Archive
Greg Wilson was named 2014 New Zealand Champion by winning the Piobaireachd and the March in the A-Grade solo piping at the Turakina Highland Games. Conditions were hot and dry all day.
After a collective 30 years as leader of the Pleasanton / Santa Rosa games in California, Bill Merriman has retired, handing over the job . . .
In an attempt to deal with large entries and time constraints for its Professional Piobaireachd competitions, the Pipers & Pipe Band Society . . .
A three-way movement of bass drummers between the Grade 1 Simon Fraser University of Vancouver and Los Angeles Scots and the Grade 2 . . .
In the first-ever series of articles especially about teaching and for teachers of piping and drumming, world-renowned piper, adjudicator, composer and teacher Bob Worrall examines the three basic styles of learning, and how they relate to successful instruction. By recognizing and identifying first the dominant learning styles of pupils, teachers can provide better and more effective tuition, and teachers who can match their own dominant learning styles with those of their students are more likely to see better engagement and progress throughout the process. The first part in the new series exclusively for subscribers to pipes|drums.
Highland piper Xavier Boderiou of Brittany has made a name for himself with bands, solo competition, chanter manufacturing and reedmaking, and now he’s …
George “Geordie” Pryde, the long-time Leading-Drummer of the Powell River Pipe Band of British Columbia, and a former member of the Edinburgh City Police Pipe Band in the 1950s under Pipe-Majors Donald Shaw-Ramsay and John Burgess, died on January 3rd in his ninety-third year. Born March 5, 1921, in Newton […]
In the 20 years since the annual January Celtic Connections festival in Glasgow launched, Highland piping has generally been in the background, especially when . . .
In the third instalment of our exclusive interview for pipes|drums subscribers, the renowned solo piper and pipe-sergeant of the Grade 1 and six-time World Champion Simon Fraser University Pipe Band delves into becoming and staying competitive on a world level for many years, teaching programs and succession planning for leaders. Jack Lee delves into the problems, challenges and rewards for pipe bands today, and the increasingly difficulty of satisfying and sustaining the demand for ever more and talented personnel, and the need for professionalism within the ranks, and how vital Leading-Drummer Reid Maxwell has been to the band’s success.
The annual Winter Storm piping and drumming competitions drew large entries, despite recent weather-related travel havoc throughout North America leading up to the event. Put on . . .
Our annual predictions for the piping and drumming and pipe band year ahead, as our panel of experts called them. We also review our prognostications from this time last year to see how we did, and include some more one-off predictions for 2014.
The 143rd Annual Waipu Highland Games were both the last piping and drumming events of 2013 and the first of 2014, with Martin Frewen of Auckland enjoying the most solo piping success, and Nathan Samu and Angus Crowe on top in the solo snare drumming. Frewen won five of the six Grade-A piping events, including the Helen McGregor Memorial Solo Piping recital on New Year’s Eve. Angus Crowe won the second annual Robert Turner Drumming Championship . . .
Martin Frewen of Auckland won both events at the first Auckland & District Pipe Band Northcote Invitational Challenge Solo Piping Competition, which required contestants to play a double MSR and a Freestyle Medley. The contest was held in an . . .
The ball has dropped on the year that was 2013 in piping and drumming, and the standard we saw in the last 12 months was, without doubt, the greatest ever, so again . . .
It’s time for Trailing Drones’ second annual Raspberry Awards, the accolades given by Harry Tung to the year’s most notably dubious achievements in piping and drumming. There was a bountiful harvest to nosh from, and Harry’s hardest task was picking which to regurgitate, to spew forth in his usual tongue-in-cheeky diatribe of frothy goodness. And the 2013 Raspberries go to . . .
Only 13 bands in history have been official World Pipe Band Champions, and the future of one of them, Dysart & Dundonald, is in jeopardy after announcing cancellation of its . . .