Greetings! My latest articles “A Noble Pursuit: The Early Works of John Grant” and “John Grant’s “Windsor Marches” have been added to the “References” page. On June 28th, 2011 I made a presentation at the North American Academy of Piping and Drumming (Valle Crucis, NC) about John MacRae’s March, composed in 1942 to honor the memory of […]
Author: Alan Armstrong
OT: 17 November 1906 C.S. Thomason “The Scale of the Highland Bagpipe Chanter” (Part 1)
[5, 28-36] The Oban Times, 17 November, 1906 The Scale of the Highland Bagpipe Chanter By Major-General C. S. Thomason Part I In 1888, when in India, I received a letter from the late Mr. Dove on this subject, asking me if I knew of any scale in India corresponding to that of our chanter. […]
OT: 1 December 1906 – Charles Bannatyne “The Scale of the Highland Bagpipe Chanter”
The Oban Times, 1 December, 1906 The Scale of the Highland Bagpipe Chanter Salsburgh, by Holytown, 26 November, 1906 Sir,–Major-General Thomason’s articles on this much-debated subject are most interesting, but the investigations are weakened by the influence of a preconceived idea that the chanter scale is an ancient one, having no modern equivalent. They are […]
OT: 24 November 1906 – C.S. Thomason “The Scale of the Highland Bagpipe Chanter” (Part 2)
The Oban Times, 24 November, 1906 The Scale of the Highland Bagpipe Chanter By Major-General C. S. Thomason PART II-CONCLUSION. The first thing, I think, that will strike anybody, as it did me, is the extraordinary variety of sounds proceeding from all these chanters, and still, I suppose, each maker would be prepared to swear […]
OT: 24 June 1911 – Charles Bannatyne “The Great Highland Bagpipe and Its Music”
The Oban Times, 24 June, 1911 The Great Highland Bagpipe and Its Music Salsburgh, by Holytown 9 June, 1911 Sir,–It was not my intention to say more on this subject, but the persistency with which “Morag” tries to fasten on my devoted head an expression I never uttered, and which has formed the text of […]
OT: 17 June 1911 – Morag “The Great Highland Bagpipe in Its Music”
The Oban Times, 17 June, 1911 The Great Highland Bagpipe in Its Music 12 June, 1911 Sir,–In your issue of 10th inst., Dr. Bannatyne says he will leave the subject with “Morag,” shrouded in the mists of antiquity. He has failed to see any proof in my letters to uphold what I have said, but […]
OT: 10 June 1911 – Morag
The Oban Times, 10 June, 1911 5 June, 1911 Sir,–Those who are in doubt regarding the origin, antiquity, and history of the great Highland bagpipe and piobaireachd will doubtless be inclined to think that the mystery still deepens, that the mist is lowering on the subject, and thickening into complete darkness, which all efforts to […]
10 June 1911 – Don Mhor
The Oban Times, 10 June, 1911 Sir,–The correspondence appearing in your columns dealing with bagpipes and bagpipers has its grim significance. How can anyone really seriously carry on an argument with “Morag,” who laboriously sets out to prove that as a musical instrument the bagpipe is superior to all other musical instruments? Why, Sir, the […]
OT: 10 June 1911 – Charles Bannatyne “The Great Highland Bagpipe in Its Music”
The Oban Times, Saturday, 10 June, 1911 The Great Highland Bagpipe in Its Music Salsburgh, by Holytown 5 June, 1911 Sir,–” Morag” quotes me as having said in a lecture that the bagpipes were unknown in the Highlands of Scotland till the end of the sixteenth century. I never said so. What I said was […]
OT: 10 June 1911 – Boreraig “Cumha Dhonnachaidh Mhic Iain”
The Oban Times, 10 June, 1911 “Cumha Dhonnachaidh Mhic Iain” 3 June, 1911 Sir,–In the correspondence columns of your issue of this date I see a correspondent, Mr. MacLennan, Edinburgh disputing a statement that I have made under this heading “that piobaireachd has nothing whatever to do with poetry.” As Mr. MacLennan does not dispute […]
