murray Winton (bass section) teach part-time. The pupil numbers now engaged in piping and drumming at Watson’s are quite staggering. There are 130 pipers (from learners up to band members) and 125 drummers (snare and bass sections). Of these, 35 are in the Juvenile band, 35 in the Novice and 40 in the Junior. There are 2300 pupils in the primary and secondary schools so this represents more than 10 per cent participation. As Iain said: “This is a huge audience to tap into. After the success of the 2000 season, with three championship wins, I spoke at two primary school assemblies resulting in a tripling of the numbers and it has gone from strength to strength ever since.”

In 2001, Iain heard the Robert Malcolm Memorial Band (the Simon Fraser University juveniles) from Vancouver playing at North Berwick and thought: “That must become our benchmark!” RMM were not at the Worlds in 2002 but in 2007 Watson’s finally achieved that goal and in turn became the Juvenile band to emulate, arguably followed by the 2008 winners Inveraray, who are now in grade 1. He believes that the standard in the Juvenile grade continues to rise steadily, and this can only be good for the future of piping.

All three bands at Watson’s compete, the Junior band at six minors, the Novice Juvenile at six minors plus the five championships and the Juvenile at the same plus Bridge of Allan.

The basic band practices are weekly for up to PIPING TODAY • 32

George Watson’s on the banks of the Tweed with their 2007 trophy haul, including the World Championship trophy

an hour and a half for all three, plus some lunchtime practices as required. The instructors also work with sub-groups with specific needs, and most pupils take individual Pipe major Iain Simpson lessons too. The three bands do occasional public performances together. As at Dollar, all the pipers and drummers have other interests such as sport, music and drama in the school, which involves a degree of give and take over timetable issues and competing demands, particularly in the summer term.

The school timetable is arranged on a seven-day cycle so that pupils missing classes for their weekly 30-minute lesson do not lose out on the same class each week. Pipers starting from scratch get the scale, strikes and three gracenotes, hand-changing exercises, then doublings and throws leading on to tunes (after five doublings) in different time signatures. Once they have six tunes up they move on to a goose and then the pipes, being taught how to strike in on a band start, how to stop and to march.

Iain has been introducing cane drone reeds this year and would like to have them as standard as he believes they give a richer drone sound.

Mick O’Neill explained that the drummers first get the rudiments of ‘mummy-daddies, paradiddles, triplets and flams’ then progressing to simple rhythms in 2/4, 3/4, 4/4 and 6/8 time, with an introduction to reading music straight away and to basic embellishments. They work on the same tunes as the pipers. Pupils are encouraged to sit the Piping and Drumming Qualifications Board exams if they wish, and all who have done so thus far have passed at

level 2 or 3. Iain expects them now to progress to higher levels.

Iain also emphasises the importance of the support of the parent group. All four full-time instructors are playing members of grade 1 bands and so cannot supervise the pupils throughout a long competition. There is a roster of parent helpers who must attend a child protection course, and the group meets four times a year to discuss the programme for the coming months and fundraising arrangements.

Most leavers from both schools go on to higher education and for many, the demands of study and later professional life make it difficult for them to continue in bands at a high level.

Neither school has a specific senior band into which they feed but there are strong playing connections between tutors and several top bands. Watson’s former pupils are currently to be found playing in six of the top seven grade 1 bands and Dollar former pupils are also well represented. They also tend keep in regular touch with their schools and return to give support at competitions.

It seems that the chief ingredients of the success enjoyed at both these schools are: full support from the very top; talented and committed instructors; enthusiastic and engaged pupils; adequate resources; active parental support; discipline, sheer hard work all round (practice, practice and still more practice); and a balanced attitude to winning and losing. It is also evident at that there is total support for piping and drumming from both schools’ music departments. While the schools are in the independent sector and so might be thought to be more generously resourced for piping and drumming than in state sector schools, sacrifices have to be made by all concerned and there can

THE JUVENILES “A good start”: Dollar’s World Juvenile Championship performance at Glasgow Green, August 2010

be no doubt that these are regarded as being fully worthwhile. As the tutors at both schools point out, the playing and tonal standard in the Juvenile grade is very high and getting higher.

Indeed, some expert sources suggest that the top juvenile bands might well emulate the 2009 success of Inveraray in grade 2 were they to compete there.

When Iain Simpson was looking for work 20 years ago, he contacted his local authority in search of a teaching post in piping and was told that there was no demand from pupils, despite his son having been offered tuition in almost every other instrument. Sadly, this attitude can still be encountered today, as can the opposition of some school music departments who can

scarcely bring themselves to regard the bagpipe as a proper musical instrument. Fortunately, in the early 1970s, the recognition by the then Scottish Certificate of Education Examination Board of the pipes as an acceptable instrument for presentation at SCE music exams did much to change attitudes and ushered in the employment of some fine piping tutors by several of the Scottish local authorities. While perhaps the initial emphasis was on solo performance, there have been exciting developments in recent years in the state sector with excellent bands such as Kintyre Schools, Oban High School and North Lanarkshire Schools providing a route into band playing for young people who perhaps do not have available a juvenile section of a local senior pipe band.

The Dollar and George Watson’s case studies offer real encouragement and inspiration to other schools. They both progressed rapidly from a modest base in the course of a few years and almost anything is possible if the will and the talent is there. l

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PIPING TODAY • 33

NEW TUNES

Nine Notes and more...

by Stuart Robertson

Simon Blackshaw I

n this issue we feature Simon Blackshaw. Simon lives in Melbourne, Australia. His tunes have become part of several bands’ repertoires and he penned the Australia Highlanders’ opening tune for their 2006 medley.

