The Midland Highlanders currently hold practices on Monday Evenings at 7:00 p.m. at the First
United Methodist Church in downtown Midland. Since the future of any band
of our nature is the education of students, we have started to devote Tuesday evenings just to teach our great students! Your first nights introduction
we invite you to our band practice at the church to meet our group, then we will
invite you to the Pipe Majors house for your piping instruction. Your
personalized instruction is always fun and interesting and with our great
student corps, you get to meet some super people as well!
Bagpiping and Drumming lessons will always be free. If you wish to learn the bagpipes
all you will need is the
Midland Highlanders Tutor book (FREE), a
practice chanter, and the
Midland Highlanders Tutor
Book tunes (download the free program
Bagpipe Player to use these files).
If you wish to learn how to play the drums, highland style, we
have loaner sticks and practice pads available for free.
To see a video of us in action click here.... Alma
2005
or Listen to "42nd Highlanders"
Just click the map to the left for a bigger view of the location.
We have interesting music selections, starting with simple
tunes to get beginners out on parade, to more complex tunes which will be added
later.
You
start learning to play the pipes on a Practice Chanter- basically the flute or
recorder portion of bagpipe which has an attached mouthpiece, an example of
which is at left. The practice chanter is much easier to blow than a full
set of bagpipes, and it is the instrument all pipers learn to play on. I am rather partial to a plastic chanter, since they are
almost indestructible, and have an acceptable tone. There are several
different makers and styles available some of which you see on the picture to
the right, and although all will work, my favorite is the Dunbar practice
chanter due to it's true scale and O-ring seal. The quality is second to
none and is quite reasonably priced. Some of the major advantages to an O-ring
seal is there is an airtight and watertight seal, no hemp to rewind every once
in a while (maybe once or twice a year), plus with a bit of Silicone grease the
O-rings last forever. As you can see there are many different styles, and sizes.
The Practice chanter on the far right is much smaller and is suitable for young
children (around 7-8 years old) to learn on since the chanter holes are too far
apart on a full size chanter for a child's small hands to play comfortably.
Child sized chanters are available from many online retailers.
Inside the practice chanter is a plastic reed which vibrates
as air is blown over it while it
sits
in the reed seat. The reed is a two bladed reed with plastic blades which
are attached by hemp, plastic, or thread to small piece of copper or brass
tubing called a staple. Practice chanter reeds are fairly inexpensive
usually costing about $4.50 to $6.00. They will last practically forever.
The reeds usual demise is when the practice chanter is taken apart to get the
moisture out, a moment of carelessness and bang the practice chanter top
hits the blades and smashes them... that is a lesson learned the hard way...
thankfully the reeds aren't too expensive.
← Click
the link to read about how we teach.
Feel free to contact us
webmaster@midlandhighlanders.org
