About this
project.....
The
‘E-School of Piping’, or ‘Teach Yourself Bagpipes’ has been set up by
Pipe Major Lindsay Davidson Bmus(Hons), Dip.Mus.Ed., PhD - an experienced pipe
major and former director of a school of piping and drumming in Scotland. The
Davidson School of Piping had affiliates in USA and Australia prior to Lindsay
closing down to go and live in Poland, where his wife, Irena, is from. Despite
the name, the Davidson School of Piping was not Lindsay’s own idea – it was
thought of by Richard Kean and Andrew Sutherland in Edinburgh, from the
Stockbridge and Barnton Pipe Bands respectively. The idea was to create the
Edinburgh School of Piping, but in the final days running up to the foundation
of the school, Andrew discovered that someone else had beaten the team to it and
set up such a business. Such is life….
At
its maximum The Davidson School of Piping had over 200 students and 6 teachers
– two full time and the rest part-time. However
times move on and the team eventually found itself either unable to afford to
stay in piping, or in other parts of the world doing the same thing. When
Lindsay decided it was time for him to move on and try the next adventure in
life, it was decided to close down the operations and leave a number of pipe
bands in its place. This was successfully accomplished in just over a year of
change.
If all you want to do is learn to play the bagpipes, or improve your piping, this is for you.
This site is a
genuine free service. Honestly, nothing is being sold. It has been created in
the spirit in which Lindsay himself received lessons – free of charge and for
the love and progress of piping. It is truly hoped that many more people will
learn to play bagpipes and come into piping as a result and go to bands, teachers, workshops, gatherings
and so on, and of course buy instruments and books and CDs from all the makers
and interested people out there.
Eventually, it may
be that some workshops will be organised, or that Lindsay’s main site may sell
learners’ music in the mp3 shop, but for now, teachyourselfbagpipes is growing
as a service. There are no plans to introduce sales of chanters, pipes etc., or
even tune packs – these will be kept free. Again, it is hoped that piping will
grow as a result.
Please, feel welcome
to look at the other online tuition services – this is NOT competition, but an
introduction to piping.
There is nothing
here yet regarding bagpipes from other countries, nor is there very much on the
history or about building of bagpipes, drones, chanter or anything else. This
concerns itself for now with on Great Highland Bagpipes, although later it may
be possible to add subsections on smallpipes and chromatic borderpipes. However,
please note that Gaita, uilleann pipes, Irish pipes, zampogna, galician pipes,
dudy, gaida, dudelsack, sackpfiefe, northumbrian pipes, mediterranean bagpipes, bock and so on are all
different instruments with different techniques. Maybe at some time someone else
will do a site for learning to play these pipes too..
In the coming soon
section you’ll see that piobaireachd (pibroch) will be addressed at some point
in the (distant) future, once the basics are in place.
Your input is needed
to make this site stronger and to give the users, often far from a real live
teacher, the best possible chance at really learning something themselves. This
includes informing about piping supplies, distributors, reedmakers and so on. We
need to offer links to as wide a range of bagpipe and chanter and reed supply
services as possible to show we are here for piping, not as a front for some
other shop. Likewise, we need your user feedback to show where a shop or teacher
or band have not acted in the interests of piping. We can withdraw a link, but
we cannot bad-mouth anybody.
So if it’s
‘superb hand-made bagpipes’, chanters, a goose bag, drone tuner, airstream
blowstick, Wee Mac, universal blowstick, pipecase, kilt, airtight seasoning, a
sporran, brogues, argyle jacket, or even a piper or a pipe band for hire,
hopefully you can find a link from here, but you can’t get it from here and
you won’t be able to in the future either, not even a ball of hemp. That’s
not our game...
We only offer
everything you need to pick up and learn to play the bagpipes, to the best of
your abilities.
If you are in
approval of our spirit and our project and would like to help us develop it,
please email the originator of the site, Lindsay Davidson. All feedback is
helpful to us, all input welcome and gratefully received.
If you would like to
help us get this better known, please copy and paste (or download
the txt file to copy) the following email and send it to your friends, pipe
major, webmaster etc (DO NOT SPAM ANYONE, CERTAINLY NOT IN OUR NAME!!!):
"
Dear Webmaster,
I have recently
came across a free teach yourself bagpipes site. It is a complete school, from
zero to intermediate level tunes, with mp3 examples, exercises and very clear
and simple instructions arranged in short chapters:
http://www.teachyourselfbagpipes.co.uk
It is set up and led
by Lindsay Davidson, PhD, who is from Scotland but lives mainly in Poland. It is
an aim of the site many people who for whatever reason find themselves with a
practise chanter, not just there, but everywhere, will be able to succeed in
learning to play. The belief is that should they stick with piping, all pipers,
pipe bands and piping supply services will have something to gain - be it a sale
of a bagpipe, music books, reeds, attendance at summer schools, CDs, band
membership or one to one lessons. It is in this spirit that the site has been
established and is being updated all the time, and it is with this in mind that
I respectfully ask if you could possibly find a space on your site for a link.
This is not trying
to compete with commercial services, nor detract from them, but rather
complement them by getting more people involved and developing the interest of
those who already have chanters.
They are not selling
anything on this site nor trying to set up competition to anyone.
Piping has for many years been taught free of charge, to its general benefit.
This site is offered
in that tradition.
There is a links
page for 'where to buy equipment', a 'where to find a pipe band' and a 'where to
find a teacher' page. I am sure Lindsay Davidson would be delighted to add a
link to you on any of these pages should you wish.
Thank you very much
for your time and attention.
Yours,