Although he is only 20, Simon has been involved in piping for more than 10 years. Starting out in the Nunawading Pipe Band under tuition from his father, Simon Snr, Simon has competed at the highest level of solo piping and in pipe bands.

He played with The Pipe Band Club in grade 1 at the Worlds in 2009 and as an international member of the Dowco Triumph Street Pipe Band from Vancouver, Canada, Simon also competed at the World s in 2010, where the band placed 12th.

He is currently studying Architectural Drafting and loves writing music and travelling.

Here, Simon gives Piping Today readers an insight into his composing experience...

When did you start composing?

I first started composing in about 2004 after a few years of learning the pipes from my father. I remember it was a four-part jig called The Race Against Time which was a result of mucking around on the chanter. I found that tune buried among other music under my bed last year. Ever since then I have caught the composing bug and haven’t stopped writing.

What inspired you to write?

I’ve always enjoyed music in general. So when I started writing and mucking about on the chanter I was always trying to get better. I wasn’t the ‘studying’ type at school, so a lot of the inspiration for writing tunes came from boredom. I used to come home from school, sit at my desk and have my homework laid out, but I would always have my chanter next to me with a spare piece of manuscript ready to make music.

What are your influences?

Everything. I listen to and appreciate all genres of music. I listen to a lot of music because I think it helps to shape a tune. There are impressive rhythms that can be used and various key changes that can also be effective.

What’s your opinion on modern composers, and who impresses you?

To be honest, I think in terms of bagpipe music, it is getting to a stage where there are almost too many composers and too much new music. It can be challenging to write a tune and to have it not sound like somebody else’s. But at the same time I love the enthusiasm young and older pipers have when writing tunes. There are a lot of awesome ‘modern’ tunes out there but it all comes down to personal taste. I’m always searching for something different, something that hasn’t been written before. A few composers that stand out for me are Fred Morrison, Chris Armstrong, Gordon Duncan and Mark Saul.

All have made a huge impact on bagpipe music around the world.

How do you mould a tune, from concept to completion?

It’s always different. Sometimes I’ll wake up in the middle of the night and have a phrase in my head and I’ll write it down. Sometimes I’ll think of something when I’m at work or when I’m driving somewhere and I’ll keep playing that phrase in my head and when I have a bit of paper I’ll write it down. I also search for tunes. I’ll think of a specific type or key and I’ll sit down and see what I can do. I’ve also written a few suites based on historical events which is what I like writing the most.

How did you write the tunes published in the magazine?

Zane Scott’s is part of a suite I finished recently and was written around the time my sister gave birth to my nephew Zane, hence the title.

PIPING TODAY • 34

The New Groove was written in 2008. I was keen to write a new opening tune to a medley, something different and marchable. After a few hours I came up with the first two-bar groove and the tune seemed to write itself after that. I like the syncopation and the overall feel of the tune. To me, it’s a nice, fun tune to play. l

NEW TUNES

NEW MUSIC NEWTUNES

Zane Scott Reel

Simon Blackshaw

The New Groove Hornpipe

Simon Blackshaw

PIPING TODAY • 35

PIPING LIVE!

PROFILE PIPING TODAY • 37

TRIBUTE

Malcolm MacCrimmon piping at Borreraig in 1959, for the Clan MacLeod Parliament at the MacCrimmon Cairn

PIPING TODAY • 38

TRIBUTE

by Mike Paterson

Rekindling MacCrimmon family connections MALCOLM RODERICK MacCRIMMON (1918-2011)

T

HE bust-up came in the midst of the indebtedness, dispossession, turmoil and dismay that gripped the Highlands of Scotland in the late 18th century.

When Donald Ruadh MacCrimmon parted from his MacLeod patron in 1773, it’s unlikely that he ever expected to see Skye again. He took ship for the New World, and lost an eye fighting for British rule in North America. He settled for a time in Canada, where he refused to pass on his piping knowledge to anyone, even his own children. It was a rift that would last more than a century.

His older brother, Iain Dubh MacCrimmon, had kept the lease at Borreraig, but the MacLeod tradition of piping patronage was nearing extinction and the glory days of the old MacCrimmon piping “school” on Skye were fading memories. Even after the Highland Society of London repatriated Donald Ruadh, his wife and three of their four children to Scotland in 1790, he never taught, and the MacLeod estates were being racked by clearances, poverty and emigration.

The son he had left behind in Canada, Roderick, was swept up in the demanding life of a New World pioneer.

And, but for the late Malcolm Roderick MacCrimmon, 1918-2011, a great-great grandson of Donald Ruadh, the North American link to the MacCrimmon dynasty could easily have faded from recollection in the context of an emerging Canada where there were other family achievements to celebrate.

Malcolm MacCrimmon’s father and Gaelicspeaking grandfather both played important parts in railroad development in Western Canada, work that helped to lay a basis for Canadian identity. His grandfather, also Malcolm, son of Roderick, played a key role in surveying and grading of the last and most daunting section of the Canadian Pacific Railway: through Kicking Horse Pass in the precipitous heights of the Rocky Mountains.

The family moved to the community of Luscar, Alberta, where Malcolm’s Ontarioborn father, Roderick — grandson of Donald Ruadh’s son — established the area’s first dairy farm — then to North Vancouver, British Columbia.

It was there, one day in 1927, that Malcolm MacCrimmon heard bagpipes for the first time.

“I went over and asked the piper if he could

help me learn that instrument he was playing,” Malcolm recalled. “He told me he was sorry, he was busy with his work and he couldn’t take any more pupils. Then he asked me, ‘What’s your name, son?’ I told him and he said, ‘Well, you can start right now’.” The piper was Donald Maclean from the Isle of Lewis.

