The Bagpipes and the Recorder!!

[highlander_Daz]

Firstly if you havent had a teacher there is NO way that you can be playing the movements correctly, even with all the books and DVDs in the world Trust me on this, there are several teachers that do lessons via webcam/ over the net etc (Bob Pinkman springs to mind here) Im sure that people can reel of lists of "self taught" pipers and I can sit here and reel off much better pipers who have had lessons, If you want to be a piper you need an instructor, its a simple as that even if it just someone once in a while to get the movements correct. Its unfortunate that many people "teach themselves" and the listen to a trained piper and realise they have to relearn the instrument, Its even more unfortunate that many of these Pipers are In Scotland, Edinburgh is notorious for bad pipers playing in the street "(here are also very very good ones) however the bad ones just rely on tourists not being able to tell the difference. Find a good instructor, get the Logan book , hit the PC for a few months and DONT buy cheap pipes of Ebay.

[JimB]

Ok...I want to learn the pipes. I really do. I can't really put in the money for lessons until next year because of other obligations, but I will take lessons from an instructor here. I want to go downtown buy a chanter from the local Scottish Store and start tooting, but I've held firm. I've heard enough from experienced pipers not to do that.
In the meantime...while I'm waiting to actually start, could someone please tell me what in the heck "grace notes" are?
Forgive me but I'm musically illiterate. That may be a good thing as far as my instructor is concerned though, because I have no bad habits to correct since I know absolutely nothing

[wgority]

Ok...I want to learn the pipes. I really do. I can't really put in the money for lessons until next year because of other obligations, but I will take lessons from an instructor here. I want to go downtown buy a chanter from the local Scottish Store and start tooting, but I've held firm. I've heard enough from experienced pipers not to do that.

Jim,

Usually a pipe band will offer free instruction for beginners with the expectation that the student will join the band for performances when he/she is proficient on the instrument. I note that you are in Salt Lake City. I've found these contact for pipe bands in Utah. You may want to try contacting them and see what their policies are.

Ben Lomond High School Bagpipe Corps J Ogden UT maxsonc@m.ogden.k12.ut.us
Galloway Highlanders 4 Clearfield UT rrowe@eagleut.com
J.T. Dunnie Pipe Band 4 Salt Lake City UT
Payson High School Pipe Band J Payson UT DouglasWelton@msn.com
Utah Pipe Band 4 Salt Lake City UT pipesanddrums@utahpipeband.org
Wasatch & District Pipe Band 4 Bountiful UT executive.director@wdpb.org
White Peak Centennial Pipe Band 4 Payson UT piperatlarge@netzero.net

Hope that helps.