The playing of, the classical music of the Highland Bagpipe, originally a rich and varied oral form, was heavily influenced during the 20th century by the published scores of the Piobaireachd Society. These were edited in a highly inaccurate and doctrinaire way. The imposition of the resulting scores on major competitive events has seriously affected the way this music is heard in public today. But the power of the internet enables the original manuscripts and early printed sources to be viewed directly without being filtered through a corrupted intermediate source. The present site presents the source scores for many of the classic tunes along with a commentary and audio recordings illustrating a variety of possible interpretations.
Editor Dr. William Donaldson is author of The Highland Pipe and Scottish Society 1750-1950 (Tuckwell Press, 2000; new edn. John Donald, 2008), and Pipers: a Guide to the Players and Music of the Highland Bagpipe (Birlinn, 2004; new.edn. 2022). He is also the compiler since 2001 of the “Set Tunes” series from its inception in 2001 to 2023 hosted by leading ezine pipesdrums.com of Toronto. William Donaldson's collection of light music for the Highland Bagpipe, From Broadside to Broadband: Two Hundred Tunes for the Highland Bagpipe (2006) was the first collection to be published in electronic form, and now streams at ceolsean.net.
William Donaldson studied with the famous 'Bobs of Balmoral' and with Donald MacPherson in Glasgow.
I wish to record my thanks to the Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland who helped fund the digitisation of the manuscript collections on which this edition is based. I must thank, also, the Board of the National Library of Scotland, the staff of the Mitchell Library of Glasgow, the Wighton Collection at Dundee City Library, and Special Collections Department of Aberdeen University Library who permitted the riches of their manuscript holdings to be shared with a wider online audience; I am indebted to the Scottish Arts Council and the Wingate Foundation for support with research and travel. In the early years I was lucky to play with a number of leading young pipers in Scotland who generously shared knowledge and expertise, including Jack Taylor, Bill Wotherspoon and Ian Duncan. Later, I have been particularly grateful for the friendship and support of Jim McGillivray and Andrew Berthoff, editor of the leading electronic journal devoted to the Highland Pipe and its music, at www.pipesdrums.com. I should make clear, however, that the opinions expressed in the essays attached to this edition and the commentaries on specific tunes are my own.
