This is my 'End Drone' article for the Winter 2008 issue of Chanter, the journal of The Bagpipe Society.
Have you ever asked yourself that question? It may seem entirely irrelevant to you to go down this mental path .....
if this is the case then I suggest you carry on unquestioningly and read no further!....
As a player and lifelong enthusiast of bagpipes I find that there is one radical question that I frequently ask myself. It is fundamental to all bagpipers and thus to every member of The Bagpipe Society. And, like many of the fundamental questions in life, there appears to be no need for one to have an answer. Indeed there is no necessity or requirement to even ask yourself this question. You can just carry on piping and ignore any navel gazing tendencies.
However the question I sometimes ask myself is Why do I play the bagpipes? There are plenty of instruments with a greater range of notes. Many instruments never require tuning, are less temperamental and physically less demanding to play. Instruments that have great dynamic range, are capable of extraordinary variety of tones, voices and styles of playing.... instruments that are more hygienic and less liable to be ridiculed by the masses..... So Why do I play the bagpipes?
Have you ever asked yourself that question? It may seem entirely irrelevant to you to go down this mental path ..... if this is the case then I suggest you carry on unquestioningly and read no further!
If you are one of this happy band of unquestioning people, one can sum up your love of bagpipes in the words of the popular song “I don't know why I love you.... but I do”.
Good for you! It makes life so much simpler never to go down the “I wonder why” path and start questioning the important things in life. Practical morality, the levels of the oceans, political allegiances, the existence of a deity, marriage, the Archers, rhubarb, the Meaning of Life. Once you start pondering things you could spend the rest of your life in a state of profound ponderment.
But for us souls who torment ourselves with this line of self-questioning we might find our attitude to bagpipes more accurately summed up in that old Beatles song
“I don't like you, But I love you. Seems that I'm always thinkin' of you. Oh, ho, ho, you treat me badly; I love you madly........You've really got a hold on me
Why have bagpipes really got a hold on us? What on earth is the attraction of playing this ancient instrument? Undoubtedly some peoples motivation is to connect with the past. I was fortunate to be born with a with a huge ability and capacity for personal flatulence and thus I certainly do feel connected to one of our great early English bag piping figures- The Miller from Chaucer's Canterbury Tales.
The quote about The Miller from the Prologue is well known
A baggepipe wel koude he blowe and sowne,
And therwithal he broghte us out of towne.
But the Millers Tale itself was suppressed at my school, presumably because of the lines
And up the wyndowe dide he hastily,
And out his ers he putteth pryvely
Over the buttok, to the haunche-bon;
…....
This Nicholas anon leet fle a fart..
As greet as it had been a thonder-dent,
That with the strook he was almoost yblent;
The miller told a great tale. He & I are kindred spirits. He is a piper after my own fart.
Some of my customers are keen on historical re-enactment. I admire the enormous attention they pay to detail and authenticity. Dressing in the contemporary clothes of a certain period connects them to that period and gives them a deeper sense of understanding of history. And that makes sense to me. I know how I feel different when I dress differently. When piping for a wedding I usually play my English Great Pipes, the design of which is based on an illustration (circa 1440) of The Miller. And I dress in a natty white suit and wear a flowery shirt. This is a definite statement; playing an essentially medieval instrument in 1970's clothes and establishing a visual link between the Miller and the 1970's; A time I fondly remember as my era.
In my first band- The Thistle Dubh Ceilih Band (1982- 86) I used to dress in a minstrel costume that I made (with Mum's advice) mostly from curtain material. Tall floppy leather boots, pink tights ( bright pink), a loose jerkin with a cape at a jaunty angle. To top it all I wore a wee velvet skull cap that I fixed with kirby grips on to my wondrous flowing afro style hair. And from this cap there sprouted a long blue ostrich feather. But the years have passed and much of my hair has now retreated and taken up a more sheltered existence in my ears and nostrils. Today I could only wear this cap if I first plastered my head in Blue tack or super glue.
We all wore costumes in the band. There was no attempt at authenticity- it was an evocation of an imagined, idealised past. A vague troubadorish Merree- Englande- dancing- on- ye- village- green vision that I wanted us to evoke.
