For ornamentation I used simple cuts, or single grace notes, played on the guitar as quick hammers or pulls. Anything more complex than this, I thought, would probably turn the improbable into the impossible. Soon I had Garryowen worked out, and it eventually wound up in my book Folk Song for Solo Guitar. Two other pipe tunes, The Atholl Highlanders and The Battle of Waterloo, are included in my Celtic Encyclopedia - Fingerstyle Guitar Edition , published by Mel Bay. It's lyrics are a lusty call to battle under the generalship of James Claverhouse, from whose nickname the title comes.
Audiences always seem amazed when they hear a bagpipe arrangement for the first time.
But it's really more than just a novelty-when you play a tune like this you've touched upon long and proud tradition. And although the guitar's sound is dwarfed by the pipes, something of their grandeur still comes through the strings.