Craig began studying Scottish music in Montana when he began playing the Great Highland Bagpipe in 1968 at the age of 15. Within the year, he was invited to play with the Great Falls Shriner's Pipe Band. Beginning in 1969, he attended the Spokane Piobaireachd Society's School of Piping at the North Idaho College in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. He studied there for four sessions, the last as a Student-Instructor.
Through this, he was able to learn "at the knee" of some of Scotland's greatest masters: Capt. John MacLellan, Chief Pipe Major of the British Army and head of the Army School of Piping at Edinburgh Castle; Seumas MacNeill, author, Piobaireachd Society board member, founder of the College of Piping, Glasgow; Robert Hardie,Gold Medalist, Pipe Major of World Pipe Band Champions Muirhead and Sons Pipe Band, maker of the Hardie bagpipe; Dr. John MacAskill, one of the few men to win the Oban and Inverness gold medals in the same year, Clasp winner; Andrew Wright, gold medalist, clasp winner, one of today's foremost performers of and authority on Piobaireachd.
In 1974 Craig was invited by the University of Iowa School of Music to become Pipe Instructor to the University of Iowa Scottish Highlanders, where he served for four years. While at the U of I, he was an undergraduate piano major in the school of music, with a major interest in ethnomusicology. During this time he began competing at the professional level in Highland Games Piping competitions.
Craig is most interested and successful in the study and performance of Piobaireachd, the classical music of the Highland bagpipe. Its roots are in the ancient Celtic past. There are pieces still being performed today that are many centuries old. This was handed down through performance and the oral tradition of teaching called Canntaireachd (kan' ter ach (Scots ch)) until the mid 18th century, when the first manuscripts began to appear. The tradition of Canntaireachd is still alive today. It echoes the joys and pathos of the Celtic experience of life.
Craig has traveled to Scotland several times. There he studied with Donald McPherson at the College of Piping and had the distinct privilege of spending a long evening of canntaireachd with Bob Nicoll in his home near Balmoral Castle shortly before his death. Bob was a link in the long thread of pure understanding back to the "old days." He was credited with Bob Brown for being one of the few to keep the ancient expression of Piobaireachd alive just after the turn of the century.
Throughout these years, his interest in Irish music has grown, and he began studying and performing Irish music in 1983. Craig is also cofounder of the Celtic music band Too Long in This Condition, which has performed on Iowa Public Radio and Iowa Public Television. He is the recipient of two Iowa Arts Council grants to study traditional Irish music, and the relationships between the older forms of Celtic music of Sean Nos, Highland plain chant, and Piobaireachd. Craig plays piano, Highland pipes, Uillean pipes, Irish Flute, penny whistle, and bodhran.
