42nd Highlanders Regimental Pipes & Drums

So You Want to be a Piper...
by Douglas MacLeod Terrel

Sometimes stuff happens. Sometimes serendipity happens…

A narrow bay venting to Long Beach Harbor separates my California condo and the Clyde-built Queen Mary. There’s history there, and more. I often stroll across the bridge.

One February Sunday in 1999 I went, perhaps by chance, across the bridge. My mother, Elaine Buchanan MacLeod Felton Terrel, has unshakable pride in her Scottish heritage, and it was my birthright, though in fifty-five years I had never embraced it.

This warm winter day at the high arc over the water something stirred me, a keening in the far distance perhaps, or something else, and I walked faster, my attention drawn and pulled. Closer to the Queen, moving more quickly, I lost free will.

It was the pipes.

A thin man in a kilt faced a tall hedge in the parking lot, alone, playing, twisting pipes, playing some more. His hair was wild, his concentration complete. He didn’t even see me until I hailed him. I don’t remember thinking the words before they left my mouth, they just sprang from me. “I want to learn to play the bagpipes. How do I do that?” I swear I never planned it, never even consciously considered it. It was just suddenly there, and I felt a flush, but I held my ground.

He turned, patient when he didn’t want to be, and pointed to the Queen. “There.”

I nodded my thanks, less able to form thoughts in the embrace of his drones, now thoughtless. I didn’t know the man, only later came to remember his face and Scot’s hair when I first saw the Wicked Tinkers play. Thanks, Aaron.

Serendipity is one of life’s most magnificent gifts, and though the years have finally grayed me I’ve never felt it stronger than on that day. The whop-whop of a Huey in the distance always draws my eyes and whips me to another place, and sometimes a whiffed scent will carry my memory to Paris or Athens, Singapore or Saigon but this sensation on the hardwood decks of the Queen Mary was more than subconscious recall; it was rooted in me generations ago, a millennium ago, and I was both powerless in its grip and all-powerful because of it. I hadn’t started out the day intending to be a piper. I was already a piper and just didn’t know it.

Mixed with tartan’d men and captured by the sounds, I wandered among them as if I belonged. And I knew somehow I did belong. I just didn’t want to be a piper; I was a piper, though I’d never blown a breath. It wasn’t a matter of lessons or practice, it was in me. On that day I began.

I saw Doug Scheid and Jim Mustain at a vendor’s table, though I didn’t know them nor of the impact they would have in my life. To me, their khaki shirts and Black Watch kilts were a military flag and in my strange and sudden passion I accosted them. “I want to be a piper. Where can I go to learn?”

That was the start of my association with the 42nd Highlanders Regimental Pipes & Drums. “You’re in the right place,” Doug Scheid said to me. Jim explained, “Every Tuesday night our band meets for practice right here on the Queen Mary.” All these years later I still gather my things and go to the Queen Mary on Tuesday nights for band practice. It’s natural. It’s a compelling part of who I am. I’m a piper.

If you have notions to play the pipes, you may discover that fact differently than I did. Perhaps a piper practicing in the park has drawn your attention. Maybe your uncle played the pipes. Maybe some long-gone wild-haired Scot passed a gene lurking in wait for a serendipitous moment. In any event, if you are so inclined, as I heard that day, “You’re in the right place.”

Whether you live on the deserts of Wyoming or in the canyons of Manhattan there are pipers around, someplace, and pipers generally respond to people who ask about their art. Piping can be a lonely act, and interest can attract us. We love it, you see, and sharing the music of the pipes takes many forms. Helping you get started is one form of sharing the love.

Do I have to buy pipes to start?
No. You’ll start on a quiet, inexpensive practice chanter and transition to the pipes in many months or more, when you and your new passion are both ready.

Do I have to join a band?
No, although many bands have accommodation for teaching new pipers, and it’s a good place to learn the disciplines.

Do I have to own a kilt and other highland dress?
No. Eventually, as you immerse yourself, it’ll all come naturally, as you like it, and as you learn to divert funds from household expenses, rent, groceries, car payments and so forth.

Are you too old to start?
Of course you are. You should have started years ago. But start anyway, right away, before you get any older.

Is it true that playing the pipes is very hard?
No. Playing the pipes is easy. Forcing the pipes to make music, while marching, while listening to drums, is really tough. Really tough.

How long will it take to learn?
How long is a rope? How passionate are you? How resolute? How devoted? How many hours a day will you practice?

Must I have the blood of a Scot to play the pipes?
No, lots of people with blood from the Indian sub-continent through Central Europe to the grass of Nebraska play the pipes. There are bagpipes of many different sorts: we play the Great Highland Bagpipes. It doesn’t matter where we’re from.

Will I love my Pipe Major?
No. You will fear him. You will obey him. You will forgive his many petty faults and personality disorders. You will learn in endless frothy sessions and agonizing detail from him. You will follow him around like a trained rabbit and you will honor his memory when he is gone. And you will often find yourself grinning shamelessly in public when you recall the joy you’ve taken from the relationship.

So you want to be a piper? Here are some ideas for you:

		dream about piping, picture yourself piping. The distance between you and your dream can be crossed in a single step;

		approach any piper you know, regardless of his or her welcome, and question that piper closely until you’ve found someone to advise you. Be courageous, persistent;

		go to a Scottish Festival; you’ll find resources there that will lead you in the right direction. But don’t be shy about it. Find a piper there and buy him or her a wee dram, and get answers to your questions;

		if you can’t find a piper, find a drummer and follow him or her, carefully. They are wary, but eventually they will lead you to a piper;

		go online. There are hundreds of good sites that will move you ever closer to your dream; one site will take you to another until you find out what you need to know. I won’t try to list them in their multitudes – you can find them easily:

Google “bagpipes” and its many variations, just to feed your passion,
Bobdunsire.com is a bagpipe-related forum with incalculable value to pipers new and old,
check out the Links section of our band’s website.

Piping is something in the blood, in the genes, in the long, misty history of your family and the families around your family. If you already feel that, and haven’t yet taken the first step toward making the music, maybe it’s time. Maybe reading this is serendipity.

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