MUSIC HATH CHARMS

Stratford Evening Post, Issue 99, 8 December 1928, Page 4

MUSIC HATH CHARMS

UK IMi FOR THE BAGPIPES.

BORN IN THE BLOOD

If you listen to the bagpipes for several centuries you get to like the sound they make. That, or something of similar effect, was the dictum of the Rev. J. MacGregor, speaking at! the concert in St. Andrew’s Hall last night. 'The programme was half-way through! and on th e time-table there was the item “impromptu speech,” coupled with the name of Dr. Gordon, but 'that gentleman was hot present, and Mr MacGregor took it upon himself to give the item and proceeded to speak on the subject of whether or not the music of the bagpipes was superior to the music of other national instruments. Personally, he thought bagpipe music was easily superior, though it. was very hard to convince th e Sassenach in this direction® 1 The love of the Highlandman for pipe music was a matter of sentiment. It was something which had cora e down from the past, something which was in the blood, something which it had taken centuries to get into the blood.

TWO ANECDOTES. In the little district where he was born and bred th e time came round for the annual picnic. Music was wanted to enliven proceedings, and a piper wtyj lived four miles away from the picnic ground was engaged —provided he stayed at Home and played. Once upon a time there were a Scotsman and an Englishman who ■were fast friends —a very remarkable thing, but still a fact. The Scotsman said: “Man, 1 heard twenty pipers all playing thegither, and I j„ st cried.” The Englishman replied; “I’m not surprised. One of j the wretched things will move me to tears. As Mr MacGregor was proceeding to show that a pipe band drew a bigger crowd in the street than a brass ban-d the sound of a bagpipe 'floated through the window; and it wa s soon afterwards patent that the “impromptu speech” was a cleverly-devised introduction to the first items on the second part' of the pregramme—a Highland dance, with bagpipe music.