A cracking night. Literally. Only pipers who have broken a chanter will know the feeling. It’s something you will only do once in your lifetime, such is the trauma of the event, and you will never ever forget the moment. Hearts went out to Craig Robertson when the loud crack was heard immediately followed by a yelp. Yes he had broken his chanter duck as can be seen from the photo. Sympathy last for almost two minutes before someone said, “well at least it wasn’t a Sinclair”
Undaunted Craig joined the band for a few tunes using his second chanter. The evening was then turned over to Peter McCalister who is feverishly practicing for the Glenfiddich at the end of the month. After a few tunes to settle the pipes he was into his first double MSR set that included the little heard reel, The Butt of Lewis. (Donald MacLeod book 5). A quick tune 
and he was into double MSR number two that started with Arthur Bignold of Lochrosque, followed by The Knightswood Ceilidh. Great stuff on a very solid pipe.
Pies beckoned and we were able to welcome a surprise guest, David Hester. David stays in Baltimore and is an alternative piobaireachd enthusiast. His site,
is well worth a visit. The Alt Pibroch Club began in May 2013 as a collaboration between David and Barnaby Brown. The Club aims to expand contemporary pibroch interpretation by making challenging historical material easier to find, understand and integrate into musical performance. It has grown into a suite of four websites with a collaborative commons philosophy.
David Hester
To give Peter a rest David was our post pie piper and played Sian Fuive. David kindly gave us the background to the tune.
‘Slan Fuive (PS 105 – Roddy Cannon’s catalogue number, which he developed to prevent confusion. Based on shared tune names) comes from the Campbell Volume 2 (21st tune, page 54-).
The phrase is Gaelic. Allan MacDonald suggests the title is possibly “slan dhuibh”, meaning “Cheers!” Or “Farewell”. but Ronald Smith believe it may be
“slan faobh “, which would suggest “Let’s drink to plunder!”, which is highly suggestive given the amount of plundering going on in the civil war period.
I chose to play it in the Joseph MacDonald style, where Tuludhs and Creanludhs have only one low-G, all other low notes being the low-A. This is interesting, because after Donald MacDonald’s publication of his book about 50 years later, the same number of low As remained, but the initial low-G to D gracenote (“half-grip”) became the full grip (G-D-G), resulting in what we call today the presence of a “redundant A”, which wasn’t so much as “redundant”, but original to those movements.
It was much later (early 1920s, under the influence of the light music in the Army School) that the original low-A was left out as “redundant”. So, I enjoy hearing its return, in what results in a much lighter (less percussive, more open and melodic) movement.
This is only the second time this tune was played in public in Scotland in over 200 years – the Piobaireachd Society didn’t publish it until Jack Taylor and Patrick Molard released their valuable “Pipers Meeting” last year, and it has never been played in any of the competition Set Lists we have going back to the first one in 1785.
PDFs of the original Canntaireachd from Colin Campbell, as well as the stave translation are available.
The tune was recorded so hopefully in the fullness of time we will be able to let you all hear it.
To conclude the night Peter was back up and gave us a splendid Lament for Ronald MacDonald of Morar. The pipe was immaculate and held throughout the tune allowing Peter to effortlessly step his way through this beautiful piece.
And with that we were done.
The Captain John MacLellan M.B.E Memorial competition is this Saturday at the Army School of Pipes and Drums.
We have guest piper Sandy Cameron at our next meeting on Tuesday 16thOctober so please come along and support this first class young piper.
A footnote offers congratulations on the birth of Niamh Drummond. Mum and baby are well and dad is looking like death warmed up 🙂 Welcome to our latest Eaglet.
Euan Anderson
Hon P/M
As ‘storm Ali’ began to take hold of the country a large turn out was not anticipated but 14 or so pipers took to the floor to entertain a healthy audience.
at the Eagles on 16th October and the dates for the Scots Guards KO competition have been released. Then of course we have the Glenfiddich at the end of October and London in November.
In closing I would just like to say well done to everyone who picked up prizes over the season – there really are too many of you to mention – however, and in particular well done Jenny who played with FMM at the Worlds and Peter McCalister who picked up the Gold Medal at the Northern Meeting.
10 pipers took top the floor and we had a good session going through The Kilworth Hills, Shoals of Herrin and The Argylls Crossing the Rive Po set. We also brushed up the MSR. We will be playing these on the 14th at our worlds week meeting.
The meeting on Tuesday 7th August will go ahead with a visiting quartet from Peoples Ford Boghall and Bathgate. Led by Callum Watson this will be preparation for the Piping Live Quartets. Callum is a well established A grade solo player now and is the current Pipe Sgt. of the band. Here is a photo of him playing at the Eagles in May 2011. He hasn’t changed much ! 🙂
On the week commencing 1st July 2018 (102 years since the Battle of the Somme) Eagle Pipers, John Fraser and Craig Robertson embarked on what has become an annual pilgrimage to the Somme area of France to commemorate those who had fallen during the Great War.
The lads also visited Bancourt British Cemetery and the graves of pipers Atholl Forbes and Alex Tainsh, 6th Battalion Black Watch, who had played on the 14th July 1916, at the attack on High Wood. Both were killed on 23rd December 1917, when a German plane dropped a bomb on their barracks.
On a lovely summers night the Eagles took the opportunity to pop outside for a tune and a crowd quickly gathered. Paul (our usual barman) was off duty and had brought along some of his Australian family who were over on holiday. The small ‘band’ played for about 40 minutes or so and included a few family favourites that were easily recognised by the crowd.
Onto the pipes and we had a run through The River Po, Shoals of Herring and The Kilworth Hills.
As Euan eluded to in the last match report Andrew Yu has become a real stalwart of the Society and this evening was no exception.