Once Malcolm took an interest in piping, his grandmother, Flora MacArthur from Bunessan on the Ross of Mull, a descendant of MacArthur pipers, gave him every encouragement. “She was always after me once I started on the pipes,” he said. “I turned out to be her favourite grandchild because I played the pipes.”

When he was old enough, Malcolm began taking lessons with the Seaforth Highlanders in Vancouver under John Gillies, a former Scots Guards pipe major. He also played with the North Vancouver Pipe Band.

In 1932, the family moved again, to a 4,800-acre mixed farm in Alberta that his father had been hired to manage.

The farm at Scotford, near Fort Saskatchewan, was owned by A.R. Mann Investments, a company deeply involved in railroad financing in Canada. Malcolm played with the PIPING TODAY • 39

TRIBUTE

‘George Poulter had confirmed that the young soldier, who had arrived in England with his regiment in the spring of 1940, was indeed a descendant of Donald Ruadh’

local band, under John Robertson, as well as picking up a strenuous share of the farm work and gathering memories he would cherish throughout his lifetime. “Our people were always associated with horses,” he said, years later, “and my father wanted to go back to the prairies where he was born.” Malcolm’s regular responsibilities included riding the fields and valleys looking for stray cattle and the care of the vast farm’s thousands of pigs, sheep, chickens and other poultry. He long recalled that “there was always something rewarding about walking through the horse barn at night after a full day’s work”. At the same time, 1935-1939, Malcolm MacCrimmon was a member of the CNR Pipe Band.

At the outbreak of the Second World War, he enlisted with the Calgary Highlanders and was promptly attached to the pipe band. His uncle, Arthur (‘Art’) in Bon Accord, Alberta, had been researching family history, and arranged for him to meet George Poulter, a student of the MacCrimmon history and member of the Clan MacCrimmon Society of London. George Poulter lived in Surrey, not far from Camp Aldershot where the Calgary Highlanders were stationed. George Poulter gave Malcolm a chart he had made from his research into the family: “it was 48 feet long,” said Malcolm. “He’d done an immense amount of work.”

George Poulter had confirmed that the young soldier, who had arrived in England with his regiment in the spring of 1940, was indeed a descendant of Donald Ruadh. Malcolm wrote PIPING TODAY • 40

Malcolm in the uniform of 2nd Battalion, The Scots Guards-Armoured Division

to Dame Flora, Mrs MacLeod of MacLeod and 28th Chief of the Clan MacLeod, outlining his genealogy and seeking her approval for him to wear a strip of MacLeod tartan attached to his pipes if the military authorities were agreeable.

Her response was warm, and included a request to Malcolm’s Commanding Officer that he grant the request… “I should of course be proud if he is so authorised and I understand that Maj. Gen. Gervase Thorpe is intending to discuss this matter with you,” she wrote.

The Officer Commanding agreed. And, in 1942, Malcolm MacCrimmon took leave to

travel to Dunvegan Castle and meet Dame Flora MacLeod of MacLeod in person.

The outcome of their meeting was a verbal agreement that established Malcolm MacCrimmon as 9th Hereditary Piper to the Chief of the Clan MacLeod, entitled to carry the clan ribbons on his pipes. Once the war was over, Dame Flora made a point of always including the MacCrimmon family in her entourage whenever she visited Western Canada.

Despite the War Office approvals and aristocratic support, irregular pipe adornments could still be contentious. Malcolm recalled telling one senior officer who objected to the ribbons

TRIBUTE

Piping Today thanks Iain MacCrimmon and Flora Tourigny for use of all the MacCrimmon family photos

Malcolm, Iain and Calum: three generations of MacCrimmons

Malcolm Roderick MacCrimmon as a boy in North Vancouver and piping at Edmonton, Alberta

Malcolm and Mairi MacCrimmon

on his pipes: “I want to get out of here, even if it means going to Churchill to get it.” The officer snapped back: “MacCrimmon, what would make Churchill so ‘official’?” Malcolm replied: “Well, sir, you tell me what makes him unofficial.”

A Sergeant Major promptly marched Malcolm MacCrimmon from the officer’s office and he was soon afterwards transferred to the 2nd Battalion, The Scots Guards-Armoured Division. It was a rare thing for a Canadian to be given a transfer to a British Regiment, and the story was carried in newspapers all over the Britain and Canada.

As a Calgary Highlander, Malcolm MacCrimmon studied at the Army School of Piping under Pipe Major Willie Ross. He recalled: “On one occasion, he said to me, ‘I have a young piper coming and I have to go away on Saturday… would you mind giving him his lesson.

His name’s John Burgess.

“I’d already heard that, at 12 years’ of age, John Burgess was a boy wonder — and I said, ‘who me? I couldn’t teach anybody’. I was just in the billets and had nobody there to visit, and I guess Willie Ross thought I had the time and should give John Burgess a lesson, but I never did.”

On one of the visits he would make to visit his aunt in Glasgow, Malcolm met Mairi Chisholm of Stornoway, Isle of Lewis. She was a nurse at the Gartloch Military Hospital. They married on May 7, 1945 — the day peace was declared in Europe. After several months in

Germany and Belgium, they headed “home” to Canada in October 1945, and set to work on the farm Malcolm’s father had bought: one half of the company farm he had previously managed. Here, Malcolm put his pipes aside for several years.

Mairi, though, began teaching Gaelic, a contribution to Highland Canadians she continued to offer for many years afterwards.

