Another piping season has come and gone. Pipes will start to go into the case over the next few months and for many, may come out a few times. That’s important. Pipers need to rest and recover especially if they’re into competition of any kind. As mentioned in the title, the 2022 Glenfiddich solo piping competition took place a few days ago. In case you live in the U.S. or Canada and decided to sleep in on Saturday, the event ran from 5 AM EST to approximately 1:30 PM EST.

I decided to get up at 4 AM to watch the whole event which for me is a first. I’ve watched it here and there over the years, but usually after waking up at 8 or 9 AM. It was certainly interesting to listen to the whole piobaireachd and MMSSRR events. It gave me a more “whole” perception of the contest and some ownership over my own “results”, which, definitely didn’t line up with the judges. Really though that’s to be expected. The quality of play is so high that the results are mostly down to subjective items (sound of the pipe, expression, tempos etc.). I thought everything ran quite smoothly aside from some technical issues with a few microphones not picking up the sound, creating a choppy quality over speakers. After the 3rd or 4th player in the piobaireachd, the sound came back in quite nicely.

So, for what it’s worth, here are my results by event – Piobaireachd: 1st Angus MacColl, 2nd Callum Beaumont, 3rd Jack Lee, 4th Willie McCallum, 5th Fred Morrison. MMSSRR: 1st Callum Beaumont, 2nd Angus MacColl, 3rd Connor Sinclair, 4th Fred Morrison, 5th Willie McCallum. Best sound of the day: either Jamie Forrester or Fred.

So yeah, waaay different than the judges. I just thought Callum and Angus played all of their music with lovely lift and tempo control. If you’re reading this, I hope you enjoyed it and I’m certainly looking forward to next year!