Glenfiddich Piping Championship 2020

[jviss]

Watching this now, livestream via:

Glenfiddich Solo Piping Championship

[John Dally]

So many incredible performances! Jack's piobaireachd was fantastic. Angus MacColl's MMSSRR was outstanding.

[jviss]

Agreed. It was stunningly good. I knew Stuart would win!

[John Dally]

Stuart's performances are always flawless and musical, and the sound of his bagpipe is always fantastic.
I didn't know he is a piano turner by trade.

[jviss]

I'm going to check, how long will playback be available? It was a lot to take in live, maybe eight hours of top-notch piping.

I will be looking into the basics of piobaireachd, in the mean time. My father played, but I was too young to appreciate it. He left em some books, including the Kilberry Book of Ceol Mor (1954 edition). It has a good preface, if I recall correctly.

So, I didn't win either of the bagpipe raffles.

[Mac an t-Sealgair]

I hope they continue to update there vimeo with the performances from each year.

https://vimeo.com/piping/albums

Maybe Covid has put and end to this as well? Who knows?

[Roddy Livingstone]

Originally Posted by jviss

I'm going to check, how long will playback be available? It was a lot to take in live, maybe eight hours of top-notch piping.

I will be looking into the basics of piobaireachd, in the mean time. My father played, but I was too young to appreciate it. He left em some books, including the Kilberry Book of Ceol Mor (1954 edition). It has a good preface, if I recall correctly.

So, I didn't win either of the bagpipe raffles.

The introduction to the Kilberry Book is one of the most important, informative (and overlooked) pieces of writing about Ceol Mor ever. Almost everyone who buys or is given a copy leafs straight past this and starts looking at the tunes in staff notation but without reference to some of Archibald Campbell’s comment this is premature.

The introduction was written almost 80 years ago. The style of writing is from a different age and takes a little digesting but it is something the discerning piper should keep coming back to again and again as their knowledge and capability grows.

Probably the most significant lines (to pick only a couple) come from the section subtitled ‘Scope of the Present Work’
“The notation used is that used .......... It makes no pretence to be scientifically accurate, or even intelligible to the non-piper. Call it pipers’ jargon and the writer will not complain. His desire is to make the music as clear as possible to the piobaireachd player, and not to instruct beginners.”

So the beginner ideally should get a good tutor but if this proves impossible (hard to believe in this day and age with so many digital communication platforms) there are other ‘beginners guides’ but, there is still no substitute for a knowledgeable teacher.

One must also remember that the Kilberry Book is a record of how Archibald Campbell recorded he was taught and shown the tunes by those he was closest too - specifically Alexander Cameron, John MacDougall Gillies and, John MacDonald (Inverness). So principally in the Cameron style rather than of the MacPherson school (although Kilberry himself believed that the differences between the two so called ‘schools’ were relatively minor and became exacerbated as the twentieth century progressed by the pupils and pupils of the pupils of the masters.

[John Dally]

It would be impolite to hijack the thread further, but with regard to the seminal work of Kilberry those interested in recent research would do well to read William Donaldson's books on the subject, and Allan MacDonald's research.
Here is a link to a review of SIDELIGHTS that might shed some light on the subject.
https://bagpipe.news/2019/07/30/side...k-of-ceol-mor/
This too might be of interest:
https://bagpipe.news/2020/09/10/i-no...in-sidelights/

[Jim McGillivray]

Originally Posted by Roddy Livingstone

The introduction to the Kilberry Book is one of the most important, informative (and overlooked) pieces of writing about Ceol Mor ever. Almost everyone who buys or is given a copy leafs straight past this and starts looking at the tunes in staff notation but without reference to some of Archibald Campbell’s comment this is premature.

I agree with you about the importance of this introduction. When I'm judging I often re-read it over the course of a morning while the competitors tune.
JM