How did my odyssey into Bagpipes and the traditional music of Ireland and Scotland begin?
Mine is a tale of economics and availability. Music being a family tradition, I grew up around a lot of it. My father was in a pipe band. I was one of those urchins playing on the playground while the band practiced in the park. Got the rhythms and sounds into my ear. With the passing of my mother and my father’s acquisition of a new wife came a piano into the house, because it was proper, and a loss of the pipe band because it was not. Being the sixth of twelve in a ‘blended’ family, when it came time for me to get the piano lessons, all of the others, except my older half-brother, had been total failures on the musical front and the payments on the new house were too much so I had to be happy with borrowing my step cousin’s clarinet and taking school band. I didn’t find that satisfying and my cousin decided he wanted his clarinet back. So, dropped out of band in Junior High and got into choir and theater. I picked up a guitar at the neighbor’s yard sale for $10.00 and started accompa
