This article is an extract from Ken MacIntyre’s final thesis for the University of The Highlands and Islands for the Degree of BA Scottish Culture Studies. It draws on the idea encapsulated by UNESCO in its 2003 Convention to safeguard our Intangible Cultural Heritage and the fact that in the past, Scotland failed to record the intangible characteristics and traditions of the Pipemakers who created one of Scotland's iconic instruments, the Bagpipe. The focus of this paper was a study of a contemporary master Pipemaker, Ian Kinnear of Edzell, Angus.

Ian Kinnear meets his first Piping Instructor, John McDougall on Friday, 9th May 2014; John is visiting Ian’s workshop with his grandson, Scott Hay to collect Scott's new set of Ian Kinnear Scottish Smallpipes

Introduction
In October 2003, the United Nations Organization for Education, Science and Culture (UNESCO) introduced a new Convention towards safeguarding the world’s heritage and culture. This was aimed at protecting our 'Intangible Cultural Heritage', "the practices, representations, expressions, knowledge, skills – as well as the instruments, objects, artefacts and cultural spaces associated therewith – that communities, groups and, in some cases, individuals recognize as part of their cultural heritage”
The idea of intangible heritage is essentially the behaviours we carry out in what we say and what we do when we practise a custom or behaviour and recognises the formal and informal processes we adopt in these cultural activities, possibly without even realising that we do it and, as history has shown, we have failed to record. This idea of Intangible Cultural Heritage and the need to safeguard it underpins the reason for the research I have chosen.
This dissertation considers Ian Kinnear of Edzell, Angus, one of Scotland’s leading makers of Scottish Smallpipes and the Scottish Smallpipes he produces and their use in the Scotland's Traditional music. My focus is understanding the idiom of a master Pipemaker and how he contributes to maintaining both a music and cultural tradition. Particular focus is given to the Scottish Smallpipes Workshops that Ian runs each year and considers the role that these events play in maintaining a music tradition. The research is based on firsthand accounts from Ian and some of his contemporaries. We discuss with Ian his choice of guest musicians/tutors at these events and their choice of music as well as the location and format of these events. In summary, the aim of this research project is to consider Ian’s role from following perspectives:
    What influenced the design of the Scottish Smallpipes that he produces;
    their role in the traditional music of Scotland;
    the role his Workshops provide in maintaining our music tradition.
Historically, little is known of bagpipe makers or their involvement in Scotland's piping tradition other than the artifacts they left behind. The only evidence we have of early Pipemakers from the past is the material evidence they left us with which is often kept in museums or private collections and various documents such as civic registers, receipts and records of payments and piping, or society and institutional awards that they may have received.
Hugh Cheape, curator of Scotland's first Museum collection of Bagpipes commented in his book, ‘Bagpipes A National Collection of a National Instrument’ that bagpipes collected or placed in museums:
“were in the past often acquired for an association with person or event, this association and reputation often being the factor ensuring their survival.... or they had been acquired for their aesthetic qualities and craftsmanship”He also affirms that:
“Bagpipe makers seem often to have been self taught; taught within the family or trained in apprenticeship as wood-turners.... they rarely marked their products with their names.... Documentation of their work is scarce” Richard Kurin, Director of the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage has been involved in ratification of UNESCO's new Convention. He upholds that “Museums are also generally oriented toward the collection of objects, not the documentation of living traditions”
We can assess from their artefacts how Pipemakers produced and manufactured their instruments from the material evidence in these museums and collections. However, we do not know how individual Pipemakers promoted their instruments or what music they played or their part in the culture and tradition they helped to create. I have used firsthand accounts as the primary source of my research so that we have an oral history recording of Ian Kinnear as well as supporting images and documents from his Workshop and Website. This will hopefully provide a record and history of a living tradition of a great Pipemaker, something we have failed to capture in the past.
Scottish Smallpipes Revival
As we start to look at the origins and history of the Scottish Smallpipes revival, what becomes apparent is that there were a small number of passionate musicians, instrument makers, music researchers and enthusiasts directly involved in the early days of the revival. Ian Kinnear was one of the early adopters of the Scottish Smallpipes at the time of the revival. He first tried the instrument while at Kingussie High School and subsequently in sessions in Edinburgh while studying at Edinburgh University before deciding to make his own instruments. It is not possible to do full credit to everyone involved in the revival here but, what will become apparent is the small community that Ian Kinnear and other Pipemakers like him are involved.