In 1952, Malcolm’s father retired and sold the farm; Malcolm and Mairi moved into Edmonton where Malcolm worked for the Edmonton Exhibition Association as foreman and icemaker of the old Edmonton Exhibition Arena. He also helped his brother, John, at his rope factory.

Their children, Padruig, Flora and Iain, growing up in a home that was filled with Scottish music, all took an encouraging interest in music. Iain, particularly, flourished as a piper.

In September 1978, during a visit to Alberta, John, MacLeod of MacLeod, formalised his association with the MacCrimmon family by appointing Iain MacCrimmon to succeed his father and become the 10th Hereditary Piper to the Chief of the Clan MacLeod.

Iain moved to Scotland in 1992 to further a career in piping, and for the last 10 years has been, and continues to be the Principal Piping Instructor in the Angus school system.

“People come to me and say they want their young children to take an interest in piping, and if they’d only play them some good music and talk about it, the children would get interested

and do it,” Malcolm once told Piping Today (see: ‘Canadian MacCrimmon piping again’, Piping Today No. 19, p. 12-14). “Young people need to hear it.

“Iain’s wholly involved with his piping. He’s a very good teacher and a good composer. He’s published four books of tunes and pipe bands all over the world play his tunes… tunes like Morison Avenue, Maxwell’s Bonnet, Miss Laurie Jean Chilton(unfortunately recorded many times under the incorrect name of Triumph Street Pipe Band!)… and his son, Calum, is a very fine young piper.

“Iain and Calum are both excellent players,” he said. “I could never come close to them.

Even If I was 20 years’ old, I couldn’t play like Calum does.

“It’s a gift, and that’s what the great MacCrimmon pipers had. They could have large families and I’m sure not all of them could have become pipers.

“Certain ones have that gift.”

For his part, Malcolm became well known as a prominent and dedicated piper in the Edmonton area, playing for weddings, funerals, Citizenship Court sittings, Burns Nights, Remembrance Day services and other functions. He played with the “K” Division Royal Canadian Mounted Police Pipes and Drums for its first official performance at the Change of Command Ceremony and other ceremonial events. He was Official Piper for the Alberta Curling Association (1953-1973) and, as a member of the Northern Alberta Society, to which he was also the honorary piper, he was the recipient of the Annual Recognition Award of the Edmonton Historical Board.

In 1997, he was made Honorary Piper of the 49th Battalion the Loyal Edmonton Regiment. He was also the Official Piper for “K” Division RCMP Regimental Dinners (officers and NCOs) for an unbroken period of 50 years, Official Piper for McKay Avenue School in Edmonton and Official Piper for the Dundonald Burns Club in Edmonton. He was also Official Piper for the Strathcona Lodge, Edmonton, Alberta, in 1991 he was appointed as the very first Piper to the Grand Master of the Alberta Masonic Grand Lodge, and he was a member and Honorary Piper to the Northern Alberta Old Timers Association.

Malcolm Roderick MacCrimmon passed away on February 13, 2011, in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, at the age of 92 years. l PIPING TODAY • 41

GERMANY

by John Slavin

Piping cultures flourish in Germany Dudelsack-Akademie

PIPING TODAY • 42

Thomas Zöller

to teach while he was travelling back and forth to Glasgow during his studies.

Thomas added: “Once I got back home there was an interest from the piping community that just grew bit by bit really with a constant increase of students to the school.”

As the school’s popularity grew, Thomas could no longer cope with all the teaching duties himself so he persuaded other teachers to come on board.

The first was Katrin Krüger, who taught

Photo by John Slavin @ designfolk

P

reserving old traditions and ensuring that they flourish is a vital part of piping around the world.

Encouraging and supporting relatively new traditions also makes for a vibrant music scene as piper Thomas Zöller has been showing with his piping school in Germany.

Besides the main focus of the DudelsackAkademie being Scottish piping traditions, the RSAMD BA (Scottish Music — Piping) graduate is developing new teaching methods for the Sackpfeife, “mediaeval” German pipes which were actually invented in the 1970s.

Thomas graduated in 2005 and it was around this time that he decided to pursue setting up his own school when he returned to Germany. He spoke about it with Allan MacDonald, who he regarded as a great mentor, teacher and influence on his own playing.

He explained: “I asked him to be involved with workshops and seminars and become the patron of the school because I wanted his style of playing, and his approach to music, to be part of it. It had such a big impact on what I had learned.

“When I returned to Germany, I started thinking about where and how to do this, we continued that process and kick-started the school. It was meant to not only include the Scottish piping tradition but also the mediaeval German tradition, Irish pipes and other European piping traditions, with the idea being pipers could learn from each other’s repertoire or the approach to their instrument.

“I set it up in my home town Hofheim, which is situated in between Frankfurt and Wiesbaden in the Rhine-Main area. It’s a small town of about 30,000 inhabitants with a very picturesque old part of the city.”

At first, Thomas rented a small old building in the city centre, using some of the rooms for teaching and also living in the premises. As he admits, there wasn’t any major financing behind the project or government support, it was achieved purely through the will to make it happen.

He had a small core of students he continued

Scottish smallpipes and the second was Brian Haase, who played mediaeval pipes.

Later, Thomas approached Masaki Kato, who he knew from his time at the RSAMD in Glasgow. He came over to work part-time in the school as a teacher and spent the rest of his time instrument making.

Then last year, they added another teacher, Jan Belak, who is also teaching Scottish pipes – Highland pipes and smallpipes.

Thomas added: “Meanwhile we moved

GERMANY premises in January so now we are in a new premises, still in the city centre, but we have doubled the space.”

