Dance to the Piper: The Highland Bagpipe in Nova Scotia

by Barry W. Shears

Barry Shears examines the history and traditions of Gaelic-speaking pipers whose emigration to Nova Scotia ensured that the role and music of Highland piping not only survived, but thrived for a long time. Dance to the Piper provides historical background and provides numerous biographical sketches of key figures in the Nova Scotia tradition and analyzes why this cultural reality endured in Nova Scotia. It also examines the social, economic and cultural developments which altered the status, role and perception of the piper in society, and their eventual decline. Shears shows an abiding respect for those tradition bearers and Dance to the Piper represents more than twenty years of research, interviews and recordings of the last of the traditional-style pipers in Nova Scotia.

244 pages, Paperback

First published July 31, 2008

Reviews

[Chris]

An interesting, though academic history of piping in Nova Scotia. Having just finished it, it strikes me as an obituary or lament of the fading away of the old Gaelic piping tradition. It is a love letter to the "way we used to pipe and dance".