This community includes exceptional world class musicians, tutors and performers, some who compete and perform in formal Pipe Band and competition settings and others who perform in the traditional folk music scene to the extent that it provides their income as professional musicians.  All of these people are custodians of our traditions together with the listeners and audience who attend performances. We will take a look at how some of these key individuals are connected and how Ian Kinnear has been and, continues to be involved in this community.
Mike Rowan, the founder of the Lowlands and Border Piping Society (LBPS) recorded in the 30th Anniversary Journal of 'Common Stock' what it was that inspired him and drew him to Scottish Smallpipes and Lowland and Border piping. It started with an interest in Northumbrian pipes in 1979 when he started playing this instrument and then discovered, having come across the Dutch painter, Emanuel De Witte’s rural 'Lowland Wedding' painting, that there was “a smaller set of pipes that weren’t “Great Highland” and had a common stock”. This 17th century painting fascinated Rowan. He wanted to find out more about the bellow played instrument depicted in the painting and met with the then curator of the Portrait Gallery in Edinburgh, Hugh Cheape. Rowan and Cheape were to discover that “there were four lowland pipers at that time, Gordon Mooney, Rab Wallace, Iain MacInnes and the lovely Jimmy Wilson, none of them known to each other” who were playing a form of Scottish Smallpipes such as those seen in this painting
Robert Wallace who is now the Principal of the College of Piping in Glasgow was interviewed by Allan Hamilton  of ‘Pipers Persuasion’ on 2nd March 2011. In that interview, Allan Hamilton asked Robert about his involvement in that folk band, the ‘Whistlebinkies’ (a band which he stills performs with today). Robert's response provided a firsthand account of how he started playing Scottish Smallpipes.
“.... When I joined Muirhead’s, I met Jimmy Anderson. Jimmy Anderson was the first guy really to try and incorporate bagpipes with a folk group. Jimmy played a set of Smallpipes in a group called the Clutha and they did a lot of bothy ballads, Jennie Robertson style stuff,... Shetland reels..., two fiddles, a guitar, a good group still going today in fact… a concertina. And, Jimmy use to play Smallpipes with them and...
.... And, Jimmy was a joiner and of course was always chopping his fingers off…  and one night he phoned… and said, I canna play the night, can you stand in, we are playing up at…. it was Garbridge in St Andrews. I said, aye OK. So I had a beat up old Volkswagen wae no heater in it on a freezing January night. So I picked him up in Falkirk and we drove up to Garbridge and I did the gig with Clutha….
.... Another group called the Whistlebinkies were  looking to follow the Clutha’s idea. They phoned up and asked me if I would like to join them....
... It was 74 when I joined the Whistlebinkies. I set about getting a set of these pipes made up. I got drawings out of the Inverness Museum for a set of Border Pipes and I got an old half set of McDougalls which were exactly the same... length of drones and bores... chanter, conical chanter. Got it rigged up with.... big Iain MacDonald out of Neilson Band, his old man... or his father-in-law worked in the Rolls Royce in Hillingdon. So he got me a big barrel stock... excuse me, a common stock made....
... I stuck the three drones in that and he also put me in touch with a guy, Dave Burleigh who made bellows for Northumbrian Pipes. We made it slightly bigger and just put it together and got a very neat chanter reed.... After about two months, I was able to coordinate the thing and keep a steady sound going using the bellows..."  .
Jimmy Anderson, who Robert Wallace refers to here, also made Scottish Smallpipes. It is possible that the first set of Scottish Smallpipes that Ian Kinnear came across was a set of Anderson Smallpipes. During my interview with Ian, he talked about when he played his history teacher David Taylor’s set of Scottish Smallpipes during a visit to Newtonmore Folk Festival:“I think the first time I saw Smallpipes as well as being taught at school by John McDougall and learning that side of things...., the guy who was a history teacher at our secondary school was David Taylor. He was quite in tae... he was a good piper but, also in tae folk music so, he introduced me to the possibility of playing with other instruments and that type of thing. Em, and he was the first person I ever met that had a set of Smallpipes and looking back on it, that was quite early. That was maybe about ‘84, ’ 85 and when you think the... I think the LBPS was formed in ’83, it was really quite at the start of the Smallpipes revival that I would have first come across pipes through David Taylor.....
