George MacDonald, Piping

George MacDonald came from a family of pipers of Arisaig and Morar in Western Inverness-shire. He was said to have been taught by his brother Angus who in turn was taught by the famous piping family of the Bruces of Skye and Glenelg. He won a Prize Bagpipe at the Inverness competitions in 1876 and the Gold Medal at Oban in 1879.

George MacDonald and his brother Angus represent a Mainland tradition of piping which may have been more distinctive than we are now able to recall. The perceived decline in the playing of the Great Highland Bagpipe in the late 19th century led to a process of editing which left music of the MacCrimmons as emphatically superior to all others, but this process may have lost us a necessary knowledge and sense of regional variations and strengths in the Highland piping tradition.

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