as a mostly self-taught piper I need to chime in.

it IS possible to teach yourself pipes, however I don't recommend it. mind you I was/am SUPER critical of my playing and will practice the same movement over ad nausem(sp) till it sounds perfect. I've played with alot of pipers who tell me I sound great. and I have friends who play that teach me something new all the time. I have good tone, and play in tune tyvm
I'll tell you what....I'm gonna make a video of my playing and put it up here.
and you can tell me if my playing is so bad BECAUSE I'm self taught

I've been playing for about 8 years, and I would probably be a grade one piper now if I started out w/ a teacher. of course I've never wanted to compete so that doesnt matter to me anyways.

i started out with a pakistani set that I got for 400. the drones were ok, the bag was workable, the chanter was shyte. add 100 bones for a new chanter, add having to buy a big roll of "hemp" to rehemp all the joints, new reeds all around ( another 150-200).
I also retied the bag and that made it better.
eventually I spent about 750-800 george washingtons to get an "ok" set of pipes. but I did get compliments on the sound " for a pakistan set"

now if I would have just held on to my $ a little while longer I would have found bobdunsire.com and found out what you're finding out now. cheap pipes (mostly) are just that......cheap

sometimes you can find a gonga deal if you look . I recently saw a 70's set of robertsons on craigs list for 300... real Ivory/silver ( I wish I had the $ to get them at the time )
for a good starter set that would eventually be a good "pub/beataround/outdoor/backup" set I would say Dunbar Polypenco pipes. you can get them just as fancy as blackwood w/o the price OF blackwood. the set I got (dunbarP2's, banatyne bag, omega drone reeds,and adjustable blowpipe) was 1400 from Thompson's and son in Flagstaff. I went up to his shop when I bought them, and he set me up great! my next set will be dunbars as well... just the sticks as my banatyne is still in great shape.

no offense to the other pipers, but for a while i stopped going to BDF's because when someone tried to get an answer to a question on anything having to do with learning the knee jerk answer was " get/ask an/your instructor" with no actual help given to the person asking the question.
sometimes you dont have the option on an instructor. be it distance
( and yea Ive heard the " I know a guy who drove (enter time greater than an hour)one way " stories) or money (the excuse of well if you cant afford lessons then you cant afford the instument and you shouldn't play....believe me I've heard it) if everyone helped everyone else then the collective "ability" of the pipers out there would be elevated. instead of looking down the nose of self taught pipers ( and Ive heard the bad ones too)
help them or at the very least let them know you play too( the real bad ones will refrain from playing while you're around) and sometimes you have to hit them over the head with a stick and tell them that 1 you play as well 2 they sound like processed hay fed to a cow 3 give them a card to an instructor.
anytime I met another piper and I maybe fell out of tune a little they would give me the universal sign for " want me to tune you?" ( which loks like you're mimeing turning a pepper mill btw) I always said yes and took any advice/help that was offered. that happened alot in the beginning when I would find a park to practice in....now it never happens

anytime I see a question asked (if it hasn't been answered already) I try to answer it to the best of my ability, or at the very least send them to somewhere where the answer may be found.


ok ...story/rant over I guess

FKP