Here's one for our pipers:

[Questions after blurb]

I started piping lessons when I was a boy. My folks loved it (Mum, in particular, instilled a love of music from the cradle).

I had a pipe teacher who was a crap teacher but a really good piper. It was discouraging so I dropped the pipes for years and focussed solely on contemporary music (mostly Rock).

[Side-track: Shortly after this time I took up the Irish Whistle (still play it, have recorded with it several times). I'm not a virtuoso on this particular instrument but competant enough to use it on tracks that have been published.]

Now...flash forward to...well...now. I decided a while back that I wanted to get back into piping. I have no aspiration whatsoever to be a competition piper. I have never been a "sporting" musician, always an artist first and foremost. I mostly use my practise chanter in the recording studio to add some colour to tracks that I want to have an "ethnic" flair, mostly simple burls with droning single notes (sometimes harmonising overdubs when possible), a few throws and gracenotes. Nothing fancy. Here lately, though, I've decided that I'd like to actually become a competant piper; I'm not aspiring to be Eric Rigler but certainly some chops and a few tunes are desirable.

[Here are my questions:]

1) my practise chanter has always, even when brand new, been very difficult to blow. I even put a nice, brand new Gibson reed in it and it's still harder than the Dickens to get a steady blow for longer than five or ten minutes. This was always the case. Is it my technique or my intrument?

2) my chanter sounds "pitchy." I had to use Autotune when recording to correct some pitchiness. I suspect that either its holes were incorrectly drilled or pipes don't quite fit into a standard 440-based scale?

3) I've always had the habit of biting my mouthpiece. My piping instructor never corrected this even though I gather that this is a big no-no. It's a hard habit to break. Any advice?

4) Although there is no substitute for a warm body teaching the student (I can vouch for this having had drumming students of my own and having meen a music student many times myself), what and where are some good respurces to help get me back into piping? I'm assuming that starting back at the very beginning would be prudent since that's the advice that I offered my drumming students who had stopped drumming for many years and wanted to take it up again. Is this accurate? Is this a good place to start (http://www.bagpipe-tutorials.com/play-bagpipes.html)? (I know of PM Bill Robertson's reputation and his skill certainly is extremely high on the talent scale [haha, pardon the musical pun]).



Thank you, gents, for your advice.