The Highland Society Papers provide a source of both enlightenment and more questions. As in this case with the tune lists submitted for first triennial competition in 1829. There were twenty-five pipers who each lodged[…]
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Author: Keith Sanger
What is Piobaireachd ?
It seems a straight forward question to ask but the answer simply raises a whole series of further questions. The Gaelic word Piobaireachd simply means ‘piping’, i.e. what a piper does. The narrowing of the[…]
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Devilishness Continued
A major problem that faces all editors of piobaireachd from Joseph MacDonald onwards is how to accurately express a fluid and free rhythm within the ridged barred structure of written music. Joseph was certainly aware[…]
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A Piping Devils Advocate
To raise the point, it is first necessary to set the scene by quoting from a paper by Eric Hamp published in Eriu vol 51 in 2000. ‘Although Old Irish orthography is ambiguous, it is[…]
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“Learned Pipers” - A Very Early Record…
The pictured clipping from the Edinburgh Evening Courant from September 1780 appears at first to just be a satirical dig at the stock image of a highlander. Which indeed it is, and typically for the period[…]
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Cogadh no Sith or ‘War or Peace’
Cogadh no Sìth or ‘War or Peace’ (PS 204) is one of the few tunes for which there are dated contemporary references, as well as it also providing part of the case for a missing[…]
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