Growing up, music was a very big part of my life. Initially spurred on by my grandfather’s playing of the fiddle, at a young age I started taking violin lessons at St. Mary’s Music School in Edinburgh every Saturday morning. As part of their Saturday morning lessons that were offered to the public, I also took part in a choir where I was quickly identified as having potential to join the school as a full-time student.
Following a successful audition, I became a chorister within St. Mary’s Cathedral choir for the better part of six years, and joined the school at the age of 9. During my remaining time, in addition to continuing to sing with the choir – gradually rising through the ranks to eventually become head chorister – I also began taking piano lessons in addition to carrying on with playing the violin.
During the remainder of my high school days, where I went to George Heriot’s School for the remainder of my secondary education, I continued to sing as part of our school choir (which admittedly wasn’t nearly the same caliber as the cathedral choir), as well as with an external choral group which my mum sang with. The latter was in desperate need of basses, and although my voice had settled at more of a baritone level, the singing ability and experience from my cathedral days was greatly appreciated. My violin playing continued to expand into participating in my school’s orchestra, while my piano playing was largely relegated to solo playing.
Sadly, that’s where much of that story ends. Once I began university, which in itself was a thoroughly demanding schedule just keeping up with coursework, my music playing continued to dwindle. That largely held true once I graduated and moved to Seattle as well. In the last few years, I was able to finally buy a digital piano that was compact enough to fit into my apartment at the time, but otherwise had not made any significant strides to resume playing music in any serious manner.
In the years since I have moved to Seattle, I have begun to miss Scotland quite a great deal. That’s not to say I have any immediate plans to move back – and frankly, that topic is probably enough for an entire post on its own – but I do miss everything about it: the people, the landscape, the architecture, the culture, and all of the other great things that my home has to offer. I try to visit at least once every year, but as proven by 2019, there are some years where even that can’t be achieved.
A few years ago, I ultimately decided that I wanted to start playing music again. I wanted to find an outlet that would allow me to do something that I greatly enjoyed, as well as possibly challenge myself to learn new things along the way. On top of this, as a means to expand my social circles, I ideally also wanted to find something that I could do with a group. Better yet, anything that could help rekindle and solidify my Scottish roots would just be a bonus.
So, naturally, there was only one possible outcome:
On December 27th, 2018, I finally decided to pull the trigger and undertake my journey to learn to play the bagpipes. I would have ideally liked to have looked into it earlier, but a big blocker for me was the fact that I lived in an apartment up until April 2018, when I finally purchased my own home. Admittedly, it is a town home, but as it has its own garage with no adjoining neighbors, I determined that it would be adequate to begin with.
On the fateful day that I decided to commit to this idea, I ordered my first practice chanter and a copy of the College of Piping Volume One tutor book (or, as I have discovered it is commonly known as within these circles, the “green book”) while visiting Edinburgh. Upon returning to Seattle, I arrived home with the package already delivered and awaiting my return.
On April 17th, 2019, I began taking beginner’s lessons with the local Keith Highlanders Pipe Band. For the course of approximately 10 weeks, I received tuition with the Pipe Major and a couple of other members of the band, learning the basic fingerings and embellishments that were required to begin learning my first tunes. I even received a second or two of air time on television! (I am around the 1:46 mark. Apologies in advance for the terrible finger work – they decided to record just as I was being introduced to playing grips. I’d like to think I’ve improved considerably since then!)
Learning to play with the band has been an absolute delight. Everyone has been incredibly friendly, welcoming and patient as myself and the other learners in my group battle our way through learning to play this tricky instrument.
At the end of the initial session, my Pipe Major sent me off for the summer to begin learning to play on a goose – and no, I don’t mean a bird. A quick anatomy lesson for those of you who aren’t familiar: bagpipes consist of (unsurprisingly) a bag; a blowpipe which is used to fill the bag with air; three drones (two tenor and one bass – the bass drone is the taller of the three) which produce a continuous sound; and a chanter, which is held and produces the main melody through different finger positions.
The goose in this case is a stripped down version of a set of pipes minus the drones, and intended to help introduce pipers-in-training to playing the full instrument. Where a practice chanter is primarily focused on learning the fingering and techniques, the goose expands upon that to include blowing, breathing and squeezing into the equation. Despite the fact that there are only nine notes in the standard bagpipe scale, once you throw in the additional mental load of managing this cycle, as well as the complex techniques and playing up to full speed, you quickly realize just how much of a challenge it is to play!
Over the course of the summer, I definitely struggled making progress at this stage and building up sufficient stamina to actually play. For many of my attempts at practicing, there were good chunks of time where I was simply focused on trying to sustain one note consistently for 30 seconds or longer. I could imagine that lacking some level of perseverance at this stage could have nipped this idea of mine in the bud, and that would be that – but thankfully, my Scottish stubbornness kept that in check.
After resuming lessons in the last quarter of the year, my progress has been pretty reasonable. I’ve continued to make sufficient progress on the pipes, now having worked my way up to include the full set of drones, albeit minus reeds with the exception of one tenor reed, and am at the point where I’m about to receive a bass reed on top of this. I am continuing to practice and improve my general technique, work on the harder embellishments, and am able to play approximately five or six tunes relatively comfortably at this point. Of course, there will always be room for improvement – but the fact that I can play an entire tune in a recognizable manner is definitely a solid starting point.
Now that 2020 is here, I very much intend to continue to learn with the band. Our next tuition session begins later in January, and during this time I am hopeful that I will be able to move up to a full set of pipes, as well as continue working on improving my playing and learning the minimum repertoire for the band to be able to audition and join.
Towards the end of last year, I was truly appreciative of having this outlet. Despite many times where work or other sources of stress in my life would bog me down, the one genuine pleasure I had was being able to set aside an hour or so each day, practice, and feel like I could recognize myself improving. Music is such a rewarding experience and I am thrilled that I have been able to reestablish its presence in my life.
Happy Hogmanay and best wishes to everyone for the new year. Play on!
Seattle Scotsman 
Can’t wait to listen to blow the pipes!
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