.... I think they were.... No, eh... I think they were a set of Jimmy Anderson’s. You know, I wasn’t aware of different makers at that time and there weren’t many. They would have been Jimmy Anderson’s or possibly Colin Ross’ but, I think maybe Jimmy Anderson’s, the first set he had...” .
The history teacher, David Taylor, who introduced Ian Kinnear to Scottish Smallpipes, also introduced and taught the young piping prodigy Martyn Bennett the pipes at Kingussie High School (Bennett 2012). Ian and Martyn played pipes together at Kingussie High School for a number of years. They also went on to compete against each other at LBPS events.  
Both Jimmy Anderson and Colin Ross where key figures in the Scottish Smallpipes revival. When Ian first started making Smallpipes, he was producing bellows for Jimmy Anderson:
“.... I got involved with making bellows. I was doing some bellows for Jimmy Anderson. He was busy, so he got folk to stitch his bellows. He use to come through to the Tron Céilidh pub to play a session one night a week and he would bring through a couple of sets of clapper and leather and leave them with me and the next week come back and I would give him the bellows and he would give me the cash...” .Ian also acknowledged the importance of Colin Ross in the early days of the Scottish Smallpipes revival: “.... the “A” Smallpipes was a kind of Colin Ross invention” .Colin Ross was to give his own account of how he got involved with Scottish Smallpipes in the June 1999 edition of the LBPS', ‘Common Stock’:
“I had just begun my career as a Northumbrian small pipe maker in 1978 when I was asked to adapt a Scottish practice chanter for a player who wished to play it using bellows and a bag rather than blowing it. He also wanted drones to go with it to make up a full set of what was called Chamber pipes at that time. This was completed in '79 and in effect was the first set of Scottish small pipes with the bellows and the drones on a common stock” (LBPS 1999: 24)
The advent of the Scottish Smallpipes revival and its development is not a linear evolution but, a series of overlay interactions of the key protagonists and people involved in both the Great Highland Bagpipe tradition and the Northumbrian and Lowland and Border piping tradition. A key development that was central to the revival was the inauguration of the Lowland and Borders Piping Society (LBPS) formed by Mike Rowan. It is:
“... dedicated to researching and developing the Scottish bellows pipe, which includes small pipes (parallel bored chanters in various keys) and Lowland or Border pipes (conical bored chanters).
The Society began life in 1981 among a group of enthusiasts who were interested in reviving the bagpipes of the Scottish lowlands and border region. These pipes are bellows-blown with their drones issuing from a common stock and have been played in Scotland since at least the 17th Century”
The LBPS provide a definition of Scottish Smallpipes and other bellows-blown pipes in its tutor book, 'More  Power to your Elbow'.
The music played on the Scottish Smallpipes can be drawn from both the Great Highland Bagpipe tradition and Lowland and Border piping tradition but, as we will see later, also from wider afield in other countries outside the UK. Traditional Music
“traditional music will naturally include all the indigenous folk-music of Scotland.....”Francis Collinson, in his book, 'The Traditional and National Music of Scotland' defines 'traditional' as song and music passed down in "oral or aural transmission" and song and music  "disseminated by the printing press.... as national" (Collinson 1978: 3). This definition may be too limiting. For instance, where would this leave the recent discovery of the “William Dixon Manuscript” dated from 1733 to 1738 and considered the oldest known manuscript of lowland and border bagpipe music. Are these traditional or national tunes? We know they are pipe tunes and there is much debate and controversy about the interpretation as to how this music was performed as obviously we do not have any live recordings of it being played from that period (LBPS 1998: 19). Printed music and song like orally conveyed songs and music are simply interpretations captured in time by an individual.
I had the opportunity to meet and interview Gary West, piper, musician, university lecturer and broadcaster of BBC Scotland's Pipeline at an LBPS Piping Weekend. He had recently republished his excellent book, 'Voicing Scotland: Folk, Culture Nation'. I asked him how he would define traditional music in the context of the piping tradition. Gary gave me his thoughts on tradition:
"... the word tradition is a continual thing, a continuum... the carrying stream idea. So, I don’t like to talk in that sense about old and new because it’s a development of something and each generation and each member of that generation brings something different to it and that’s the way tradition always worked. I always make a strict difference between traditions which does change and convention which doesn’t change. If you do something through a convention, you just repeat it without really worrying about why you are doing it, you know.... whereas tradition tends not to do that. It does change and it moulds itself to whatever is needed at any given time and people will try and hit it in different directions and so on. So it is constantly renewing maybe and developing and flowering..... .He also highlighted from his personal experiences, the differences between the 'pipe band tradition' and the 'folk tradition':
“Well, when I say folk music I suppose what I am really meaning there is less formal setting, so obviously learning Highland pipes tends to be a very formalised thing. You get taught a style and there is a right and wrong always, and you are always told that’s wrong and this is right....and you’re playing either solo or with other pipers or drummers.... .... I had never really played much with other musicians...... with Highland pipes the chances of doing that are fairly slim. I also played whistle........ once I went to Edinburgh and began to discover these things called sessions and so on.... I had my Highland pipes.... I would take them to sessions and maybe play a set and then inevitably it becomes a solo. And then I would just tooter away on whistle.
