Meet the Travelling Piper

Composer of these original tunes

Neil Evan Whitehead, New Zealand

You'll find him here

Neil is descended on his mother's side primarily from Irving of Bonshaw and apparently from the Reivers clans  (robbers) who made a living for several centuries plundering the English and stealing their cattle during the endless Scottish-English wars.

I might never had picked up the pipes if it hadn't been for my mother, who started me on them at the age of 12 to counteract juvenile asthma. As my lungs responded to the exercise I eventually found myself in the Hutt Valley Pipe Band - a Grade A band tutored by Pipe Major Brian Jackson - where I played competitively for 12 years until the late '60s.

Life moved on then into a career in the hard sciences, writing papers and publishing books but my pipes often came with me wherever I went and on the way I found I had a penchant for composing my own tunes. Over the years I began to churn them out to commemorate people, places and events - often giving them as unique gifts to startled and appreciative individuals in New Zealand and overseas. A dozen or so ended up on the Irving of Bonshaw Website in tribute to descendants who had found their way around the world. With a relative by marriage I also contributed pieces for fiddle and piano.

Many of these compositions were created, presented, and then ended up in folders on the study bookshelves where they languished for years and kept falling onto the floor until my wife, probably in exasperation, said they deserved an airing online. By that point I had been recording them and using software to create manuscript music. Being the techno-creature she is she decided they should go on their own website, Soundcloud and maybe Spotify and other outlets, for the world to enjoy - so here they are: jigs, strathspeys, reels, hornpipes, airs, marches, funeral marches.

The pipes have a religious origin and ancestors of the pipes are mentioned in the pagan orchestra of King Nebuchadnezzar in the 5th/6th centuries. Figuring they needed a bit of redemption and rehabilitation I began composing original tunes in the Christian genre. Some of the pieces in the present collection date as far back as 1967, but they are not transcriptions of hymns.

I continue to feel somewhat a traitor to the Irvings of Bonshaw - my kilt is Irving of Drum (the only Irving tartan available in the early 50s), but the badge on the belt is Irving of Bonshaw. My pipes were Hardie, but the chanter is now Naill, and I still await synthetic chanter reeds that come up to the quality of cane ones.

The music on this website is in the form of downloadable PDFs and mp3s for each tune.