About the only thing the various commentators agree on is that this tune was written by PM James Robertson (1886 – 1961), from Banffshire, up in the northeast of Scotland. He was a piper with the 1st Battalion Gordon Highlanders. As to the date of composing the tune, some accounts have it as 1915 when James was a POW in… Read more →
Tune Origins – Highland Cathedral
Who would have guessed that Highland Cathedral was written by two German gentlemen? Ulrich Roever, a piper, and Michael Korb, a composer and arranger, were the parties involved. They composed the tune for a contribution to a Highland Games gathering in Germany in 1982. It took root quickly and was the anthem of the Royal Hong Kong Police until the… Read more →
Angus Mackay, was – and still is – a towering figure in the world of piping.
By Jim Lawson A child prodigy and a composer of hundreds of pipe tunes, his talent and musical prowess took him all the way from the Inner Hebridean island of Raasay to the court of Queen Victoria where he became the first-ever piper to the Sovereign, a post which exists to this day. So when the present Queen Elizabeth decided… Read more →
RAF100 Brize Fest – RAFBF Pipes and Drums (Massed Band)
2018 is the year for a couple of big anniversaries with the end of WW1 being marked in November. But before then there is the celebration of 100 years of the RAF. As part of a series of events being organised this year under the banner RAF100, a few of our guys travelled to RAF Brize Norton to take part in a massed band event for the RAF Benevolent Fund.
They joined pipers from as far away as Hong Kong along with bands from around the UK.
Tune Origins – The Barren Rocks of Aden
The Barren Rocks of Aden is a march tune and is one of the first tunes our pipers learn to play on the pipes. It that has a strong association with the Gordon Highlanders Regiment because you can play it for the dance called ‘The Gay Gordons’. We play it as part of a set along with The Brown Haired Maiden… Read more →
Tune Origins – Scots Wha Hae
This used to be considered Scotland’s national anthem; now several songs are in contention for that honour. It is the first tune that many people learning the bagpipes play, as it features in the College of Piping Tutor Book 1. Robert Burns called this stirring song ‘Robert Bruce’s March to Bannockburn’, using the ancient tune ‘Hey Tutti Taitie’. He imagined… Read more →
A one-off experience playing with André Rieu
Thanks to the City of Leeds Pipe Band, Wharfedale & Aireborough Observer reporter Jim Jack was given a once-in-a-lifetime musical opportunity performing one stage with André Rieu. Here is his first-hand account of taking part in André Rieu’s Christmas concert at the First Direct Arena, Leeds on Friday, December 15. Read more →
Tune Origins – Teribus
I’d never heard of the tune ‘Teribus’. It sounds like Latin and I like the picture this conjures up of some guys snuck up against the north side of Hadrian’s Wall hearing the Romans on the other side playing the tune on their pipes, and nicking it from them. However plausible that may be – 🤔 – the word is… Read more →
Join in the ‘Battle’s O’er’
As published by the College of Piping in the July 2017 edition: Pipers are being asked to take part in a unique and simple way to mark the centenary of the end of the Great War. The College of Piping is assisting Bruno Peek LVO OBE OPR, founder and pageantmaster with ‘Battle’s O’er – A Nation’s Tribute’. This will be a… Read more →
King Arthur: Legend of the Sword – blink and you miss us!
Acclaimed filmmaker Guy Ritchie brings his dynamic style to the epic fantasy action adventure “King Arthur: Legend of the Sword.” Starring Charlie Hunnam in the title role, the film is an iconoclastic take on the classic Excalibur myth, tracing Arthur’s journey from the streets to the throne. When the child Arthur’s father is murdered, Arthur’s uncle, Vortigern (Jude Law), seizes… Read more →