Talk About the Book

September 2001

I received with very much pleasure the copy of the Glendinning Bagpipe Music Collection. The whole production is First Class and I am taken with the contemporary compositions as well as the older tunes from Angus MacKay. The idea of a printed commentary on the same page as the score is a huge success and adds a great deal of interest to the music. I know I am biased but my favourite is the tuning prelude of John MacDonald, and I think that your transposition of his playing is absolutely spot on and much superior to the way I transposed it to normal present day Piobaireachd notation. Your score of this tune has made me realise that whilst piobaireachd music is difficult to present on the stave we can get it much nearer than we do.
With very many thanks.
Sincerely,
--Andrew Wright
Dunblane, Scotland

September 9, 2001
Hi Paula and Charlie
I can't say how honoured I feel to have received a copy of Charlie's book last week. Thank you so very much indeed. It will be a much treasured, and shiny, addition to my collection of light music. What a beautiful production it is, full of art, warmth, life and love. And doubtless there was a fair bit of trachle in putting it together too.

As you might guess I started at the back - that piobaireachd prelude of John MacDonald's is certainly worth publishing. I shall really enjoy learning it, and trying through all the other music in the collection in due course.

--Dr. Jack Taylor
Aboyne, Scotland

February 19, 2002
Dear Charlie and Paula,
I spent Sunday night reading the text of your beautiful book. It is really so very special for all the sharing of yourselves, your family, your lives, both within and without the music world... a lovely, touching, funny, weaving of your journeys, THE music, how tunes happen, friend-contributors, special events, and on and on....and I haven't even begun to look at the tunes!!!
Thank you for the gift of this book.

--Dr. Mary Ann T. Romano
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

January 14, 2002
I have just been admiring my recently-arrived copy of "The Glendinning Collection," which is just a lovely piece of work. I particularly want to commend you and Paula for taking the trouble to do the typesetting of the scores properly. A pet peeve of mine is the near-universal decline in the standard of engraving which has accompanied the rise of the desktop-published music collection (which in other regards has been a great boon to composers and consumers). With the exception of Bruce Gandy's books, I'm hard-pressed to think of a recently published collection in which the legibility of the scores is not sabotaged in some manner. I was very nearly reduced to tears (really!) as I leafed through your book and saw what a great job had been done. I hope this will serve as a new benchmark for what can and should be expected.

--Dr. Ewan Macpherson
Ann Arbor, Michigan

Charlie, if I knew this was going to be such a great book of music I would have written more tunes for it!

--Tim Carey
Adelphi, Maryland

The Glendinning Collection of Bagpipe Music contains an outstanding compilation of tunes that meets the abilities of all pipers. This book also portrays Charlie Glendinning's artistic talents and his obvious love for his family and friends. I am certain that those who add this book to their library will receive pleasure and enjoyment from it for many years.

--Sandy Jones
Mt. Pleasant, South Carolina

My son, Ian, bought Charlie's book from the British Shop. Wow! What a great book! I read it Sunday morning in the hotel, while everyone else was still sleeping. Wonderful!

--Kate Dixon
Coventry, Connecticut

Charlie,
I ordered your book from Chris Hamilton several weeks ago and am enjoying it thoroughly. Congratulations, and thanks, to you for getting the project done after so many years.
One question: In "The Recruits," the music shown in bars 6 and 7 is different from the recorded version on "Rant." Which version do you prefer?

--Jim Roberts
Norfolk, Virginia

Thank you! The one in the book is the one I prefer. Once the band learned it the old way, it was hard... impossible, actually... to get them to try the NEW and IMPROVED way. Something happens to the mind, I think, that prefers tradition over innovation. I think a more objective ear would choose the NEW and IMPROVED way. The repetition of that first phrase always bothered me and I felt it needed a new route to get to the last phrase.
--Charlie

Charlie's book is like no other music book I've seen. The first time I sat down with it, I found myself reading it all the way through as well as mentally playing the tunes. By the time I got out the chanter, I felt as if the tunes and the Glendinning family had been warmly and properly introduced and we were going to be good friends. The best teachers among our piping ancestors must have taught ceol beag as well as ceol mor using this sort of personal approach...surely it's the way music should be learned.
When can we expect volume two?

--Rick Woolard
Alexandria, Virginia

In your dreams.
--Paula

Congrats on the book. The design and layout and the way the stories are told along with the graphics are done beautifully!!!!! It's a work of art. I feel as though I know the two of you and your kids more just by reading the book. It comes across as a very personal labor of love without anything too personal listed.

--Bruce Gandy
Dartmouth, Nova Scotia

Awesome...as suggested, it is on my coffee table!!!!! Charlie, it was worth the years and effort...

--Ken Eller
Fonthill, Ontario

September 9, 2001
Dear Paula and Charles,
It was indeed kind of you to send me a copy of Charlie's collection. It is unusual for a modern collection in that the tunes make music and are not simply exercises in fingering.The collection is beautifully produced and highly informative. I much enjoyed reading about your family and about your hill walking in our dear and lovely Scotland. But I can't get over how good the quality of some of Charlie's tunes is and particularly like the clear and effective gracenoting. Well done, Charlie, and I look forward to meeting you some time in the future 'if we're spared' as the Scots used to say!
All good wishes,

--David Murray
Lauder, Scotland