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Whatsapp Daniel Cosgriff has been playing the bagpipes since he was a boy.

The bagpipes are an acquired musical taste. They’re also really, really loud. That presents a problem to considerate pipers who want to practice without disturbing loved ones and neighbours. The solution: take your bagpipes bushwalking. Ann Jones tags along.

The bagpipes are loud. It’s obvious, I know, but if you’re a Scottish music fan, the sheer volume of the pipes can complicate their integration into your daily life.

Long-suffering family members often kick bagpipe players out of the house to practice or perform. This means that pipers explore the environment they live in, looking for the ideal spot to really let rip.

Some pipers lug their pipes down fire trails into bushland so that they can have a play in peace without disturbing the neighbourhood, or take the instrument to a cliff by the sea so they can play into the wind.

You’ve got a lot of things to think about: you’ve got to remember the tune, you’ve got to remember where you are, you’ve got to remember where you’re going, you’ve got to remember how you’re blowing.

Why would you bother? Why not take up an instrument that’s a bit easier to manage? Why persist with an instrument that is, in its most basic and vulgar description, four sticks stuck into a bag?

If the St George-Sutherland Scottish Pipe Band is anything to go by, their are two main reasons: because they arouse overwhelming emotions and because playing the pipes is a family affair.

The bagpipes are a challenging instrument, physically and mentally.

The tune is played via a chanter, a recorder-like protuberance with holes. Then there are three drones, not unmanned helicopters, but rather hollow sticks that play fixed notes; they sit over the shoulder of the piper. These four elements are powered by air from a bag, which is tucked under the arm and filled via a mouthpiece.

It’s imperative that the air pressure is kept constant, because a poorly pressurised bagpipe sounds like an emergency siren.

Keeping the pressure just right is a delicate negotiation between your lungs blowing air in and your arm squeezing it out.

If you decide to play in a band, there’s also marching in beat and in a straight line to think about, all while while blowing, squeezing and playing the tune.

Have you ever noticed the music they’re reading when they’re marching? Probably not. That’s because there is none. Pipers have to have it all memorised.

‘You’ve got a lot of things to think about: you’ve got to remember the tune, you’ve got to remember where you are, you’ve got to remember where you’re going, you’ve got to remember how you’re blowing,’ says Max Clark, the pipe major of the St George-Sutherland Scottish Pipe Band.

‘It’s very, very good for your mental state; it’s something new that you’re learning. In fact, some of the older people that I’ve taught have come to me and said that they want to expand their mind, they want to do something different, and they’re doing this because they know you’ve got to learn the tunes and remember them and it was a test for themselves.

‘I’m pleased to say a couple of them have succeeded.’

Clark has been the band’s pipe major, a combination of band leader and musical director, for 14 years. It’s a big job, but Clark has the experience. He started playing the bagpipes 60 years ago.

‘I was 11. I obviously wanted to do it, because I’ve been doing it ever since,’ he says.

‘I remember taking my first set of bagpipes home ... and at 11 o’clock at night playing at the middle of a dairy farm in Jiggi, and cattle and horses running all over the paddock. I didn’t play late at night after that,’ says Clark.

The pipes, the pipes are bushwalking Listen to the full episode Off Track to hear more about the lure of playing the bagpipes in wide open spaces.

Band member Donald McKay’s father was a pipe major as well, and he’s been playing since he was a boy. The pipes have been an interesting addition to his life, and have taken him to unexpected places, including a wedding on an oil rig and even playing on a military ship.

‘I went from Bunbury in WA to Sydney on the HMAS Brisbane. It was seven days out at sea, and I had to play “Wakey Wakey” at six o’clock every morning,’ says McKay.

‘I stood up at the bow and played from Sydney Heads all the way into the harbour. All the ladies reckoned they were alright until they heard the bagpipes and then they started bawling their eyes out.’

It’s not the only time McKay has witnessed tears at his playing—he is regularly called on to play weddings and funerals.

‘I don’t know if I’m that bad, or that good maybe,’ he says.

‘[The pipes] can lift the hairs on the back of your neck. It gets everyone sort of hyped up too, especially with a few drinks under their belts, people start leaping around, doing a jig.’

Max Clark agrees about the hair raising factor.

‘A highland war pipe is another name for it, and obviously battles are conducted outside; it’s there to scare the enemy, to rouse your troops and to lead people into battle, so pipers lead people into battle,’ says Clark.

‘I was playing for my mother in a nursing home. When they heard that I was going to play for her, they brought a lot of the other patients out to hear me. A lady who hadn’t moved for a number of months sung amazing grace when I played it. The nurses were absolutely over the moon with the movement that it aroused in her.

‘It’s a very, very moving instrument. It does arouse a lot of emotions in people.’

Listen to a new outdoor adventure every week with Off Track.



