Pipers: A Guide to the Players and Music of the Highland Bagpipe
Pipers takes the reader inside the world of the performer community of Scottish piping, introducing the instrument itself and the various different repertories. It also discusses piping techniques as well as information on some of the great piping dynasties and individual pipers. Dr Willie Donaldson shows how ‘traditional music’, often assumed to be the anonymous product of a dim and distant past, is the creation of gifted individuals operating in a sophisticated and vigorously ongoing enterprise. Since pipers have often been skilled also on the fiddle, keyboards and small-pipes, or as singers or dancers, their story offers fascinating insights into the whole traditional music and song repertoire of Scotland.

Pipers is a well-informed and highly readable account by a prize-winning author who is a piper and composer of pipe music as well as an internationally recognised historian of Scottish tradition.
1112005721
Pipers: A Guide to the Players and Music of the Highland Bagpipe
Pipers takes the reader inside the world of the performer community of Scottish piping, introducing the instrument itself and the various different repertories. It also discusses piping techniques as well as information on some of the great piping dynasties and individual pipers. Dr Willie Donaldson shows how ‘traditional music’, often assumed to be the anonymous product of a dim and distant past, is the creation of gifted individuals operating in a sophisticated and vigorously ongoing enterprise. Since pipers have often been skilled also on the fiddle, keyboards and small-pipes, or as singers or dancers, their story offers fascinating insights into the whole traditional music and song repertoire of Scotland.

Pipers is a well-informed and highly readable account by a prize-winning author who is a piper and composer of pipe music as well as an internationally recognised historian of Scottish tradition.
18.95 In Stock
Pipers: A Guide to the Players and Music of the Highland Bagpipe

Pipers: A Guide to the Players and Music of the Highland Bagpipe

by William Donaldson
Pipers: A Guide to the Players and Music of the Highland Bagpipe

Pipers: A Guide to the Players and Music of the Highland Bagpipe

by William Donaldson

Paperback(Reissue)

$18.95 
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Overview

Pipers takes the reader inside the world of the performer community of Scottish piping, introducing the instrument itself and the various different repertories. It also discusses piping techniques as well as information on some of the great piping dynasties and individual pipers. Dr Willie Donaldson shows how ‘traditional music’, often assumed to be the anonymous product of a dim and distant past, is the creation of gifted individuals operating in a sophisticated and vigorously ongoing enterprise. Since pipers have often been skilled also on the fiddle, keyboards and small-pipes, or as singers or dancers, their story offers fascinating insights into the whole traditional music and song repertoire of Scotland.

Pipers is a well-informed and highly readable account by a prize-winning author who is a piper and composer of pipe music as well as an internationally recognised historian of Scottish tradition.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781780276878
Publisher: Birlinn, Limited
Publication date: 04/03/2022
Edition description: Reissue
Pages: 240
Product dimensions: 5.10(w) x 7.70(h) x (d)

About the Author

William Donaldson is a Scottish social historian and piper. Two of his earlier books, The Jacobite Song and Popular Literature in Victorian Scotland, received a Scottish Arts Council Book Award and the Thomas Blackwell Memorial Prize.

Table of Contents

Illustrations ix

Preface to the new edition xiii

The Pipes and their Music

Introduction 1

The instrument 3

Reeds 5

Chanters 9

Starting to play 11

Learning the basics 13

What can go wrong 16

Teachers 17

Piping 'schools' 21

Working clothes 21

The Pipe Band 23

Early competitions 27

Highland Games 34

The competition circuit 35

The Music

The Big Music (Ceòl Mór) 37

The Light Music (Ceòl Beag) 43

Changing repertoire 51

Composition in light music 57

Composition in pìobaireachd 61

What to look and listen for 63

Pipers and print 68

Patrons and print 72

Oral tradition 84

Women in piping 89

Official support: institutions, information 94

And what about language? 99

The pipes and other instruments 103

Piping and the media 104

Conventional beliefs in piping 105

Pipers

Dynasties

The MacCrimmons 110

The MacArthurs 112

The MacKays of Gairloch 113

The MacGregors 113

Words versus Notes

Colin Mór Campbell 114

Niel MacLeod of Gesto 118

Donald MacDonald 123

Angus MacKay 126

Three Nineteenth-Century Families

The Camerons 131

The MacPhersons 135

The McLennans 141

Editors

William Ross 144

C. S. Thomason 147

David Glen 153

Players and Composers

John MacDougall Gillies 157

John MacColl 162

John MacDonald of Inverness 165

Willie Ross 170

G. S. McLennan 175

Donald MacLeod 178

'The Bobs of Balmoral' 181

Robert Urquhart Brown 183

Robert Bell Nicol 187

Tunes

'Black Donald's March' 196

'The Breadalbane Fencibles' Quickstep 199

'Lord Breadalbane's March' 200

'Seaforth Highlanders' Quickstep' 201

'John MacFadyen of Melfort' 201

G. S. McLennan, 'Piobaireachd' 202

John MacDonald, 'Prelude' 204

R. B. Nicol, 'Gaelic air' 204

References 205

Acknowledgements 209

Index 211

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