Anthem out of tune with national needs

While Jonathan Reid's point about the flattened leading note on the word "think" (Letters, 16 February) is correct, his accusation that pipe bands at Murrayfield habitually adulterate Flower of Scotland reveals Mr Reid's ignorance of the Scottish bagpipes and the piping scale they use, and consequent unsuitability of Flower of Scotland as our national anthem.

The point is that we have a national anthem that does not fit the piping scale because the melody is not a bagpipe tune, although it attempts to mimic the modal nature of the Highland bagpipes. So far from the pipes adulterating Flower of Scotland, it's more a case of the melody adulterating our great national musical instrument.

Mr Reid's description of the tune, written in 3/4 waltz time, as "jaunty" is also laughable. Scotland has one of the richest and most admired musical heritages in the world, full of inspirational songs, many set to bagpipe tunes, which would be far more suitable as a national anthem for Scotland than this backward-looking, anti-English dirge. We need a national anthem that can be played properly on our national instrument, which praises and promotes what we Scots are about now as a people and a nation, and refrains from indulging in the Sir Walter Scott-style over-sentimentalisation of our past.

COLIN C I DOUGLAS

Mansfield Road

Scone, Perthshire

Jonathan Reid is right that raising the "think" in "tae think again" by a semitone destroys the feeling meant to be evoked by Flower of Scotland.

With the bagpipes lacking a chromatic scale, the required note does not exist on the instrument. Modern solo pipers could possibly manage it, manufacturing the note by using the technique of "rolling-off" employed by whistle players to flatten the note above the one required, but for a classically trained piper this would be difficult, and for a whole band to attempt to get it right all together would be inviting disaster.

So, unless we start matches with a brass band instead of a pipe band, unfortunately we are stuck with it.

WALTER J ALLAN

Colinton Mains Drive

Edinburgh