This setting of the popular 18th century tune comes from William Dixon's manuscript.  The Scottish smallpipes in C were made by Ray Sloan, Brittany France.

Cock on the Midden (Dixon) SSP

This setting of a tune that was very popular in the Scottish Borders and Northumberland comes from William Dixon's manuscript.   The Scottish smallpipes in C were made by Ray Sloan of Brittany, France.

Cut and Dry Dolly(Dixon) SSP

A tune that went by several names, this is from the 18th century manuscript of William Dixon.  The Scottish smallpipes in C were made by Ray Sloan of Brittany, France.

John Cuthbertson’s Fancy (Dixon) SSP

A unique tune from the 18th century Dixon manuscript.  The Scottish smallpipes in C were made by Ray Sloan of Brittany, France.

Minuet, Edward the Second (Dixon) SSP

A rough recording for the last day of the TOTM, an original composition that honors a stretch of beach where I like to walk with the dog.  I do not want to reveal the real name of this cove because a couple of weeks ago a dead seal washed up on the beach.  It had been shot in the head.  Another senseless act of violence among many in the last couple of weeks.  When I was a kid growing up here I spent a lot of time sailing and never once saw a seal, so I'm very happy they are back here now.  We now have eagles and otters as well as other animals, like cougars, that were never seen here 50 years ago.  The pipes were made by Ray Sloan of Brittany, France.

Seal Cove NSP

Another tune from the Dixon manuscript, and one that seems to be unique to him.  The Scottish smallpipes in C were made by Ray Sloan of Brittany, France.

Hacky Honey (Dixon) SSP

This November's TOTM is  Rievers, Rogues and Rascals.  Peacock's "My Deary Sits Ower Late Up" must be about a rogue.

My Deary Sits Ower Late Up

The Bonny Miller (trad), Welcome Home my Dearie (trad), The Butterfly Bush (dally): three tunes in the 3/2 or 3/4 hornpipe "idiom."  The first two are traditional tunes from Pete Stewart's forthcoming book, A COLLECTION OF THE CHOICEST TUNES FOR THE LOWLAND OR BORDER BAGPIPE.  The last is my own tune and it can be found in 30 YEARS OF L.B.P.S. TUNES, because it was one of the tunes I entered in the competition.  Like the pig that didn't bring home the ribbon from the fair, it still provides nourishment (of some sort).

Bonny Miller, Welcome Home, Butterfly Bush

May 2014 NSP Tune of the Month.  The theme is "Spring".  It's the time when folks leave the doldrums of winter behind and party all night long with "jockey" another word for gin.  The maker of the keyless pipes played here is unknown.  I know he lived on the Coast of British Columbia and nothing more.  

All Night I lay with Jockey

Two tunes made by Willie Taylor, the late Northumberland fiddler.  The first is for Tich Richardson, one of the founding members of THE BOYS OF THE LOUGH, and the second for Willie's wife.  The first is the Tune of the Month for September 2014.

Tich's Reel & Nancy Taylor's Reel

November 2014 Tune of the Month "reels": "Speed the Plow" and "Roxburgh Castle", played on the Northumbrian smallpipes.  These pipes were made for me by Ray Sloan about 14 years ago, and I'm using the same chanter reed.

Speed the Plow, Roxburgh Castle

Tune of the Month, August 2024, for the Northumbrian small pipe FB group, the theme being "geography."  The wonderful piper from the northeast of England, Iain Gelston, composed this tune.  You can find it in his collection of tunes called The New Shields Garland.

The Broken Gardens

Here are three traditional jigs, with middle one being my own composition.  The key of the pipes is A.  They were made by Ray Sloan and have a bass and two tenors.

Put your Clothes On, Tess’s Iguana, Jimmy Ward

For September 2024 TOTM, a tune with a titled person in the title.  There are a hundred times many more tunes in the Scottish repertoire named after aristocrats than in the Northumbrian small pipe repertoire.  I took a Scottish tune that is named "The Duchess of Sutherland's Welcome to Taymouth Castle", which is "Ow'r the Water to Charlie" under a different name.  It was common for pipers to take a familiar tune and rename it after a wealthy patron.  I assume that is what happened here.  My arrangement is suitably Northumbrian, I hope.

Duchess of Sutherland

This is a Lowland interpretation of the traditional Scottish melody, which has been adopted to serve many musical functions.  You find will a Northumbrian treatment of the same melody on my page.  The Scottish small pipes are in the key of C and are played with Northumbrian small pipe drones.

