Before leaving Middlebury, there was one last challenge this Feb wanted to meet.
By David Barker ’07
Josh Hendrickson ’07 was grimacing when I walked into the Gifford Annex Lounge one evening in late January.
Testing the reeds on his Scottish Highland bagpipes, Hendrickson huffed into the octopus-like instrument and a shrill wail filled the room.
More grimacing.
“Oh, that’s painful,” he said, before launching into another test of the stiff, Spanish cane reeds.
Another wail, only not as shrill as the first.
Hendrickson rested the assembly on his left shoulder and inflated the Gore-Tex bag.
The drones—three cylindrical tubes, each equipped with a reed—hummed to life. As Hendrickson’s fingers found the chanter, he gave the bag a squeeze, and a melody (with harmony provided by the drones) reverberated through the room.
My head rang. The music was clearly intended for precipitous mountain valleys, not this stuffy dorm lounge.
“So, can I give it a shot at some point?” I yelled.
Hendrickson stopped playing, the melody jolted to a halt, and he turned toward me with a shrug.
“Sure.”
For the past month, five of us had been grinding through Hendrickson and Ian Hough’s third annual Bagpiping for Dummies winter term workshop. For this last class we would finally get a chance to play the full bagpipes after a month of practice on just the chanter (the melody pipe), and I was about to get in an early session before everyone else arrived.
But that story comes later. You see, it wouldn’t be fair to relate my first try with the full Highland bagpipes unless you knew of the struggle leading up to the final class.
I couldn’t have been more of a music dummy at the beginning of the term. As a child, I ditched the piano after only two classes, literally running back to the baseball diamond from my teacher’s house. On my first day of bagpiping, Hough and Hendrickson distributed beginner exercises. I squinted at the notes. After four years at Middlebury, I might have found the toughest challenge yet.
Luckily, I wasn’t alone. Of the five of us, only Nicole Grohoski ’05 and Jon King ’09 knew how to read music. Anne Christopher ’07, Alex Taylor ’09, and I stared blankly at what might as well have been Sanskrit. (Fortunately, one of the sheets showed a more user-friendly picture of the correct fingering on the chanter.)
The chanter is the most critical part of the bagpipe assembly; all the melody and action happens on the foot-and-a-half-long pipe that resembles a skinnier version of the recorder. A louder chanter differentiates the Highland bagpipes from pipes found in other regions. Seven fingers cover the front seven holes and the left thumb covers the lone hole on the back. Each hole corresponds to a note—low A to high A. The low G, played with all holes covered, does not actually have its own hole. To maximize speed, pipers cover the holes with the part of the finger between the first and second joint, instead of the pads of the fingers as other wind musicians do.
That first week, we struggled to play each note. The fingering felt awkward, even painful. “It’s a weird fine motor skill that you don’t really use,” said Hough, referring to the placement of the fingers. My left thumb had long turned white after pressing too hard. Worst of all, I forgot to breathe, and ended by gasping for air. Our collective efforts produced a cacophony of squawking. People passing by would have thought the lounge was full of geese.
“The main reason we meet twice a week is so you guys have to practice for at least an hour,” said Hendrickson. I was eager to practice, just concerned about where. I would wait until my suite was empty and then slip the reed into the practice chanter and connect the blowpipe. A wayward right pinky—my principal tic—would often miss its hole, producing a sound akin to an adolescent boy’s voice.
Even experienced bagpipers have to deal with the blaring sound of the pipes. “It’s a little intimidating to practice,” said Hough. One Fourth of July, Hendrickson entertained family and friends at his house in southern Vermont with the Highland pipes. His neighbors wouldn’t take it. “[The neighbors] said the bagpipes were so loud that they couldn’t talk at their party,” he said. The next day, the annoyed neighbors went to the heads of the neighborhood association to try to set hours for Hendrickson’s playing and to ban him from playing on holidays. Luckily, the association heads lived just on the other side of Hendrickson and enjoyed the music. “The great thing about the pipes is that 99 percent of people love to hear you play,” said Hough.
On the battlefields in Scotland and England the piercing music incited soldiers and mourned the dead. “No Highland regiment ever went without pipes,” said Hough. Indeed, the first (and only) song that I would learn (OK, one verse of it), “Scots Wha Hae,” alludes to battle. Legend has it that the lyrics to the tune came from a speech given by Robert the Bruce before the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314, when Scotland fought the English in the first Scottish war of independence.
I picked up “Scots Wha Hae” after the third week, and even added grace notes, the quick taps that accentuate and break up identical notes played in succession. Even on the practice chanter, the tune had the characteristic melody of the bagpipes. The real challenge, however, waited at the final class.
Hendrickson helped position the two tenor drones and the bass drone on my left shoulder. The goose-shaped bag fit snugly between my left upper arm and side. My fingers found the holes on the chanter, except the holes were much larger and farther apart.
I began to inflate the bag. The drones responded. “It takes a little getting used to,” said Hendrickson. “It’s a tough reed. I’m not going to lie about it.” I felt light-headed and thought I might pass out. Imagine inflating a stiff balloon, holding someone in a headlock, and typing all at the same time. I squeezed the bag taut.
A couple of sputtering squawks, and then silence. I barely had a chance to move my fingers and create melody with the chanter.
The bag slowly deflated along with my hopes of donning a kilt and skipping through the hills one day. Hendrickson and Hough offered consolation; it took them over six months to move from the practice chanter to the bagpipes. The one verse of “Scots Wha Hae” would have to do for now. Maybe I’ll give the piano another shot.
David Barker ’ 07 wrote about fly-fishing in the summer 2006 magazine. A Feb, he moved out to Montana in March, and he took his bagpipes with him. He says that he plays that one verse of “Scots Wha Hae” at least three times a day.