MacEge’s textbook for the Scottish bagpipe

Foreword

If you want to learn to play the Scottish bagpipes in Germany, you might, if you are very lucky, find someone within a radius of fifty kilometers who is willing to help you a little. Regular lessons are often only possible at considerable expense – including financial expense. As a rule, the beginner is left alone, stumbles along and quickly gets tangled up in the battle with unruly reeds, gracenotes, dense bags etc. Although there are some tutors (textbooks), mostly in English, they are often not suitable for self-teaching and are always biased towards players with a Scottish background.

Since 1979 I have been teaching piping students of all ages and with all levels of experience. Based on the experience gained, the present tutor was created, initially as a loose-leaf collection, later in bound form. It has sold several thousand copies in German-speaking countries. This new edition has been thoroughly reviewed, revised and adapted to the current situation.

However, the goals have remained the same:

• to bring the aspiring piper directly to playing the bagpipes; to spare him years of finger tapping and one-sided, monotonous practicing as far as possible and to maintain the joy of piping by introducing him to playing melodies at an early stage. Initially, it is based on well-known German melodies.
• to achieve a solid foundation of technically clean playing, but also not to suppress the possibilities of personal interpretation and free variation.
• to familiarize the German-speaking student not only with the traditional Scottish melodies, but also with the extended possibilities of the Scottish Highlandpipe, e.g. arranged German folk songs, old bagpipe melodies from other cultures and traditional Breton melodies.
• Another important aim is to convey the historical or cultural background of Scottish music. This is not done in most other tutors, as the student is expected to have this background.

It must be said at this point that unfortunately ‘proper’ Scottish playing cannot be learned from books. The only thing that books can do is to give the beginner sound help, to show him that and how he can avoid the worst mistakes and to guide him on how he can further educate and perfect himself according to his abilities and interests. You can only learn “proper” Scottish playing in Scotland or on one of the courses under the guidance of Scottish teachers (now also in Germany, see addresses at the end of the book). However, the pipeschooler today has a help that was denied in earlier times. He can bring the best solo pipers and pipe bands in the world into his home for little money and learn a lot by listening to them as often as he likes. I mean the modern sound carriers vinyl record, CD and music cassette. Every aspiring piper should acquire a comprehensive collection of recordings as soon as possible and listen to them as often as possible, not as background drumming during any other activity, but by consciously listening to them, if possible while reading the notes.

At some point, however, there comes a point when the visit to Scotland and the regular summer course can no longer be postponed. The experience of many of my students has shown that consistent learning using this tutor means that the piper will cut a good figure there and can also be heard among advanced fellow pipers.

One final remark:

Some people have criticized me for using too many technical terms in English. e.g. write “reed” where “reed” would also be possible. I apologize to the beginner. But hand on heart – don’t you also use a whole range of English technical terms in other areas of everyday life? And English is the technical language of Scottish bagpipers.

There is also a small glossary at the end of the book to help.

That is new:

• A great deal of emphasis is placed on the first steps, i.e. learning the fingerings for the chanter notes.
• Experience in recent years has shown that it is not necessary to learn all nine chanter notes at once. Five is enough. Then a phase is inserted in which what has been learned is practiced intensively, including the first grace notes, and only then are the remaining chanter notes learned.
• At the beginning, well-known children’s songs are learned with simple gracing. The student can concentrate on fingering the notes correctly and is not distracted by the notes, rhythm, grace notes, etc.