Ow’r the Water to Charlie

This is a variation set from Peacock's collection of tunes (circa 1800) for the Northumbrian small pipes.  Tom Clough said the tune should be played in the key of C (G mixolydian) and the drones should be tuned nominal g-c-G.  The baritone drone is usually tuned to the fifth (d) rather than the fourth (c).  Both work for the tune, but Tom Clough's recommendations make a very eery, ancient sounding tune.  The G note on my pipes is about 20 cents sharp of concert F, which is the traditional tuning.  The tune is written with F sharps, but I play it with F naturals, as recommended by Tom Clough, to fix the mixolydian scale.

Bonnie Pit Laddie (NSP)

Three classic tunes from the Northumberland small pipe repertoire for November 2024's Tune of the Month.  The first two tunes are traditional.  The last tune was composed by Tom Clough.

Because He was a Bonnie lad, Jimmy Allen, The Herd on the Hill

The classic tune, "The Girl I Left Behind Me", played as a slow air and set in a minor key.  This is my contribution to the NSP FB forum Tune of the Month for December 2024.  

The Girl I Left Behind Me

"Tha mo rùn air a’ ghille", "Tha'm buntàta mór", "Leis a bhrioguis uallach ho ri o ri", "Ruighleadh mo Nighean Donn", "Daddy Long-legs": Tunes from the Scottish Gaelic tradition, mostly.  Rough translations are "My young man that I love," "The potatoes are big", "The burdensome trousers", "The brown haired girl's reel", and "breabadair".  The first four tunes are traditional, but the last tune is my own composition.  The middle three tunes are Puirt à beul, or mouth music.  I picked up the first tune off a recording by Mary Jane Lamond and Wendy MacIsaac.  I found the second, third and fourth tunes in a manuscript written down in the middle of the 19th century.  The last tune celebrates one of the creatures, a species of pholcid, we find skulking in dark corners in the PNW as well as the British Isles.  You will find all of these tunes in the book I published in 2010.  
This is my imperfect homage to Gaelic piping.  I don't pretend to be a "Gaelic Piper" or to have even a passing understanding of Scottish Gaelic.  I am not even a Scottish piper.  These days it's common for pipers who have no cultural connection to Cape Breton, for example, to call themselves Cape Breton pipers, so it's important to identify just what I am, a piper from Vashon Island in the Pacific Northwest, nothing more.  I'm not appropriating Scottish Gaelic culture here, or pretending to participate in it.  I am trying to make interesting music that doesn't depend on identity.  
These wonderful pipes were made by Murray Huggins in Oregon, the state in which I was born, with a substantial history of Scottish piping.  Murray makes instruments of the highest quality and his silver engraving is in demand by pipe makers all over the world.  No matter how bleak the state of the world, playing these pipes always makes me happy.  Making music, being creative, being thoughtful is the best way I have found to respond to the seemingly inexorable madness around us.

Gaelic air and puirt a beul: Highland bagpipes

This is a popular session tune.  It’s a very old tune, dating back to at least the early 18th Century, and has taken root in musical communities all over the British Isles, and the diaspora.  Like most old, timeless tunes it is known by a lot of different names and has many versions in several different keys.  “Jenny’s Chickens”, “John Byrne’s Cake”, “Drowsy Maggie”, “Noel Hill’s reel” and “Jenny’s Rambles” are some of the names given this melody.  It lends itself well to variations, so I added a few of my own.  No one owns a traditional tune like this or even a part in it, no matter how hard some people try.  These tunes are elemental like trout in a primordial river.  The pipes were made for me by Murray Huggins of Colin Kyo Bagpipes in Oregon.

Sleepy Maggie - Highland bagpipes

Dick Gaughan, the Scottish folk singer, composed "Both Sides the Tweed," which draws heavily from James Hogg (1770-1835) lyrics in JACOBITE RELICS (1819).  Here in the Pacific Northwest the Winter Wren have long and complex songs.  They creep and flit among the Douglas firs around our house.  I made this tune to celebrate the small little birds that bubble like the Northumbrian small pipes.  Northumberland is the northern most county in England, bordering on Scotland.  I bought my first set of Northumbrian pipes while studying at the University of Edinburgh in 1979, then about 25 years ago the master pipe maker, Ray Sloan, made this wonderful set for me.

"Boths Sides the Tweed", "Winter Wren" - Northumbrian small pipes

"Hector the Hero" composed by James Scott Skinner; "My Home" an old Gaelic air; "Going Home" taken from Dvorak's 9th Symphony, which was inspired by music he heard while visiting Scotland.  The Highland pipes were made by Murray Huggins at Colin Kyo Bagpipes.

Slow Airs: Highland bagpipes

Three marches played on the Scottish small pipes with geegaw accompaniment.

