Lack of piping teachers a real blow to younger generation

IADMIT I know nothing about piping. I sit through my son’s lessons and occasionally look up from my phone and nod sagely when his tutor Robbie says to him: “uh-oh dirty! dirty note. Or ooh, crossing noise!” But after a year I still don’t have a scoobie what those things are. Likewise birls, tooraloos, grips, throws and doublings.

I do know that Pulling The Bracken on the chanter is one of the sweetest tunes I’ve ever heard. And I know that there are three Irish guys called Fireflyx15 whose YouTube video of Pulling The Bracken is one of the most compelling things I’ve ever seen. Definitely.

But as it has only had 191 views I am probably in a minority. And its not even on chanter. In fact, there’s quite a lot of pipe tunes on YouTube that are not even on chanter. And if they are, it seems to be by Canadians, or Americans. And you need to use the chanter to learn the bagpipes or the Great Scottish Pipes to give them their Sunday name.

And you need to hear the Scottish tunes to learn the Scottish tunes. Scottish being the key word here. As this is Scotland and they are our national instrument and, er, we even have a Government that uses the words Scottish and National.

Curiously though, pretty much most other countries seem more interested in promoting the learning of the pipes than we do.

I don’t know if Nicola has asked herself this, Sturgeon not Benedetti, but how the hell do you learn to play the pipes? In Scotland? If you’re a kid? Now, we’re lucky because Robbie is a family friend.

You’re lucky if there is a pipe band near you. But what about in school? Well, there are schools pipe band championships doing great work, and pushing bands in schools, but apparently they’re pretty much privately funded by pretty much one person. The Scottish state? It’s promotion of our culture into our children’s lives? Hmm.

There are school bands, but many of them seem to be based in the private schools. Gordonstoun, The Glasgow Academy, The High School of Glasgow. What if, to paraphrase Freddie Mercury, you’re just a poor kid from a poor school?

Or even just an ordinary kid from an ordinary state school? In the country that is the global home of the bagpipes, you’ll be able to learn the chanter, surely? You may want to sit down for this. It has been said that you can learn any instrument in an Edinburgh state school as long as its not the bagpipes. Unless you are taking it for an exam. There is, according to the authoritative Piping Press website, only one piping instructor in the whole of the city of Glasgow – and he teaches mainly in one school.

There are, however, just shy of 300 teachers of strings, percussion and guitar in Scottish schools. Almost 180 of them violin teachers. Chanter or pipes? Just 34 teachers for around 700,000 pupils.

And they are seldom seen in Glasgow and Edinburgh. Councils push children to learn instruments that they have teachers for.

But why do they not have teachers for the pipes? In Scotland? Nicola? We should be told.

‘‘ I don’t know if Nicola has asked herself this, Sturgeon not Benedetti, but how the hell do you learn to play the pipes?