With regards to the Scottish tradition, the school teaches the Highland pipes, Border pipes and smallpipes.

He explained: “Some students are interested in the competition side of things. That also coincides with the exam syllabus which is offered by The National Piping Centre and other institutions, and we prepare the students for these exams. We usually get an examiner over from The National Piping Centre once a year and so far we have had Roddy MacLeod, Glenn Brown and John Mulhearn. Some students just like the idea of working towards an exam which gives them a strict working pattern.

“With regards to the mediaeval German piping scene we teach an instrument called the Sackpfeife. The mediaeval piping scene is something in its own right over here. It has its own tradition but is very modern at the same time.”

The Sackpfeife was invented sometime in the late 70s or 80s and is a mixture of the Highland pipe and other European bagpipes. It plays in the key of A and the sound is broader compared to the Highland pipes. It is played with an open fingering, a bit like the tin whistle, and has nine notes in the scale.

The number of drones varies, as Thomas explained: “You certainly have a bass drone.

Then you might have a baritone drone or you might have a tenor drone, and the baritone on top of the tenor, or just the bass and the tenor but it’s not very common to have a bass and two tenors.

“Some cross fingering is possible. It is very important for the instrument to have the option of playing the F sharp, just as the Highland pipe would play, and a F natural because a lot of the repertoire uses F natural.

“The movement started in the former East Germany and it got a big push when the wall came down in the 1990s. There are mediaeval markets now all over Germany every weekend with various bands going around, usually with two or three pipers, and one or two drummers.

“Because the way the instrument came about there has never been a real system or a standard approach to learning the instrument. People would practise it on a Scottish practice chanter which has a different scale so it doesn’t really work, or they would use the recorder to practise,

From left: Michael Klevenhaus who runs the German Centre for Gaelic Culture and Language, Masaki Kato (teacher at the Dudelsack-Akademie), Markus Engelter (student), Anreas Jakobi (student), Robert Kriese (student) holding a mediaeval Sackpfeife, Thomas Zöller, Boris Deckelmann (student), Felix Schumacher (student) and Barnaby Brown who has been a guest lecturer since the very beginning of the Dudelsack-Akademie. This picture was taken at the annual concert 2008.

Allan MacDonald, patron of the piping academy, performs at the Gälische Nacht during the Interkeltisches Folkfestival in 2008.

but then they can’t play the grace notes. The reeds are taken from Scottish pipes or French pipes — it’s a big mix-up.

“From the teaching side of things there has never been a real fingering system. People would use the same grace notes several times in a row — which can corrupt the musical flow of a piece and limits the player speedwise.

“I decided to write a tutor book which goes along with a practice chanter for the mediaeval pipes. Clemens Bieger, a maker of scottish smallpipes and other types of bagpipes and myself developed this new practice chanter.

Lately, Brian Haase and myself have released a music collection and are working on a follow-up for that.

“We are at the forefront of producing the means to learn it properly providing a fingering system that works really well and sounds good

on the chanter. I think it’s important people from Germany are trying to rediscover their own repertoire. I think it’s a good thing to go back to mediaeval times and look at collections of tunes to revive that.

“We also teach a kind of mediaeval smallpipe which is similar in sound to the Scottish smallpipe but has a different fingering system and scale which is suitable for the mediaeval music. It’s a rebuilt type of smallpipe, which looks like Scottish smallpipes.

“We also want to take on another bagpipe tradition in the course of this year, the Hümmelchen.

“It is a historic instrument which goes back many centuries, and is fingered like a recorder.

It is very quiet, like the smallpipe, and is a mouthblown pipe played in many regions of Germany.”

The Akademie also prepare students to join the band at the school, which Thomas describes as more of a Highland ensemble, rather than a pipe band as they don’t have a drum corps.

He added: “We get people from other pipe bands who come here to increase their personal playing or people who want to prepare for a competition. You get people who play in folk bands but want to work on their skills to play together with other musicians and understand what they are doing from a theoretical point of view.”

The main focus of learning is individual tuition, particularly for beginners, although there is some group teaching for more advanced players.

Thomas explained: “We’ve got two Scottish smallpipe groups where we do ensemble playing PIPING TODAY • 43

GERMANY and pieces with several harmonies so people can start working on playing together. We also have a group with mediaeval smallpipes.”

A range of extra workshops are also offered covering topics such as music theory, how to maintain pipes and tuning. They also stage weekend workshops with guest tutors, for example, Barnaby Brown has taken a canntaireachd workshop and Allan MacDonald has done piobaireachd sessions.

On top of that the Dudelsack-Akademie runs a winter school called Stòras Òran — Gaelic for a treasure of songs.

“We bring together the Gaelic language, the song tradition, the piping in terms of light music, ceol mor, piobaireachd, the 19th century style of playing the pipes like Angus MacKay, Scottish dance, bodhran and also medieval piping,” said Thomas. “We try to get connections between the different classes so that people play and work together. It is about bringing together those isolated elements making people understand the culture and the music as a whole.

“Stòras Òran is staged in a cooperation with Michael Klevenhaus. He runs the German centre for Gaelic culture and language and also works for the BBC, Radio Nan Gaidheal and Sabhal Mor Ostaig. He is also a singer and the two of us play together in a band called Às a’ phìob.

Thomas Zöller and mediaeval piper Brian Haase perform together at the third Interkeltisches Folkfestival in 2009.

