In June this year I will be 66 years old. I made my first bagpipe 33 years ago, during which time I have completed over 820 sets and have made over 1432 chanters, if my records can be relied on.
I have developed many of the designs by myself and this has involved days and weeks and months of experimentation and prototype work. Designing a chanter involves boring a hole down a billet of wood, turning it, drilling finger holes, testing it with reeds before repositioning some of the holes, despairing and deciding to make another...... ask any pipe maker and they can tell you about the hope, despair and occasional elations involved in this line of work. It requires determination, skill, and discipline.
One discipline that I never acquired was the willingness to throw away any of the turned wooden pieces that I rejected... prototype chanters, bits with cracks or defects or incorrectly bored or reamed. And all my horrible very early attempts at wood turning that were too crude to sell. (I was teaching myself wood turning at the same time as pipe making). I always retain a certain fondness for each piece knowing that it carries its own individual history of despair or disappointment.
Last week I opened the trunk that contained the majority of these rejected pieces and finally forced myself to cull the contents down to the bare minimum, retaining only a few of my first chanters and various examples of my early attempts at wood turning. The pile of discarded pieces grew and grew as I searched through other boxes and pipe cases..... why had I been hoarding all this rubbish? I braced myself further and in some kind of trance I destroyed the lot with hammer and band saw in less than an hour .
I felt a bit daring and unsettled by doing this, but I have since experienced little regret and can even convince myself that somehow I now feel liberated. And for the following week it was satisfying to be able to heat our living room by burning it as firewood in our stove. Pat cannot bear to use them, but I relish being able to say at last “Let's throw another chanter on the fire!”
The trunk contained 33 years worth of attempts, defects, failures .
A few old chanters patiently lined up on the band saw, ready for their summary execution.
After execution, I was left with a charnel tin of destroyed pieces.
Lying like old bones in an opened grave.
Pieces I have created and loved, yet mow was ready to destroy.
Into the flames they go...
Drones to dust, chanters to ashes.
April 2016