Interviews

In this the fourth and final installment of the pipes|drums Interview with Roddy MacLeod, we discuss the origins of the Piping Live! Festival, which just officially kicked off its tenth anniversary year with the biggest slate of programming in its history, and go into the legacy that the MacLeod has built so far. MacLeod talks about his greatest moments in piping, how he approaches his competition repertoire, and the opportunities and challenges ahead for the National Piping Centre.

In the third instalment of our exclusive interview with Roddy MacLeod, the Director of the National Piping Centre and the Piping Live! Glasgow International Festival of Piping discusses in detail the relationship with Glasgow’s College of Piping. He looks back to the origins of the Piping Centre, when the late Seumas MacNeill had a central role in its beginnings, only to fall out over a leadership disagreement. In Part 3, among many other topics, MacLeod takes an inward look at his career, and his professional contributions to the art.

We continue our exclusive discussion with Roddy MacLeod, one of the world’s great builders of piping. In Part 1, MacLeod remembered his earliest years as a young piper in Cumbernauld, Scotland. In Part 2, MacLeod looks back on his formative piping years with his teacher, the legendary Duncan Johnstone. He goes into his early pipe band days with the Grade 1 Red Hackle in Glasgow under Pipe-Major Malcolm MacKenzie, leading to his long tenure with British Caledonian Airways / Power of Scotland / ScottishPower and the Spirit of Scotland, and the importance of strong soloists in the mix. He then touches on why he is not a judge with the Royal Scottish Pipe Band Association.

We bring our subscribers an exclusive interview with arguably Highland piping’s most professional and well-rounded personality. An extraordinary competitor, a leader of Grade 1 pipe bands, the original and existing Director of the National Piping Centre and the co-founder and leader of the Piping Live!

We bring subscribers to pipes|drums an exclusive interview with Robert “Bob” Turner, the former leading-drummer with the legendary Muirhead & Sons and British Caledonian Airways pipe bands.

We conclude our exclusive interview with Michael Grey, one of the most prolific and played composers in piping history. In this last segment Grey discusses, among many other things . . .

In this, the fourth of five instalments to his pipes|drums Interview, we delve into Michael Grey’s substantial recording accomplishments, which comprise 10 solo CDs and about twice as many albums done with pipe bands, including three as a pipe-major. There have been few, if an, Highland pipers with as long a list of recordings and, still in his forties, there are undoubtedly more. In Part 4, Grey discusses many of the projects, how they came about ad where he gets his creative inspiration, while also openly analyzing the challenge of reaching non-piping audiences with the limitations and preconception of the instrument and its music.

In this third part of Michael Grey: the pipes|drums Interview, we delve directly into the composition side of his career: how he approaches composing, the need to have a professional attitude about copyright and royalties, and his take on the great composers like Donald MacLeod, G.S. McLennan, John McLellan and Gordon Duncan. Grey discusses the notion of the “accepted competition repertoire,” and the need to expand attitudes to be more inclusive, while also citing what he feels are the greatest tunes ever penned. Exclusively for subscribers to pipes|drums.

We continue our exclusive interview Michael Grey, one of the most prominent and successful composers of Highland bagpipe music of the last 100 years. In Part 1, Grey discussed his piping roots and inspirations, and the early years that formed his interest in composition. In Part 2, he delves into the inner-workings of his creative mind, the challenge to be creative within a tradition-based folk-artform, and his desire to push his own musical boundaries. In this installment, Grey makes a strong correlation between the art’s most traditional music, piobaireachd, and the rich opportunities presented by the pipe band medley format.

Our exclusive in-depth interview.

We bring subscribers to pipes|drums our archive interview from 2005 with the late Donald MacPherson. Piping scholar Barnaby Brown originally assembled the historic piece with the legendary piper, who passed away on April 21, 2012, at the age of 89.

In the final instalment of the Mark Saul pipes|drums Interview, he discusses piping and drumming “traditions,” the ebb and flow of musical creativity, and what happens when bands try to challenge the establishment. The cultural divisions that can be seen with bands from various parts of the world are exposing new concepts and leading to the constant questioning of “authority.”

We continue our wide-ranging discussion with Mark Saul, one of the world’s most popular composers of music for the Highland pipes. In this third instalment, Saul talks about the Victoria Police, the prospects for another Australian pipe band winning a Grade 1 World Championship, and the challenges of leading a Grade 2 band whose reason-to-be is not all winning all the time. Mark Saul touches on the allure of the World’s, and the trend towards amalgamating players for flash-in-the-pan attempts to make a mark in Scotland, and the big picture of camaraderie, music and simply having fun.

We continue our exclusive interview with Mark Saul of Melbourne, one of the leading composers and arrangers of pipe music of our time. In Part 2, Saul discusses the challenges of composing and publishing in the modern piping world, the role that the Victoria Police Pipe Band had on his work, and the band’s organization and strategy in its 1990s glory years. Mark Saul goes in to detail about the management style of Pipe-Major Nat Russell, the tuning genius of Robert Crozier, and dispels a few myths about the band that have evolved since its 1998 World Championship win.

A wide-ranging, exclusive conversation with one of the piping world’s most well-regarded composers and performers. In this four-part interview for subscribers to pipes|drums, Mark Saul discusses his experiences with the legendary Victoria Police Pipe Band, his disappointments and disenchantment with the musical limitations of pipe bands, and his search for enlightenment and wider horizons in music overall. Having just released his third collection of music, Mark Saul’s piping life has taken him around the world and, with a typically Australian attitude, is never content with the status quo. In this first instalment, we discuss Mark Saul’s origins as a piper, his development and inspirations as a composer, and his instinctive desire to strive for more.