Quote Originally Posted by obuchiteck View Post
My brother is in a Punk band and I was thinking about joining him. I would like to learn how to play the pipes but I have a couple of questions.
A. I’m in grad school so I don’t have a lot of time, about 45min a week, to practice. Is that enough?
B. Are Bagpipes hard to learn?
C. What’s the average price range?
D. About how many hours would it take to get the hang of things?
Answers:
A. Not really. I generally try to get in about an hour a day. Combined with a weekly 1.5 hour lesson, that works for me; YMMV.
B. Yes. Learning the gracings and embellishments and where they fall in the tunes takes dedication, effort and time. People who skimp on these become crappy pipers.
C. $600-1200. You may see cheap Asian-made pipes for less, often advertised as "student sets" or "perfect for beginners." These are generally, in fact, worse for beginners/students than a quality set from an established maker, as they will be out of tune (sometimes out of tune with themselves, so that they will never sound good), poorly made, leaky things. I bought a set of these when I was learning; I dearly wish I hadn't.
D. Plan to take lessons for at least 6 months before being able to play pipes; and I should add that most of the students I've seen go onto the pipes in 6 months were high schoolers who were able to spend 2-3 hours a day practicing. For a grad student, it could very well be two years or more before you're ready to play. The pipes are not something you can pick up in a weekend ...