So in some ways I was just crying out for there to be something that I could play all night......” .
The aim of a pipe band is to ensure that they sound like one large bagpipe unless there are complementary harmonies. Therefore, they have to be regimented, synchronised and in step. In contrast, piping in a folk music tradition is looser, more free style. The aim in folk music is to ensure the core melody and accompaniment holds together and different musicians can perform together without one drowning out the others.
From a piper's perspective, what Gary was crying out for came in the form of the Scottish Smallpipes. Ian Kinnear explained how he saw the potential for Scottish Smallpipes to provide this connection with other musicians:
"The Smallpipes, bellow pipes have been a link between pipers and other musicians and have allowed pipers to integrate or... reintegrate and start playing with other musicians again whereas, when I grew up piping was a separate discipline if you like... a separate part of the tradition, it had become that.... it had gone down... specialist... drill of its own where, the Smallpipes have allowed that reintegration... and it has been a symbiotic thing, you know... pipers learning fiddle tunes and fiddle players for example learning pipe tunes. It works really well both ways" .Ian's involvement in piping began with the Great Highland Bagpipe and was to transverse into the folk music tradition. Ian Kinnear
- Pipemaker, Musician    
Ian Kinnear was born in Glasgow but, his family moved to Kingussie and the Badenoch area when he was three years old and his father had secured a job as a school teacher in the area. Ian spent his school days in Badenoch, attending Kingussie High School which was to play an important part in his introduction to piping. When Ian was eighteen, he moved to Edinburgh to begin his university studies and began the early part of his career which led to him becoming a Pipemaker. After Edinburgh, Ian operated his business in Brechin and Forfar, before the family finally relocated to Edzell in Angus where he works and operates his Scottish Smallpipes business from his home.  He is married to Julie-Anne and has two children, Patrick and Isabelle. The whole family are actively involved in Ian's Scottish Smallpipes Workshop. Both children play instruments and join in the Workshop sessions and have done so from an early age.
During my interview with Ian at his April 2014 Workshop in Glen Esk in Angus, Ian explained how he got involved in piping when he was ten years-old:
“I was lucky when I was at school... there was, and at that time it wouldn’t have been common but, we had a schools piping instructor and in the Badenoch schools, Badenoch and Strathspey area, the instructor was John McDougall. So, I was very lucky to get tuition from one of the top competitors of the era, one of the top players of that generation........ I played a wee bit in the British Legion Band in the area but, most of our play was March, Strathspey and Reel and learning Piobaireachd and competing in junior competitions, mainly local competitions but, sometimes more regional" .His first introduction to Scottish Smallpipes was at Kingussie High School. His history teacher didn't just teach history:
"I think the first time I saw Smallpipes as well as being taught at school by John McDougall and learning that side of things, the guy who was a history teacher at our secondary school was David Taylor. He was quite in tae... he was a good piper but, also in tae folk music. So, he introduced me to the possibility of playing with other instruments and that type of thing..... And he was the first person I ever met that had a set of Smallpipes and looking back on it, that was quite early" .Ian's move to Edinburgh to begin studies at Edinburgh University was to give him greater exposure to the traditional music scene as well as involving him in solo and Pipe Band competitions, playing ultimately with the Grade II Scottish Gas Pipe Band. Ian also  developed  long lasting friendships with some of the leading figures in the piping and folk music world including Gary West of BBC Pipeline and Mike Katz of the Battlefield Band. They played and competed together at various times in Pipe Bands:
".... when I went to university I joined the “OTC” – Officers Training Corp Pipe Band which was great fun. Gary (West) was in that band and a guy called Gordon Campbell was the Pipe Major and he had a set of Smallpipes... That was in ’87, and he had a set of Colin Ross’s Smallpipes for a while. So, that really kind caught my interest because we use to... he’d  sit in the pub and we would have a singsong, you know sing some songs  but, he would play the Smallpipes and in some of the pub sessions in Edinburgh, in the Edinburgh West End Hotel or the Sandy Bells, he would join in" .It is evident from Ian's ability as a player and teacher, that the core skills he learnt as a teenager are still central to what he does today. The context of playing Smallpipes in a folk session may be very different from playing Piobaireachd in a formal Highland piping competition but, the basic skills like setting up and tuning a good instrument and creating accurate rhythms with good finger technique are transferrable and relevant in both contexts.
