The College of Piping

Established in 1944, the College is the international centre of world piping with more than 65 years experience in teaching Scotland’s national instrument, the great Highland bagpipe.
           
A registered charity, the College keeps its lessons as affordable as possible by subsidising them with profits from the College Shop. Many thousands of students at home and abroad have benefited.
           
Each month the College publishes piping’s most authoritative journal, the award-winning Piping Times. The magazine has a global monthly readership of 10,000.
           
The College publishes and distributes a large selection of tutor books, manuals and historical writings on the bagpipe and its music. Its Tutor Book 1 is the industry standard training manual for the instrument and has sold more than 395,000 copies worldwide. It is the biggest selling piping book in history. It has been translated into Gaelic, French and German with other translations pending.

In the 1950s the College pioneered outreach teaching establishing schools in the Highlands of Scotland and in North America. This work continues today and 2007 saw the establishment of the first outreach piping school on mainland Europe at Bruggen in northern Germany.

The College is affiliated to the prestigious Stow College in Glasgow and jointly with this college delivers a Higher National Certificate in traditional music.

The College of Piping is one of the constituent bodies of the Piping and Drumming Qualifications Board (PDQB) and indeed pioneered examinations for pipers being instrumental in the formation of the PDQB forerunner, the Institute of Piping. This was established in conjunction with the Army School of Bagpipe Music and the Piobaireachd Society.

The Museum of Piping is housed in the new College premises in Otago Street in the west end of Glasgow. It has some of the most valued artefacts in the piping world with exhibits and manuscripts dating back 300 years. Admission is free.

In 2008 the College opened a new Lecture Hall so completing the re-development of its premises and guaranteeing its future for many years to come. The College can now host the most important competitions and concerts in the piping calendar.