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Seriously Scottish

TEXTBOOK OF DANCES, BOOK 1
Flings, Swords & Reels
By Jean McKirdy

Published July 2008
48 pages, soft cover
RETAIL PRICE £12.00   
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THE COMPLETE HIGHLAND DANCING ARCHIVE
Piping for Championship, National & Hebridean Highland Dances
DALCD004 Argyll Music
Bruce Campbell
Recorded July 2008 DOUBLE CD
RETAIL PRICE £16.95
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TRACKS: 67 tracks - 49 dances with alternate steps, special babies section and practice 24 step Highland Fling
Pipe Major Bruce Campbell
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PIPING FOR HIGHLAND DANCING
1st edition published October 2010
Compiled, edited and written by Bruce Campbell
ISBN 0-9546334 60 pages, soft laminated cover, spine bound
RETAIL PRICE £16.50  
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The most comprehensive book on the subject published to date containing not only manuscript of suitable tunes but full instructions including introductions, tempo, parts and description of dances as well as other invaluable background information gained from many years playing for competitive Highland dancing at the highest level both in Scotland and overseas.

THIS book is the result of four decades of playing for Highland dancing. When I first started piping for regimental dancers in the Royal Scots (my second regiment) the only reference was John MacLellan’s ‘Bagpipe Music for Highland Dancing’. I soon learned that the instructions were either hopelessly out of date or totally wrong.

Over the years dancing itself has changed and is still changing as top flight dancers try to show off their finely practiced technique to the best advantage possible. That has meant that, in some dances at least, the tempos have changed significantly. The most notable is the Highland Fling where in Scotland it has dropped to about 108 bpm (all the tempos in this book are measured in metronome beats per minute). Captain MacLellan’s instruction was to play at 140bpm and this is still close to the fast tempo which is danced in New Zealand by dancers competing under the rules of the NZPDA.
But it has gradually slowed in Scotland - good dancers say that the slower tempo allows them to get more ‘lift’.

In the first instance I used a mixture of instruction, listening to others, common sense and trial and error to get the tempos right.
I also asked the opinions of judges and leading dancers over the years but that proved to be a nightmare which saw me having to shift continually - once you ask I suppose it’s expected that you heed the advice of the person you ask.

I had spent some time doing Highland dancing in the army, like many pipers, but would never claim any great technical proficiency there - even although I spent a few happy years in my regimental dancing team (what a scary thought and the word ‘cart-horse’ springs to mind!). But in the new decade of this millennium I started once again playing regularly for Highland dancing and was soon in great demand for competitions, exhibitions, examinations and Highland Games. Because of that I decided to apply a more scientific approach to what I was doing.

Firstly, I compiled the list of all of the known dances which is in this book, selected tunes and then went about the business of sorting out both introductions and tempos. That wasn’t quite as simple as I thought it would be because none of my Highland dancing sources knew anything about this part of the subject. What written instructions there were were more suited to Country Dancing or just plain wrong. But dance by dance, I put together my list and then started to stick to those tempos (as much as is possible in the changing day of dance piping).

Probably at the same time I was being encouraged by a great friend, Jean McKirdy, to record a dance CD and, finally and many years late, my double CD ‘The Complete Highland Dancing Archive’ was released in the summer of 2008 as I made what was to be my last appearance piping for the British Open Professional Championship at Airth Highland Games. This book, then, is a mirror of that CD.

The tunes in this book are the same as played on the CD and I have listed the same instructions as I used to record it. I have also included some notes about the dances so that any piper can get a ‘view’ to what he or she is actually playing for. I’m not suggesting that you have to become a Highland dancer but the more you know about the art the better it will help your dance playing.

I would recommend that every piper learns how to play for Highland dancing - properly. It will help with so many different aspects of your piping including technical execution and, that most important element, playing at a rigid tempo. That rigid tempo is the most important aspect as far as dancers are concerned and while they might be a bit forgiving of technical playing which is below par they are never forgiving of a piper who strays from the strict beat which is so necessary for them to dance to their best.