Similarly, playing with other pipers i.e. the basics of good pipe band playing - blowing in tune with everyone else and playing in time with everyone else - are also essential when playing with other instruments be it in a session, folk or céilidh band. These are the threads that Ian draws   from his past and central to what he teaches during his Workshops.
It wasn't just Highland Bagpipes that Ian competed in. He also competed with Scottish Smallpipes at the Lowland and Border Piping Society Competition events. In June 1994 Ian came second equal in the Open Scottish Smallpipes class at the LBPS competition with the young virtuoso, Martyn Bennett and in the following year he took first place in the duet competition with Mike Katz now of the Battlefield Band
Ian's move into pipemaking started after his time at university. Ian worked at 'Blackfriars Music', a music shop in Edinburgh and set up their Bagpipe department, buying and selling new and used instruments. Ian explained how he started to make the move in to pipemaking: "I see sets... old and new sets and Irish sets that came through the shop I use to measure up and get an idea how they worked and things.... and from there, there was a musical instrument making night class that ran in Edinburgh... I think it was Broughton High School. It was a guy called Bert Kerr and it was mainly people making fiddles and mandolins; string instruments you know but, it was run in the technical department for schools. So, I went along. He was very helpful to me not so much in showing me to make pipes but, he allowed me to go along and use the machines. So I had access to all these lathes and things for one night a week. So, that allowed me to make a prototype and make up my first set of pipes to a point where I could probably do this, you know.... and get these working without investing in machinery...
.... the first set I obviously made like that.... I think it was one of these things... from there....  I was selling pipes as well; I think I had taken on the let of a shop.... I can’t remember the exact order of these things but, I was selling second hand pipes, and buying and selling and trying to earn a bit of a living with that with a view to building into the pipemaking" .

Ian developed his pipemaking business in Edinburgh in 1993 (Kinnear 2014) and finally  moved it to Edzell after he and Julie-Anne started a family. The business operates very successfully from the family home.
Kinnear Scottish SmallpipesThere is much "material evidence" to the design, quality, size and materials used in Ian's Scottish Smallpipes available as Ian's pipes have been sold throughout the world and are used by many hobbyists, social pipers and professionals, including the professional pipers in the Tannahill Weavers and Battlefield Band. I have not looked at the design and productions processes in this research. My primary focus was more on the intangible cultural aspects of Ian as a Pipemaker and how he was influenced as a musician and craftsman and, how he has influenced our music tradition. Ian's Smallpipes have a 'maker mark' on the common stock that holds the drones and are easily discernible by their distinctive design and sound. As the illustration shows here, Ian's Smallpipes are a traditional bellows-blown bagpipe which can be supplied in the keys of A, Bb, C or D. The keys of A and D are most common and most useful for playing with other traditional instruments. They are supplied as standard 3 drone sets (shown) or as a combined A/D set with 4 drones and two interchangeable chanters. At the time of writing, Ian mentioned he had made over 800 sets of Smallpipes which, given the quality and craftsmanship involved, this is a high demand for an individual Pipemaker who handcrafts each instrument himself.
I asked Ian to explain what he was looking for in the design of his Scottish Smallpipes and what had influenced these decisions. His responses below highlight how his experience at 'Blackfriars Music' and his experience as proficient piper helped influence the rational in the design of his pipes:
“I also became exposed to Northumbrian Pipes, Uilleann pipes and some sets of Smallpipes, so all these bellow pipes around. So I was able to mess about and kinda experiment with setting them and also... see what different styles and makes and.... also realised there were a lot of different styles and making going on with Smallpipes...
.... I observed at that point the Irish pipes used a nailed bellow and I very much decided that made sense to me to use that. So, I developed my own bellow at that point without... you know, just based on a set we had in the shop actually. ....
