First lesson

[Chaps]

I just bought my first practice chanter and had my first lesson. If any of the rabble who play the pipes have any advice, I would love to hear from you.

[SoCalScotsman]

Fantastic! I started about a year ago and am loving every second of my piping journey. You're probably looking for some more technical advice, so I'll leave that to the more experienced pipers. However, I will add that you have to stay motivated. Whenever something doesn't click right away and I start to get a little down, I blast some good pipe tunes. It's an excellent way, for me at least, to focus on what my goals are and stay inspired.

Best of luck to you,

Cooper Smith

[416 Rigby]

Cool!

I didn't start until I was 48. It's never too late. Best advice I have is a good teacher, which I'm glad to see you have checked off. You simply can't learn them properly on your own. Work out a dedicated practice time. For me, it was my lunch break. If you don't have a room available due to scheduling or whatever, get in your car. That's what I did. I made it a priority and it was MY time. Now, I go in to work 40 minutes early and I have the office to myself. I don't even bring my practice chanter home anymore. I just leave it at work. At lunch, I break out the pipes and I have a few out of the way places I can play and not bother anyone. Make the time and be disciplined to do it. Go slowly and carefully, performing the fingering correctly. Don't worry about speed. It will come.

Set a goal. What do you want out of it? Are you going to be a band guy or solo guy? For me, I wanted to get to the point where I could play a funeral or memorial service sometime, as well as just walking out into the pasture or to the beach and let it rip for the sheer love of the pipes. There's no pipe band where I live and I don't have the desire for that anyway.

It's a long journey and you WILL get frustrated, a lot. Just keep going. If it was easy, everyone would do it. Best of luck to you!

Rick

[EagleJCS]

Welcome to the obsession! (And it does become an obsession. I have a book of tunes open in front of me right now, waiting for me to start transcribing the next tune into Bagpipe Music Writer. I've done that with several tunes for convenience copies, so I can hear the tune - even if it's a machine providing playback - and so I can have 'someone' to play with/against when I'm learning tunes and for harmonies.)

If you haven't already, read through this thread. Lots of advice/opinions. Ask 5 pipers a question and you'll probably get at least 7 answers!

[KD Burke]

Get a good teacher.

It's a slow process. Frustration is a part of it. Be patient, ad GO SLOW. Concentrate on executing the movements properly.

When you've learned what you can there, change teachers. Keep learning.

[tulloch]

Congratulations! Play every day - as much as you can steal time for. Listen a lot - recorded music and live music. Go to festivals. Start looking at pipes. Take your time. Indulge yourself.

I started at 55. Been playing almost four years. I am constantly happy with it. I play for various events by myself and I play with a small band.

[pbutts]

Ditto to all of the above. I began learning at the beginning of my teaching career and always said I wanted to experience the challenge of learning to keep me humble.....oh boy does it ever! Practice as slowly and deliberately as you can. You can practice fingering anything......a pencil, the edge of your desk, the steering wheel. There is so much going on at once, the greatest thing about a good teacher is to help you focus on one thing at a time. I envy anyone who is learning today because there is so much music available online. It can be near impossible learning tunes without knowing what they sound like; find your beginning tunes on YouTube and listen as often as possible. Learn to sing them when you can't practice.

Consider keeping a journal to log your progress. I like to make notes on the various components of new tunes to help me memorize them and remember what gracenotes and tempo issues need attention.

If you haven't discovered it yet, check out
http://forums.bobdunsire.com/forums/index.php -- lot's of X Marks folks over there.

[scottmphoto]

While I don't play the pipes (yet), I spent eight years in my schools band program. The secret to success is practice. Finding someone to teach you is fantastic and will get you much farther than trying to do it on your own. Just don't give up when something doesn't go your way and doesn't sound right. Keep at it and it'll come.

[OC Richard]

2014 makes 40 years piping for me!

You don't say your age, but I've observed over the years that the adult learners who succeed (becoming decent pipers) have these things in common:

1) prior musical experience
2) fanatical dedication
3) large amounts of free time to practice
4) excellent instruction

I can't think of anybody I know personally who has succeeded without having all four.

Two people who got good as adult learners were stay-at-home moms who had been music majors or music minors in college (trumpet, both of them, I think). When their kids were off at school they practiced, two to four hours a day, five days a week. (Not together; these women didn't know each other, but happened to have similar paths.)

Three were guys who had very understanding families and/or were able to practice at work (having private, and sound-isolated, offices!) and had played other instruments since their youth. These guys would put in each at least an hour a day Monday through Friday.

Set up against these success stories are untold dozens of adult learners with crazy-busy lives who simply didn't have any time to practice and the time and cost of their lessons was, in truth, wasted. A half-hour or hour lesson, once a week, accomplishes nothing if there's not several hours of practice in between.

Things like being stay-at-home parents, or being retired, or being laid off from work, are the bagpipe teacher's friends!

The Scottish pipes might be unique (or at least unusual) in having a number of different fields of knowledge/skill-sets that the truly well-rounded pipers masters (or at least knows something about)

1) the fingering of the chanter

2) the winding of the instrument or blowing technique, what pipers call "blowing tone"

3) tuning

4) the vast complex lore concerning reeds and the instrument itself (choosing and adjusting reeds, doing the joints of the pipes, choosing, maintaining, and tying-in pipe bags, knowing about different pipe makers, etc etc)

5) repertoire (ceol mor, ceol beag, etc)

6) knowledge of the heritage of the instrument (famous composers, various schools of teaching, the various milieus of the pipes etc etc)

7) knowledge of Scottish and Highland history and culture and perhaps at least a smattering of Gaelic (long the language of the pipes)

Now, there are plenty of pipers who don't know anything about 6 and 7. There are very good players who play in very good pipe bands who only have mastered 1 and 2 (all of their reedwork and pipe maintenance and tuning done by their Pipe Major).

I have seen some very good players (excellent fingerwork and blowing) who couldn't tune their own pipes.

So the list is longer than it perhaps need be; however the 'old guys' knew the whole lot, and many were (and are) fluent Gaelic speakers.

One thing that I've come to appreciate more and more over the years is the value of a good instrument (not necessarily expensive or by a famous-maker) and the value of an excellent set-up (the right bag and reeds and everything adjusted optimally). So many things that beginners struggle with, such as blowing tone, getting good strike-ins, and getting good cut-offs, are so much easier on an excellent and excellently set-up pipe. Such a pipe is a joy and pleasure to play.

[GrainReaper]

I have long wanted to take up the pipes, I'm 41 and have sporradic but precious spare time..

I do have musical training playing the trumpet, tuba, trombone, French horn, etc.

A plus is I was blessed with absolute pitch. I can play songs by simply hearing them once or twice without struggle once I know how to play a scale on the instrument.

I hope to one day get a chanter and take up the pipes.

What is a good chanter at an affordable price?