30 Years of LBPS Tunes

As part of the celebrations marking thirty years since the foundation of the Lowland and Border Pipers’ Society, an open competition was held for new tunes written in what might be called ‘the Border or Lowland style’.All the tunes entered to the competition are presented in this book and, as can be seen, a fine selection of tunes was entered, making this a real competition and the winning tunes worthy winners. Standing above them all was Gary West’s tune ‘The Jedburgh Ba’ Game’ which paints a picture of the traditional game which is still played between ‘the Uppies’ and ‘the Doonies’. The second place tune was “The Gin Drinker’s Dream” by Paul Roberts and the third was “The Waterdog” by Craig Hohm. Mark Bourassa’s tune “Bicycle on a Hill” was highly commended. Where composers provided a commentary to their tune, this has been included and it is good to see the historical context into which Gary’s tune fits.However, these tunes make up only roughly one third of the book; the remainder are taken from across the Society’s thirty years. It is, in effect, a history of the Society’s thirty years in music.