Kilts, bagpipes and Girl Scouts.

**ohiopiper** · 13th February 11, 07:30 PM

Yesterday (2/12/11) was a very fun (but tiring) day. I have two nieces involved in Girl Scouts and they asked me to be the guest speaker at their World Friendship Day event. Being their uncle, I couldn't say no.

The saga began last fall when I was playing my pipes in the park while keeping an eye on my nieces. A woman walks up and explains that she's a Scouts leader and would I be interested in representing Scotland. My nieces put her up to it.

Anyhow, I prepared a rather long and involved presentation, covering history, culture, language, clothing, bagpipes and food. Sent it on to Mrs. Cassidy and was informed that the target audience was between 5 and eight years old. I threw most of it out and just went with Highland clothing, a few stories about Scotlands flag, the thistle and the ghost piper of Duntroon, then wrapped up with a brief explanation of how bagpipes work and a few tunes.

I must have pulled it off pretty well because one of the dads there walked up to me and complimented me on my dress and piping.. in a rather thick brogue. Turns out he came here from Aberdeen just over a decade ago.

So, for the curious, I was wearing an Argyl jacket, ghillies and Lovat green hose from J. Higgins, a Sgian from STM, red flashes and MacKay traditional kilt from USA Kilts, a white shirt and dark red tie from my closet, a leather sporran and glengarry from Celtic Croft. Kilt pin and cap badge also came from STM, if i remember correctly.

The pipes are Dunbar drones with EZDrone reeds, Gael 474 chanter from Jim MacGillvray with a Soutar reed, gore-tex bag with no MCS.

I should be able to link directly to the websiter for pictures in a few days.

**Mike_Oettle** · 14th February 11, 07:05 AM

Well done. I look forward to seeing the pictures.
Regards,
Mike

**Piper** · 14th February 11, 08:08 AM

Well done. That is a fun gig. My wife's been a Girl Scout Leader for over 35 years. Last year her troop did a presentation on Scotland for "Thinking Day", and I was drafted as part of the show. I had a slightly larger age range for an audience, but still kept it short to avoid boring them. The girls in my wife's troop had done all the research on food, culture, national info, etc. and handled that part of the presentation. I was just "window dressing".
I have a gig coming up next month at a Children's Museum. Sort of a barter arrangement. I give them a couple of hours of time for their event, and they give my wife's Girl Scout Troop and program at a later date.

**McFarkus** · 14th February 11, 08:38 AM

Sounds like you had a lot of fun.

**Lallans** · 14th February 11, 08:57 AM

So the girls didn't seem interested in hearing about Sir Walter Scott?

**Cowher** · 14th February 11, 09:27 AM

Never have had the pleasure to hear that chanter. Maybe I have and just didn't know. Sounds like it worked out well.

**EagleJCS** · 14th February 11, 12:45 PM

Good on ya!

**ohiopiper** · 14th February 11, 10:38 PM

It was fun. Stayed around for a while and answered a few questions. On the advice of another kiltie who's done this before, I wore a daywear sporran and took along a fur one for the girls to touch. He'd had the experience of the little tykes wanting to touch the sporran while he was wearing it and passed on to me his "I wish i'd have..." so I wore a rather plain leather one.

The sponsoring troop did indeed do some research into the other aspects of Scotland, even making a butterscotch sauce to put on biscuits or popcorn.

I even scored a flag out of the deal! The troop had bought an inexpensive Saltire flag for their booth and gave it to me when I mentioned to the leader that I'd done several things like this in the past, for kids at church and my sons' music class in school.

About the chanter, I must admit that although the original Gael chanter (470Hz) is very nice, this one leaves some to be desired in the top hand. The F and G are so sharp as to require a lot of tape to bring in tune. This leaves them sounding a bit thin. I'm going to try a few more reeds in it, if no joy, then maybe retire it to the bottom of my pipe box and get a Shepherd B-flat chanter. I chose it for the demonstration because i was afraid the 480Hz Dunbar might be too shrill indoors.

**EagleJCS** · 15th February 11, 11:45 AM

I wouldn't get locked into the idea that a chanter HAS to tune right at a particular pitch. I think it's a ballpark estimate of where it will tune nicely - the range could be 5-6 Hz either way, maybe more, depending upon your environment (humidity, temperature, altitude, etc.).

The band I play with has McCallum MkII's that tune anywhere from Low A = 468-480, depending upon the time of year. When we tune the band, we play just our chanters for a few minutes to get the reeds warmed up, get a reference pitch from one of our more solid players, and tune everybody to that.

Once again, congrats for a successful presentation.