The Battle of Waterloo, A Man's a Man for A' That, The Haughs of Cromdale

From the Traditional Tune Archive: "Also known as "Bruachan Mhelinis." The Braes of Mellinish are on the north coast of Scotland on the west side of Loch Tongue (also spelled 'Melness'). The popular march version is sometimes attributed to Captain MacKay (although others have been credited as well--Pipe Major John MacDonald from Melness, Sutherland, for one, although this claim is denied by the tune's mid-19th century publication). The attribution to McKay/MacKay first appears in Glasgow piper, pipe teacher and pipe-maker William Gunn's (1795-1867) Caledonian Repositiory of Music adapted for the Bagpipe (1848)."
I've taken the heavy ornaments out because they muddy up the tune when played on the Scottish small pipes.

Braes of Mellinish

Two hornpipes by James Hill, the Newcastle fiddler, and a jig from England.  This is my offering for the NSP Tune of the Month for both August (a maritime theme) and September (James Hill).

James Hill: Navvy on the Line, The Steamboat, The Oyster Girl

Three Scottish Lowland tunes from the early 18th century played on the Scottish small pipes in C: "Ha'd the Lass till I Win at Her" "Jenny Nettles" "Kiss Me Quick My Mother's Coming".  The pipes were made by Ray Sloan.

Scottish Lowland Tunes

"The Feet Washing" "The Bride has a Bonnie Thing" I & II, p. 111, WELCOME HOME MY DEARIE, by Pete Stewart, www.LBPS.net.  The Border pipe used plays in G.  It has just a single bass drone.  It was made by Ian Carrigan at Deerness: http://www.myspace.com/deernesspipes

Wedding tunes from the Scottish Borders

This is the setting from CEOL MOR, a collection of Piobaireachd or pibroch, from the late 19th century, played on the Scottish small pipes in C.  These pipes were made by Ray Sloan.  The name of the tune may be a mistranslation of a line from a Gaelic song lamenting the departure of Bonnie Prince Charlie.  John MacDougal Gillies and David Glen both note an alternative title in English, "Are You Sad?".

"Fair Honey" Scottish smallpipes

This tune came to me a couple of nights ago right before going to bed.  It's the first tune I've made in almost a decade.  The name is from the motto for Clan Chattan, "touch not the cat bot a glove."  In other words, don't mess with them.  My wife's name is Kat, and it also applies to her.  The pipes are Scottish smallpipes in C, made by Ray Sloan.

Touch Not the Cat

Three jigs of my own making, "The Bucking Horse," "Barry's Trip to Seattle," and "Rona and the Boys," played on the Scottish smallpipes in A.  These tunes appear in my book, THE NORTHWEST COLLECTION OF MUSIC FOR THE SCOTTISH HIGHLAND BAGPIPE, which is out of print.  I hope to get a reprint made one of these days.  My pipes were made by Ray Sloan.

Three Jigs

The November 2020 Tune of the Month: tunes from the Yellow and Green books.  Matt Seattle writes that the setting with variations he included in the Green book was taken from Oswald's Caledonian Pocket Companion.  I made a few changes so the tune would fit on a keyless chanter and be a little more pipe friendly.  The tune probably refers to cattle reiving in the Scottish/English Borders.  My dog, Breagha, decided to join in towards the end.  These pipes were made by Ray Sloan.

A Mile to Ride Northumbrian smallpipes

This setting with variations is based on the one by Oswald that can be found in Matt Seattle's Green book, but that one there is ostensibly for Northumbrian smallpipes.  I arranged it to fit on the keyless Northumbrian smallpipes and here for the Scottish smallpipes.  It's an old tune from the Scottish and English Borders, and by the title it must have been with cattle driving or reiving at some point.  These pipes were made by Ray Sloan.  The chanter in C is paired with Northumbrian smallpipe drones.

A Mile to Ride Scottish smallpipes

This is the first tune in William Dixon's 18th century manuscript, published by Matt Seattle as THE MASTER PIPER, Nine Notes that Shook the World (Dragonfly Music, Newbiggen-by-the-Sea, Northumberland, 1995).  Dixon's original title is "Dick's Away" but there is another tune in the ms with the same title, so Matt chose this title.  It's also known as "Cock up Thy Beaver" which refers to lifting the visor on a kind of helmet.  The pipes are Lowland pipes in A made by Ray Sloan.  There is a little distortion that was accidental.  I must have been moving around in my chair while playing.

Watty’s Away (Dixon) Border pipes

This is the 18th century classic variation set pricked down my Peacock and sorted by Chris Ormston.  The pipes were made by Ray Sloan in Brittany, France.

Jockey Stays Long at the Fair (Peacock/Ormston)Border pipes

I play several different kinds of bagpipes, including Northumberland smallpipes, Scottish smallpipes, Lowland pipes, Highland pipes, as well as the two row button accordion, whistles and geegaw.  I live on Vashon Island in Puget Sound near Seattle and Tacoma in Washington State.  The wonderful singer-song writer, Kat Eggleston, is my wife.

John Dally

Pinned to spotlight

Popular tracks