I kinda knew what I wanted to do in terms of sound. I wanted something that was louder....
.... I noticed most of the makers had come out in the Northumbrian tradition and started making Smallpipes and brilliantly developed this instrument that we could play with Highland.... it was old.... it was revived... but, the “A” Smallpipes was a kind of Colin Ross invention. And, obviously Colin Ross, Heriot and Alan... various others came out the Northumbrian tradition.....
..... Northumbrian pipes being a more delicate instrument, they were using a very small bellows and a very small bag which is great if playing an “F” or “G” in a wee chanter and its very “eee” lovely and sweet ....  
.... I was looking at this on one hand and also on the next shelf I was seeing sets of Uilleann pipes which have a much more robust sound.... and, I was also looking at Smallpipes...  which were using the Northumbrian styles of bellows... so I was thinking if I put these big bellows on and a bigger bag....
... We have a good air supply, a good reservoir and we can build a stronger reed and more robust sound...... some of the other pipes, on the market at the time were quite quiet and weren’t that useful in a session situation..... So, I was looking for something..... with just a wee bit of guts to it".Ian's experience as a piper and his ability to observe the craft of others and translate these ideas at evening classes as he developed his own wood turning skills were all important elements in the development of the instruments Ian produces today.
Every artist learning their craft must first start as an amateur and Ian's knowledge as master Pipemaker would have started back in his early school days when he began to learn to play the pipes, attend technical classes and subsequently play competitively both solo and with a band. He was taught by a world class champion piper, (McDougall 2014) and throughout his teenage years and young adult life he began to play at music sessions with folk musicians gaining exposure to the country's top folk musicians:
".... I remember we use to go the University Piping Society on a Monday night and on a Monday night after that we would go to the Green Tree pub where there was just an amazing session and looking back on it, there were guys like Angus Grant, Iain Macleod, Peter Boond..." .
Ian is clearly attentive and receptive to the sights and sounds and feel of the pipes and possess an innate ability to translate these experiences from mastering the instrument to create and craft his own instruments which we are fortunate to have today.Smallpipes Workshop
“When we first started we had this notion of renting a big house where we could have a real fire, a good bottle of whisky and just host people as if it was their family home....”
Ian held his first Workshop in 2004. Ian explained during our conversation at his 2014 April Workshop the background to these Workshops and the primary reason that he started them:
“I was observing customers coming back to me with similar types of problems in terms of just maybe needing a couple of pointers... after six months on the bellows technique to really make the most of their pipes.... I was conscious of trying to offer a course that would allow folk to maximise what they could do with the pipes. And, I realised that sometimes just an hour spent with... and a couple of basic pointers.... can make all the difference to people but, you really need to have them onsite in front of you playing to do that.....” .
From 2005 onwards, Ian invited guest musicians and pipers from the world of traditional folk music and piping to assist in his Workshop classes.
Hopefully, what has been demonstrated here is that bagpipe making to the quality and standard that Ian provides goes beyond the skill and craft of manufacturing and producing the musical instrument. What is evident is that Ian and master Pipemakers like Ian are not simply wood turners or ivory turners. They spend many years mastering their instrument. They practise and perform regularly. They perform for and with other professional musicians. They are regularly exposed to great musicians from both the traditional piping and folk community.  They, as in Ian's case, are taught by master pipers and they often compete to a high standard. They also pass on the learned tradition and high standards of performance that they were taught.
Individual Pipemakers like Ian do not often get the visibility they deserve and a full appreciation of who they are and what they do is not recorded or as history has shown, the knowledge of who they are is lost.
Today, the UK Government has not ratified UNESCO Convention towards safeguarding our Intangible Cultural Heritage. This Convention calls upon the "participation of communities, groups and, where appropriate, individuals that create, maintain and transmit such heritage" (Kurin, Richard (2007) Safeguarding Intangible Cultural Heritage: Key Factors in Implementing the 2003 Convention.) I do not believe we have to wait for our government to ratify this Convention.
The institutions and organisations that support our piping and folk traditions have a higher profile than these individuals e.g. College of Piping, LBPS, The Piobaireachd Society, National Piping Centre, etc. We need the continued support of these organisations to promote and encourage the recording of important individuals like Ian Kinnear so that we can be assured going forward we do not forget the people who represent and shape our cultural heritage.

Reedmaking at Ian Kinnear’s workshop