St. Patrick’s Day activities test endurance of bagpipers

Don’t tell the revelers lining the routes of St. Patrick’s Day parades, but the bagpipes blaring along the way aren’t from the Emerald Isle.

Highland bagpipes — the larger, louder cousin of Irish uilleann pipes — are a Scottish import used in most area bagpipe bands.

When the Columbus Police & Fire Pipes & Drums unit marches along the route of the Shamrock Club parade on Saturday, it will do so in kilts with the blue-andgreen tartan pattern of the Black Watch, a Scottish police force founded in the 1700s that used bagpipes for signaling.

The British government recruited local Scotsmen to keep an eye out for Highlands crime, eventually moving regiments such as the Black Watch into international combat, thereby spreading the bagpipe across the British empire and, eventually, the colonial United States.

Martin Kestner, pipe major in the Columbus Police & Fire Pipes & Drums and a homicide detective for the Columbus Division of Police, joined the band 13 years ago at the behest of his British grandfather, who served with the Black Watch during World War II.

He recommends budding bagpipers start young.

“The first hurdle is to not do it as an adult,” Kestner, 48, said. “It’s the only instrument I know of that you learn to play with a different instrument.”

New students start out on a practice chanter (similar to a recorder) on which they learn proper fingering methods to blast out the Highland bagpipe’s nine notes.

After six to eight months on the practice chanter, they’re prepared to advance to a full-blown bagpipe.

Pipers blow air into a bladderlike bag — cradled in one arm that pushes air into the pipes — while moving their fingers over the chanter to shape the melody. The distinctive sound comes from three “drones,” which shoot out of the top of the bag like smokestacks on a ship.

The endurance required to survive the band’s packed St. Patrick’s Day schedule takes a toll on even the strongest lungs. St. Patrick’s Day Parade, Downtown; Gahanna Moose Lodge, 335 W. Johnstown Road, Gahanna

Columbus Police & Fire Pipes & Drums

614-774-0105, www.columbuspoliceand firepipesanddrums.org St. Patrick’s Day Parade, Downtown; Irish Family Reunion, Greater Columbus Convention Center, 400 N. High St.; Flannagan’s, 6835 Caine Road; The Walrus, 143 E. Main St.; Olde Towne Tavern, 889 Oak St.; Zeno’s, 384 W. 3rd

Dempsey’s, 346 Ave.; S. High St.