The new bagpipes are here! The new bagpipes are here!

Last week I received my bagpipes.

They are McCallum AB4s, with Celtic engraving, antique finish, and they are beautiful.

So, in spite of suffering with a bout of influenza, I put them together and blew them up.  I mean, how could I not?

I got all three drones to sound but got hit with a coughing fit before I could attach the chanter.

So I reluctantly put them away.

Two nights ago I was finally feeling better, so I decided I better start practicing.  I set them up and my kids were very excited to see what I was doing.  I warned them that it was going to get loud, and they might want to go into the other room, but all three refused.

I corked off the drones and tried to just focus on the chanter.  With the first note, my two year old RAN out of the room, followed by the 8 year old.  My five year old daughter, however, remained with me, just grinning at the god-awful squeaks coming through.

I closed the door to try and muffle the sound a little bit a tried it again.  Nothing fancy, just a scale.

I went from low G to A to B before I heard my son yelling “No dada!  No!”  I opened the door and told him it was all right.

“Loud, dada!  LOUD!” 

“Yes it is buddy.  It’s okay.  Just stay in the other room and I’ll close the door.”

I tried the scale again, but couldn’t get past C. 

Then I heard my 8 year old yell, “Oh, GROSS!  Sean just threw up!!”

I put the pipes down and went out to the other room.

Sure enough, Sean had gotten so worked up he spit up all over the couch.  So I put the pipes away and got to work cleaning the upholstery.

Now today was my first rehearsal with the Pipes.  My instructor Neil was great.  Another band member had just gotten her pipes as well, so he helped make sure we were set up correctly.  He had us cork off the base and one of the tenor drones as well as the chanter.  He told us that for now our practice was just to get used to sounding one drone for 5 minutes at a time. 

Everything I’d heard about the bagpipes being hard to play is absolutely right.  Trying to maintain enough pressure with my arm while keeping the bag full and not letting the blowpipe shoot out of my mouth took much more concentration than I expected.  It didn’t take long for me to get rubber lips and lose the seal around the blowpipe.

Next Neil looked at our chanters.  He said they will loosen with use, but we can jump start the process by moistening them very slightly prior to each practice, then gently squeezing the base of the reed to narrow the gap.  He also put a bridle (rubber band) around the base of the reed.

Then he had me cork off all three drones and pop the chanter in.  To my surprise, I was able to get through a full scale, both up and down.

Of course I immediately got light-headed and had to stop.

We went back to our practice chanters after that, but now I know what I need to work on with the full set of pipes.  Just practicing keeping one drone going will help me build the appropriate arm and mouth muscles to be able to play full tunes.