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For Christmas Samantha was planning on surprising me with bagpipes.  I have been talking about learning bagpipes forever and never made the step.  I have friends who are in Pipes and Drums bands and have always loved bagpipe sounds.

Well her surprise was foiled when I used her iphone to search something on the internet and her browser was open to bagpipe stores.  At this point I took the opportunity to do a ton of research and really dove into the beginning of learning to play bagpipes.  This turned out to be a good thing as I was able to pick my practice equipment and start off on the right foot.

What I learned is that playing bagpipes starts with a Practice Chanter.  This ‘chanter’ is essentially bagpipes without the bag or big pipes off the bag (called drones).  Starting here allows for the player to learn fingering and technique before putting it all together with the bag and drones.  I also learned that having private lessons are critical and that no one with quality sound has ever learned on their own.  That being said I quickly setup private lessons to start first thing after Christmas.  Samantha let me pick out my practice chanter and I have been anxiously waiting till my first lesson with Jeremy Shilley to start.

This is week 1 of learning bagpipes.  I have played many instruments in the past to include clarinets, saxophones, piano and guitar but playing a bagpipe is not supposed to be even close in comparison.  Meeting my instructor I quickly liked his style and persona.  He started me off with basics of what to expect then we moved right into fingering.

The fingering is drastically different from other wind instruments that I have played, much smaller tolerances and my hands have not played in long time.  My lesson for this week is to get refreshed with reading music, notes, and finger of the basic scale.  Bagpipes essentially have only 9 notes of which some are straight forward and others are a unique arrangement of fingers.

I have learned that that my fingers get tight in my old age…and my mouth gets tired to the point of giving up after clinching and blowing on the mouth piece.  I had read about lips ‘giving out’ and now totally understand.

Nevertheless I am still totally stoked about learning to play bagpipes, and have enjoyed all of it.  So much I decided to write about some of it to share with all.  In all of this enjoyment Hayden has been eagerly wanting to join in so I picked her up a recorder (not even close to the same thing, but to a 3 year old…) and she has been side by side during my practice time chipping in to the dreadful noise…