“We also run the Interkeltisches Folkfestival from 18 to 21 August. We try to spread out the concerts through the whole city, and we have a very nice open air venue which The National Youth Pipe Band of Scotland has played at. We have used the church, and the city museum — it is spreading out all over the city. We also have a youth contest in the city centre in the pedestrian area. There are usually two concerts

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every night, and we have a festival club after those concerts and a dancing event.”

The festival draws an audience of music enthusiasts — with people traveling up to 100 miles.

“We try to put on concerts that have a unique theme and over the years people have realised that, so they travel quite some distances to the event,” said Thomas.

“I had a couple that came from Bonn and they got to know the town through the festival and they liked it so much they got married here.

You get stories like that.”

The school now has around 80 students and Thomas feels that by offering such a wide range of different styles it give students the best chance to understand and learn what they want to learn.

He added: “They have different interests and to me it is important that we address these. It is not focused on just one aspect but the full picture.

“We sometimes get people moving on to other pipes, a lot of the Highland pipers play smallpipes as a second instrument. You also get mediaeval pipers who switch to Scottish pipes or vice versa or even people who play both.

“I am really glad at how it has developed and progressed over the first five years. I am also grateful for the opportunity I had to learn through The National Piping Centre and the RSAMD because that has allowed me to increase my understanding and knowledge of the music and the instrument.” l

INSIGHT Key of “D” Key of “Bb”

Key of “A”

PIPING TODAY • 45

PROFILE

A fitting finale for Duncan

PIPING TODAY • 46

Photo: John Slavin@designfolk

T

he last set of pipes made by a master craftsman at RG Hardie is to be sold for a good cause.

The full silver and blackwood set, worth £7000, was created by Duncan Campbell after almost half a century of service with the company.

He joined the Glasgow firm in 1962 when he was offered a job by Bob Hardie and has been there for 49 years. Duncan is now preparing for retirement but will continue part-time to allow him to pass on his skills to younger employees.

The pipes will be sold with part of the proceeds going to a piping project/good cause and the remainder towards a retirement gift for Duncan.

Duncan is originally from Lennoxtown but has lived in Johnstone for the last three decades.

The 65-year-old said: “I’m still very much hands-on and I like my job. I don’t want to go from five days a week to nothing, so thankfully I’ve got a wee chance of part-time.

“This was my final set. At the moment I’m doing repairs, refurbishments and generally keeping an eye on the younger guys who I have trained up over the years.

“The skills I’m passing on are the hand craftsmanship of the bagpipes — like combing and beading and fitting the mounts. You can tell a CNC job right away if it’s just taken off a machine and has things stuck on to it.

Myself and these young guys get to work a wee bit of magic as the pipes are hand-finished.”

Alastair Dunn, general manager of RG Hardie, said Duncan’s knowledge is invaluable, particularly when it comes to working on older pipes.

He said: “You need to have the skills to refurbish an old set properly, especially if you are restoring, say, a 1910 set of pipes. When it comes to making pipes, the forming of a bead or the detail of the combs, the detail you get on a hand-finished pipe — that’s what we believe is the extra special bit. That’s where the craftsmanship comes in.”

Photos: Andrew Lawson Photo: John Slavin@designfolk

When it came to make his final set, Duncan got to choose from wood with the best bores and the darkest colouring.

He said: “All the wood is roughed and bored together and at that stage you can select the darker pieces because when it first comes in to the workshop some bits look nice and dark, but when you rough them down they turn out to have a lighter colouring. It’s best to take a selection once they’ve been roughed down. From then on all the wood is hand-finished.”

The shape of the projection mounts on this set was copied from a very old set of full silver Henderson pipes.

Alastair explained: “We replicated that shape to make our pipes as authentic as possible. This particular set has an antique finish on the silver with a PH hallmark for Peter Henderson. That will date the pipes and show it to be authentic 925 grade silver. Once the pipes are engraved the silver is sent to the Edinburgh Assay office for the hallmark to be applied.

“There is a bit of craftsmanship needed to make sure that everything fits on the pipes perfectly. Even the stamping of the hallmark can sometimes put the silver out of shape so care is needed.

“The actual time to make a silver set isn’t any different to a normal set. What takes the time is getting the silver engraved and getting it hallmarked.

“Obviously we will spend that extra bit of care and attention to make sure they’re finished off to the best they can be. On this particular set the bores are superb. They’re a great sounding set of pipes.”

Plans for selling the pipe haven’t been completely finalised however interested buyers should contact either The National Piping Centre or RG Hardie. Alastair reckons it’s a great way for a piping enthusiast to get their hands on not only a great set of pipes, but a piece of piping history.

PROFILE

by John Slavin

He said: “It is a unique set. It’s got a shield on the stock that says Duncan made them.

He has 49 years of experience and it’s quite rare today for someone with that experience to have made a set like this.

“We are hoping to raise some money for piping causes identified by The National Piping Centre — and also give Duncan a nice retirement gift. RG Hardie won’t make any money from this.” l PIPING TODAY • 47

REVIEW

The Donald MacLeod Memorial Competition Stornoway, April 2011

I

t seemed entirely fitting that as Roddy MacLeod struck up Roderick Macdonald’s Salute, the two daughters of the composer were sitting only a few feet away.

Fiona and Susan may have been so close they count the beads of sweat on Roddy’s brow, but in truth, no one in the function suite of the Cala Hotel in Stornoway is any further than a few yards away from the performers.

This is an intimate venue with no pretensions and a competition where the focus is squarely on the music of the great man and it is all the better for that.

In previous years, Fiona and Susan would have been joined by their mother Winnie, who was a staunch supporter of the competition. Her recent passing was marked by a minute’s silence before the competition got underway.

