Confessions of an Online Bagpipe Teacher - Part 1 - I went to an all-boys boarding school.

I first learned how to play from my Dad. I can remember getting a practice chanter at the Syracuse Scottish Games, and that must have been just before turning 7 years old.

On my seventh birthday, I was gifted the chanter, had one lesson, and, according to my dad: "Didn't show all that much interest after that." However, on my 8th birthday, I asked for another lesson, and the rest was history!

I was gifted from birth, let's face it. Roll the footage!

Just kidding! Totally NOT gifted from birth. But, as you can see, I had great (patient!) teachers, and a strong will to play the pipes! I just loved doing it for some reason. And, I was lucky to have all the right teachers at all the right times.

Most of the video above was shot at my grandparents' house in northern Vermont in 1993, making me 9 years old at the time. It was probably that Fall that I joined the Mohawk Valley Frasers, a great band about 90 minutes from our house led by the most under-rated Pipe Major of all time - Jim Clough.

Jim sticks out in my mind as a great pipe major not necessarily because he was a great player, which he was, but because he always went out of his way to learn more, and to integrate/collaborate with whoever it took to move things forward. Thus, it was via Jim's leadership that I ended up having regular lessons with Donald Lindsay. Jim hired Donald once a month to come work with the players in the band.

Donald crafted me into a true player, helping me understand and perfect the real fundamentals of playing the bagpipes. To this day, even though I quite literally know ALL of the world's great bagpipers on a first name basis, Donald is the first person I call when I am working on material. In my opinion there is no better teacher!

Fast-forward to 1998. That's when my mom and dad introduced the idea that I had been invited to go to an all-boys boarding school in Ontario, Canada called St. Andrew's College, where the famous Jim McGillivray was the piping teacher.

I already knew Jim really well because I'd gotten to know him (and learn from him) at the Invermark bagpipe summer schools that Donald Lindsay ran. I remember barely hesitating: "That sounds awesome! When can I go?" The prospect of moving away from home was scary, but I loved piping, and this was a huge opportunity. So of course I wanted to do it!

And so, off I went. For the next 5 years, I got a "secondary" education, and literally had bagpiping in my class rotation each day. It felt like it was my job to play my bagpipes, and the results showed almost instantly. A month after leaving for St. Andrew's, I competed and won the Nicol Brown Chalice Invitational competition for North America's top amateur pipers. That was also (not coincidentally) the day I met Jack Lee.

This was a real turning point in my entire trajectory as a piper. I was NOT expecting to win that day. I remember listening to other competitors that day, in particular Brian May and Jori Chisholm, and they sounded so out of my league. But, Jack Lee, a piper who I idolized from his solo on the SFU Pipe's Bands "Silver Anniversary Tribute" album, thought how I played was deserving of first place.

So, that experience made me hungry for more.

For the next five years, I had the opportunity to work really hard at my piping while at boarding school, with a great teacher. And, I went for it.