BACKGROUND NOTES and RECORDINGS

Garvie Bagpipes
Edinburgh

www.borderpipes.co.uk
Nigel Richard

email
garviebagpipes@zetnet.co.uk

I have been making bagpipes full time since finishing training as an instrument maker and repairer in 1987, and also occasionally make stringed instruments such as citterns.

Output has been kept at a modest level over the years in order to concentrate on quality rather than quantity, all the same there are now well over 200 sets of my pipes spread around the world. I have recently taken on some assistance in order to increase production, and to be able to continue to offer customers moderate waiting times for their orders.

The pipers playing my pipes range from gold medal winners and full time professional folk musicians to players who only wish to use them as a more musical practice instrument for their highland pipes.

What style of music should be played on these pipes? The only considerations should be, " Is it good music, and does it suit the instrument?". The Border pipes in particular are capable of a broad range of musical expression, and can sound excellent playing melodies from many different cultures- from Highland pipe music - Marches, Strathspeys, Pibroch, Slow airs, Jigs and reels - to tunes from the Borders, Breton music, Galicean jigs, and pipe tunes from the Balkans and further afield.

These are some of the recordings made during the past few years where you can hear my pipes being played. Links are to MusicScotland album pages.

Bag o' Cats - Out of the Bag
Old Blind Dogs - Five
Finlay MacDonald - Finlay MacDonald
Macumba - Don't Hold Your Breath
Salsa Celtica - The Great Scottish Latin Adventure
Gordon Mooney et al - Grand Concert of Scottish Piping
Gillian Frame and Back of the Moon (Simon MacKerrell)
Matt Seattle - Out of the Flames DGM9907
Jimi the Piper - Pipedreams
Rod Paul - Birlinn (Fraser Fifield)