Confessions of an Online Bagpipe Teacher - Part 2 - When I was 16, I put a 15-year curse on the World Pipe Band Championship trophy.

If you look back at your own professional career, you can probably pinpoint several life events that steered you (whether you knew it at the time or not) straight towards your destiny!

For me as a bagpipe teacher, the major ones leading up to today's story were:

1. Seeing my dad "dust off the pipes" for my Aunt Carolyn's wedding at approximately age 6.
2. Getting my first practice chanter lesson with my dad on my 8th birthday.
3. Joining the Mohawk Valley Frasers, and winning my first pipe band competition at age 9.
4. Starting lessons with Donald Lindsay at age 9.
5. Going to my first Invermark summer school at age 9. (Attending these schools made all of the important introductions that catalyzed my whole career).
6. Meeting Jim McGillivray, and ultimately being recruited by him to go to boarding school in Ontario!
7. Winning the Nicol Brown Chalice Invitational, where I met Jack Lee.

Today's story begins at this point. After winning the Nicol Brown competition and meeting Jack Lee, I had the opportunity to then work with him at the Invermark schools from 1999 onward. The first week I spent working with Jack, I remember being deeply disturbed about some of the things he was teaching me (and others in the class):

• Your D throws aren't any good.
• You worry too much about tuning and missed doublings - Play more. Sort out the details later!
• If you got rid of this synthetic bag and played a sheep, you would learn a lot about tone.

I remember just how aggressively and easily Jack broke down my ego. I won THE Nicol Brown with HIM as the judge not 10 months ago, and here he was basically ripping what I was doing to shreds, informing me that I was but a speck of dust in the grand scheme of the piping universe. Jack was the first mentor in my piping life that REALLY asserted with me that talent was only half of the equation if I wanted to be a world-class piper. And make no mistake: particularly at that stage in my life, that's what I wanted.

At Invermark in the summer of 2001, the 8th item on my "major moments" list occurred. Jack spoke to me at the Thursday ceilidh and said he had spoken to Terry (his brother, the Pipe Major) and that they'd be interested in having me come play in the SFU Pipe Band (already 3-time world champions).

It was one of those moments that you didn't even bother to dream about, because it never would have crossed your mind as being possible. The SFU Pipe Band was 3000 miles away, I was still in high school, I didn't know anyone there, etc.

But Jack already knew how to pitch it. His family would "host" me when I went to Vancouver, just like I was part of the family. I would spend the summers there, and my spring break too.

I remember getting the music from Terry, and formally making the arrangements to play in the band at the same time the fallout from the September 11th attacks was in full swing. In my dorm room in Canada, I was in a constant state of "the unknown," some of it terrible and some of it wonderful!

In January of 2002, I got on a plane and headed out for my first long weekend with the band. Practices went well. I met Jack's wife Christine, and his now-well-known sons - Andrew, Colin, and John Lee.

But then, even though it would be years before I realized it - tragedy struck.

The Curse.

During my first visit to the SFU Pipe Band in 2002, I was picked up by the incredible SFU "band mom" Sandy Meston, and brought straight to the local bagpipe shop called "Tartantown" where I would meet up with Terry Lee, the legendary pipe major of the band (and Jack's brother).

The band had won the world championship in 2001, and so the world championship trophy - known as the "Spike" - was on display on the front counter. I honestly don't remember many of the details of that visit, except for one thing that I know for certain -

That day, I touched the Spike.

I think I just wanted to see how many years back the engravings on the trophy went. So, I turned the trophy a bit to one side to see.

I wouldn't realize this until years later, but folks - you should never touch the cup. It's seriously bad luck.

Am I just being superstitious here? I'll let you be the judge:

• 2001 (year before I joined SFU) - World Champions
• 2002 (my first year in the band) - Runners Up
• 2003 - 2nd Runners Up
• 2004 - Runners Up (and a critical mistake by yours truly may have been the reason!)
• 2005 - 2nd Runners Up
• 2006 - Runners Up
• 2007 - Runners Up
• 2008 - (the first year after my departure from the band) - World Champions
• 2009 - World Champions

Dear Young People - DON'T TOUCH THE SPIKE!

15 years later, in 2017, I finally did win the Worlds with the Inveraray and District Pipe Band. Countless friends (and also several people who I was extremely perturbed knew about the curse) came up to me in the moments after we won yelling "you broke the curse!" How embarrassing! But, I'm glad the curse seems to be over.

Highlights

Here are some highlights of my SFU Pipe Band Career:

2002 Medley Performace:

2004 Medley Performance:

2006 Medley Performance:

As a fun side-note, I was involved in the composition of the 2004, 2006, 2007, 2008, and 2009 SFU Pipe Band medleys. Something I'm quite proud of!

Winning the Worlds

Ok, here's the big moment, 15 years after naively touching the Spike. Captured amazingly by pipe band YouTube legend "dronechrous":