A Step in Time

Almost all Highland pipers will be familiar with 2/4 marches and the ‘big 2/4s’ feature in all the major pipe band competitions. Perhaps not so many realise that many of these tunes have their origins in tunes written some 200 years ago and called Quicksteps.These old quicksteps are becoming increasingly popular with bellows pipers. It is unusual if, at one of the Society’s teaching weekends, at least one of the tutors does not introduce a quickstep or two. They are present in many of the excellent CD’s featuring the playing of smallpipes, particularly those of Iain MacInnes and Allan MacDonald. This is what Iain has to say in the sleeve-notes of one of his CD’s:
“This type of music emerged in the 1820s, when for the first time, properly built roads allowed troops to march at speed from one posting to the next, the company piper playing at the head of the column. Many of the tunes bear military titles – ‘welcomes’ and ‘farewells’ – and they often have a fine sense of urgency and anticipation.”In this collection, we present a selection of these fine tunes, 68 in all, drawn primarily from the old collections by the likes of Donald MacDonald, Angus MacKay and John MacLachlan. As has been demonstrated so ably by our tutors, these tunes are ideally suited to playing on ‘cauld wind’ pipes.