Engraving of the Highland Games

The Strathfillan Games were first held about 1826 and were one of the earliest of the Highland Games. They were founded for the entertainment of the folk on the Drummond Estates and included athletic contests and trials of strength as well as piping competitions in both piobaireachd and light music of reels, strathspeys and quicksteps. These competitions were a strong influence in the standardisation of Highland bagpipe music both in printed music and in styles of playing.

Piping competitions began in 1781 with the initiation by the Highland Society of London of a piobaireachd competition at the Falkirk Tryst. This was later moved to Edinburgh and the incentive of prizes and competition, widening of interest in the Highland bagpipe and fashion led to piping competitions, first of all solo competitions and later pipe band competitions, becoming a popular, fixed and necessary feature of Highland Games, both in Scotland and overseas.

The use of the Great Highland Bagpipe in the army, the development of civilian pipe bands and the growing significance of competition meant that the instrument began to take on a fixed and standard form and proportions, for example with its wide bored chanter and bass and two tenor drones. Skilled craftsmen, often wood turners by profession, began to make the instrument more or less to a fixed pattern and added their decoration of 'beading' and 'combing' which was adopted probably by the late 18th century and has remained unchanged since then.

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