The competition is split into piobaireachd, MSR and hornpipe and jig sections. The combined score for piobaireachd and MSR is counted for the overall title.

For the piobaireachd section all the tunes played are, of course, Pipe Major Donald Macleod compositions.

Indeed, this is what marks this competition out as special. Pipe Major MacLeod’s ceol beag compositions are so popular that you will hear them in any competition you attend (has there ever been a Gold Medal where

PIPING TODAY • 48

Susan MacLeod wasn’t played?). Yet this competition is where you get to hear the piobaireachd composing genius of Pipe Major MacLeod.

His piobaireachd are a delight to listen to with a strong melodic line that draws the listener in and captivates them for the duration of the tune. The tunes that got an airing this time — the 18th year of the competition — were Roderick MacDonald’s Salute (Roddy Macleod), Queen Elizabeth’s Salute (Chris Armstrong and Willie McCallum), The Garden of Roses (Andrew Hayes), Caber Feidh Gu Brach (Gordon Walker), A Son’s Salute to his Parents (Stuart Liddell), The Lament for the Rowan Tree (Angus McColl) and The Field of Gold (Iain Spiers).

It is testament to the quality of his compositions that there were still tunes of the calibre of The Sound of the Sea and The Lament for the Iolaire that weren’t played.

The piobaireachd section was very tight with strong performances across the board and the judges — John Wilson, Rona Lightfoot and Iain Murdo Morrison — must have had a tough time in deliberation.

However, deliberate they did and declared Angus the winner followed

by Willie, Stuart and Chris.

The MSR competition (two each of MSR, where one of each is a Pipe Major MacLeod tune) was of a similarly high standard with some excellent playing.

However, there was one stand-out performance and that was from Stuart Liddell. His MSR was a masterclass in the genre as he bounced through his strathspeys and reels with infectious enthusiasm, yet noteperfect control.

There was a slight but distinctly audible exhale of breath from the audience as he finished, such was the power of this performance some had stopped breathing to better hear it.

When you see a judge of the calibre of Pipe Major Ian McLellan BEM (who had replaced Iain Murdo Morrison for the MSR judging) looking on in wonder as the performance progressed then you know it is a bit special.

So it proved to be with Stuart lifting the first prize followed by Willie, Angus and Chris. The on-form Mr Liddell also took the hornpipe and jig prize with a sparkling rendition of Busy Buddy and The Blue Lagoon.

Now the astute among you may have noticed that the piobaireachd and MSR results threw up an interesting phenomenon as Angus, Willie and Stuart all had four points.

The clear rule in this case is that the highest placed person in the piobaireachd takes the title and so it was that Angus McColl became the overall winner of the 18th Pipe Major Donald MacLeod Memorial Competition.

Once again the Lewis and Harris Piping Society excelled in their organisation of the event. Special thanks must go to the Ladies’ Committee for their usual warm welcome and to Fear-an-Tighe Dr John Smith for his knowledgeable and witty compering.

There can be few (if any) who have greater encyclopedic knowledge of all things relating to Pipe Major Donald MacLeod and his compositions than John Wilson. He has been a keen supporter of the competition since the beginning and, in recognition of all he has done for the event, he was awarded a Honorary Lifetime Membership of the Lewis and Harris Piping Society. It was well deserved.

If you have never been to this competition set aside some time next year and make the trip. You will hear some beautiful music and make some new friends. If you are lucky you may even survive the post-event ceilidh but that can’t be guaranteed! l chris mackenzie

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To have a product included in this column send an e-mail to John Slavin at pipingtoday@designfolk.com and/or post the product to John Slavin, DesignFolk, 27 Portland Road, Kilmarnock, Ayrshire, Scotland. KA1 2BT.

PipeTech Coolbackpack I BLAME it on Baden Powell. I was a Cub, then a Scout for a large part of my formative years and their “Be Prepared” motto has stuck with me. So much so, that I usually leave the house with a bag (or four) packed with stuff that will come in handy for whatever the day might throw at me — but usually doesn’t.

This state of readiness applies to my work bag, camera bag, gym bag (complete with spare socks), and pipe case.

I very rarely have a need to use the extra items I pack, but my extra pipe chanter proved invaluable when in Italy with my piping club last year and one of the youngsters discovered he had left his chanter at home in Scotland.

This over-packing is hard wearing on the luggage and my old pipe case was staring to fall apart at the seams. So when I took delivery of the new PipeTech Coolbackpack I was very impressed by the extra space, ‘cool’ features and looks.

It feels very light and is made of padded, heavy duty nylon material and has padlockable zips as you would expect. However, the main attraction of this case is the storage space and variety of compartments — as well as being comfortable to wear as a backpack.

The main space for your pipes is very generous, and there is an elasticated pocket stretching across half of the compartment which easily holds my drones in place and stops them rattling about. Added to that is a velcro strap which can be used to hold down your pipe bag, making for a secure grip of the whole instrument. Once the pipes are snug, it leaves plenty of space and I could easily fit in a change of clothes if I had the need. There is also see-through elasticated webbing on the inside of the lid, handy for holding all the other bits and pieces that accumulate in the pipe case.

What makes the Pipetech Coolbackpack different, and a bit special, is the thinking behind the extra storage compartments. As you can see on the left, there is an easy access pocket on the side for your practice chanter, an oversized A4 padded pocket on the front for your music books (or 13-inch laptop), a handy outside webbing pocket for a water bottle... or anything I suppose, and a wee pouch with earphone access for storing your mp3 player or mobile phone.

