by Glenn Dreyer –

The fourth issue of the North American Association of Lowland and Border Pipers Journal was published in June of 1992, and it is well and truly packed with articles, letters, notices, commentary, artwork and tunes.

Some of the Highlights of No. 4 are:

A fine article by Denis Brooks  navigates treacherous waters interpreting the historic evolution of Anglo-Irish-Scots bagpipes, in particular the relationship between uilleann and pastoral pipes.  He has many interesting observations and theories, a few perhaps less clearly correct based on more recent research by Hugh Cheape, Pete Stewart and others.  Overall it is an excellent piece of historical detective work, originally penned in 1981, and well worth bring forward to 2012.

Pipe maker Ray Sloan, still an active bellows pipe maker and more recently a presence on Dunsire’s internet piping discussion forum, provides his well informed opinions on the proper naming of British bellows pipes:  sure there are Lowland, Border, Scottish and Northumbrian small pipes, but what the heck are Northumbrian Half-longs? Ray reveals all.

The journal has two articles from piper Steve Bliven, one about the bagpipes held in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts collection, and another on one of the first computer programs for notating Scottish bagpipe music.

Alan Jones describes some smallpipes in his collection and also reports on the 1991 North Hero Pipers Convention and the 1991 Lowland and Border Pipers’ Society meeting in Scotland.

Journal Editor Brian McCandless’ article on “The Many Settings of Maggie Lauder” is another top notch piece of musicology, complete with the words to the song and the music for a variety of its bagpipe versions.  For a recent recording of this tune, and a delightful example of a piper singing while play Scottish smallpipes, listen to Judy Barker on her 2008 “Chanter’s Weave” album.

Brian’s notes at the beginning of this issue indicate that he was ready to turn over the Journal editorship to someone else so that he could spend more time piping and on his other interests.  Clearly he, with his wife Michelle’s able assistance, was doing a huge amount of work to get each journal to the printer. He eventually produced three more issues, which we at APNA will bring to his website in due course.

Once again it is thanks to my colleagues Nate Banton and Mark Douglas that the re-presentation of these valuable and previously unavailable documents is being made available to the piping public.

You can access all the journals by using the NAALBP Archives button on the top menu bar, and your can go directly to Journal No. 4 here.

Your feedback on our efforts are always welcome.