At the age of 16 my parents wanted to buy me a set of Northumbrian pipes from David Burleigh of Longframlington. That was in 1980. 38 years later, I booked myself onto a taster day at Halsway Manor in Somerset. That was 2018. Then arrived the Beast of the East snowstorm, cancelling all events across the UK. Including my taster day. Maybe I was destined never to play the pipes. Spin forward one year and my delayed taster day has finally arrived. 39 years after my parents were looking for a birthday present for me, for the first time in my life I held a set on Northumbrian Pipes in my hand. The very set above, complete with garden hose to connect bellows to bag. Stylish. This is a learning set of pipes, made in Cambridge especially for teaching, but based, as I learned, on the true simple pipes of the 17th Century. A basic chanter, and three drones. No keys.
At the end of the six hour session aside from being exhausted, I'd managed to get a couple of non dying cat notes out and was just about feeling comfortable with the really complex co-ordination of right arm bellowing, left arm squeezing, and both hands trying to find the holes. Uniquely the Northumbrian Pipes are a closed fingering chanter. With all fingers over the holes, the pipes are silent, which gives them their unique sound, as silence is as important as notes. There were seven of us on the day, five of whom managed a simple tune. If I'm honest I struggled a lot, but after lunch I popped outside and practised. It was then I managed to get a good few notes out. And I loved it. I'm going to give it a go, despite my sore fingers. Don't know how, don't know where, but having long wanted to play a musical instrument, the sound of home is, well calling me home.
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