However, the crowning glory has to be the ‘cool’ pocket, with built-in reflective lining, designed to keep your lunch and refreshments chilled for when you need them. The makers claim it will hold a sixpack, and that is one feature I look forward to testing when the weather heats up. john slavin

PIPING TODAY • 49

Wandering Pipers

Photo: Ryan MacDonald Photography

GREY’S NOTES

Grey’sbyNotes Michael Grey

PIPING TODAY • 50

A young Michael Grey being taught

by Captain John A. MacLellan

I’d been there many times before for lessons with Captain MacLellan but never for any other reason. It had always been an awesome place (“awesome” used here in the literal, nonslang way) with Clasps and medals in clear, yet understated view, and impressively interesting photos, like, for instance, John MacLellan and Yehudi Menuhin in deep conversation.

Anyway, it was late in the day and knowing Mikie needed a place to crash, Colin offered up some floor space.

“Oh, yes, you must! It’s no problem,” said Colin’s mum. “The Captain won’t mind and anyway, he’s away judging in Chatsworth and won’t be home until tomorrow.” Gulp. I wasn’t loving this idea. The thought of couch-surfing at Dean Park Crescent was a bit unnerving to say the least. John MacLellan was (and is) a hero; a daunting presence; a big presence. At the time, he was part of a small, rarefied group of living piping legends. Stay at his house?

Seeing my (damned ungrateful) lack of enthusiasm, Mrs MacLellan added more encouragement, “Oh yes, we can get the truckle bed out and tuck you away in the Captain’s office.”

Now I didn’t know a truckle bed from one of nails but my options were limited. So, that night I hung my hat — with thanks — on something called a “truckle bed” in Captain John A. MacLellan’s sanctum sanctorum: the garret room at the top of the house where reeds and music were made and priceless piping memorabilia was stored.

I remember like yesterday stretching out on the low, four-wheeled, fold-out mattress — the

Photo courtesy of Colin MacLellan

A

couch that converts to a bed is a good thing to have. A spare bed is right up there with common household conveniences like, say, a toaster, a fridge or a bottle opener. A spare room may be best and the height of luxurious guest accommodation but you just can’t beat the good old sofabed for utility and handiness.

Pipers and pipe band folk are an itinerant bunch. We move around a lot. We always have.

Think of the clichéd image of the gypsy piper, travelling highways and byways with pipes and little else in tow. Open doors and temporary accommodation were always a given in the old stories. In tune titles alone we have a repertoire that suggests the same. Our lot has always been on the trot: The Wandering Piper; Wandering Home; Going Home and Bundle and Go; the list is long. Then, of course, we have hundreds of tunes with “return” and “welcome” in their titles. If we’re not going, we’re coming.

I think that the old tales of the itinerant piper really do ring true today. Pipers have created a remarkable musical fraternity, great waves of hospitality and friendship abound and we couch surf those waves in a big way.

The freakish regularity that pipers (and drummers, too) move about has made the couch, or, again, even better, the fold-out sofabed, a well-worn piece of furniture in a lot of homes. It seems we’re always looking for “a place to crash”, an economical place to sleep, or sleep it off — and always with friends.

I think now of my most unforgettable unplanned overnight piping-related accommodation. It’s seared in my memory. My palms sweat a bit just thinking about it.

The scene: Edinburgh, 1980-something.

I’d been bumping around Scotland right out of university, not exactly flush with cash, still, managing to pipe, have a bit of fun and thanks to friends, fine-tune my itinerancy. On this occasion I was with my friend Colin MacLellan.

After one outing — probably after having taken in the National Portrait Gallery or, maybe, the rollicking Museum of Childhood, we landed at his parents’ place. Many will be well aware of the famous Dean Park Crescent address, domicile of the MacLellans: Captain John A. and his wife, Christine or “Bunty”.

famed truckle bed — and looking around the room. The dim light from the street below reflecting sloped walls adorned with handwritten manuscripts of G.S. McLennan and company.

With my heart beating at its near-maximum rate, I knew there wouldn’t be much chance of sleep. I closed my eyes and hoped for rest.

It seemed like only a few minutes before I was again staring eyes wide-open at the mementoes of piping greats. Clattery noise, footsteps, voices. Sweet Mother! It was the Captain — he was home! I’m pretty sure that at that moment the humidity in that truckle bed rose more than a few points. The Captain had opted for a long evening’s drive home instead of staying south.

I was in luck — ­ or not so much.

With an instant crazed vision of me riding my wheeled truckle bed, careering down two flights of stairs and straight out the door to the street, I waited for what I was sure would be another great big brogue to drop. I couldn’t imagine Captain MacLellan would be much impressed with me, a punk Canuck, bundled up — or truckled up — in his piping room.

Of course, as is so often the way, I was wrong.

I was a guest, an invited guest, and shown, of course, only the very best hospitality. I’m happy to say I’ve never had it any other way in Scotland.

What a memory. Colin and I still talk of this time and have a good laugh.

I learned a lesson about hospitality and benevolence: it’s everywhere — especially where pipers wander.

Have truckle bed, will travel. l

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For more information visit our website: www.bannatyne.ltd.uk

Bannatyne Ltd., Unit 20, Burnhouse Industrial Estate, Whitburn, West Lothian, EH47 0LQ. PHONE: 01501 740500 • FAX: 01501 744918 • E-mail: info@bannatyne.ltd.uk

T he

N ational

P iping

C entre

p r es ent s

Th e

Saturday 23 April, 7.30pm The Old Fruitmarket Candleriggs, Glasgow

Tickets ÂŁ10 adults / ÂŁ6 concession

For bookings call: 0141 353 8000 or online at:

www.thepipingcentre.co.uk/youth-pb