Being English and playing English pipes does pose another interesting question. What is English national dress? This year it became a practical question as The Goodacre Brothers were booked to play at an international bagpipe festival in the small village of Ordino in Andorra. It was their 10th festival. And it involved a Saturday morning procession around the village of groups from various countries. Each year they book an act from the UK and for them this often has meant booking a Scottish piper... and when you book a Scottish piper you expect the whole deal. The kilt, the hat, the pipes... there is no question- they all go together. And they look grand... and Scottish.
But what does the English piper wear? The Goodacre Brothers are English. How does one dress to show one is English? In 1985, just before we started playing together as a trio, I recall Pete stating exceedingly firmly “I am not playing in a shepherd's smock”. Clogs were discussed. (And no one has ever, ever mentioned bowler hats). We have never achieved a joint group dress identity, let alone an English national identity. At Ordino we wore black trousers, white shirts, black waistcoats and berets. Another time we are required to represent England I will suggest we all wear flat caps... the berets made us look a bit like the Basques... but at least we achieved some kind of visual group identity.
A few instruments are named after their supposed country of origin. The French horn, the Cor Anglais, the Spanish guitar. (Isn't there a German flute? [Ed. Yes, Julian, there is- the transverse flute; there is also an English flute- the recorder]) Some of these attributions may be fairly dubious or spurious. Most orchestral instruments have no national identity. For example when I think of a kettle drum my mind never associates it with, say, Bolivia.
But I cannot think of any other musical instrument that comes with such a vast amount of national and cultural baggage as the Scottish Great Highland Pipe. And because it is played world wide there are possibilities for people of many races to learn to play it. Having learnt the basics, all they have to do is strap on a kilt, sporran and the kit, and blow up the pipes, and then they can indulge in all manner of reveries that connect them to an imagined Scotland. A celtic land of mists and whiskey [Ed: Julian, surely you mean whisky?], with plucky oppressed kilted highlanders playing their pipes on every moor and glen. One can only imagine the shock that some piper tourists from foreign parts get when they arrive for the first time ever in Scotland to find Scotland is not all like the tartan- kilted- Celtic -mist portrayal on the shortbread tins.
Other bagpipes also carry distinct regional identities. For example the gaita is firmly rooted in the national identity of Galicia and Asturius. (I am not sure about Cantabria- discuss). And some bagpipes cross our modern country borders. I have only a vague knowledge of Eastern Europe, but hand me a map and I can wave my finger vaguely over the Bok-ish countries and lower my finger on the map to point out the Gaida-ish regions.
Of course one does not have to be a highly qualified Freudian analyst to detect the overt sexual symbolism of the bagpipes. Physically it is a very male instrument .... a big bag with things flopping from it. Don't try to convince me that you have never ever thought about this. I just don't believe you. I suppose one does get a certain satisfaction in being able to expose one's instrument in public. My modesty, however, prevents me from mentioning a dream I had many years ago in my lusty piping youth. I was playing music, but not on my bagpipe chanter....... buy me a pint (or two) at the next Blowout and I might further elaborate. Fear you not - it will be a verbal elaboration, not a practical demonstration.
Bagpipes do have an almost mystical power to evoke deep and strong responses in the listener. There is something that is very primal about their sound that can stir peoples emotions and memories.
Each of us will have a myriad of reasons why we play the bagpipes. Love and attraction usually comes in many forms. I would enjoy reading lots of End Drones to hear why each of us has chosen to play the instrument that the late Rufus Harley described as The Mother Instrument. Does it connect you to the past; 'real' or idealised? Is it for some deeply rooted psychological inadequacy? Or the sheer joy of playing an incongruous instrument? Or the delight one can take in challenging the widely held beliefs that bagpipes are always loud, unmelodious and barbarous? Is it an atavistic form of tree worship?
* * * * *
As I continue to question myself, I begin to realise that maybe I have been asking myself the wrong question. Instead of asking Why do I play the bagpipes? Perhaps I should ask What is it about playing the bagpipes that I enjoy so much? This seems a more positive approach and it does not carry that underlying shadow of an assumption that there may be anything wrong or unnatural about playing them.
For me there is something profound and stirring about playing one of my own compositions on a mouth blown set of pipes designed and made by myself from wood of a tree that I have known all my life. Capturing the very breath that I have just breathed in. Blowing it into the bag and turning it into music. Each breath I take into my lungs is supporting me, nourishing me, sustaining my life for the next few seconds.
All of us have a limited time on this earth....What better way could there be than to celebrate our time and to enhance our world by converting our breath into music?
Julian Goodacre.
November 2008