Another new adventure....

The above photo was taken at this years Anzac Day Parade, the band is the RSL Pipes and Drums.

Guess what, as of tonight, I'm their newest student!!

In our local paper last week was an advert for epressions of interest to join the band, and it was open to beginners.  I love the bagpipes, I get tingles every time I hear them and I have longed to know how to play them, so this advert jumped out at me!!

I applied via email and was told to come along to a training session of a tuesday night, so eager to check it out, I went tonight.  I was expecting for them to just have a chat to me, as the reply email said, but I got handed an instrument and thrown into some scale work straight away!

The instrument I am holding is called a "Chanter" and it is what you practice on, even the accomplished pipers learn and practice with these.

It kinda looks like a recorder, with a thumb hole at the back and finger holes down the front, but in the thick part up the top is a reed inside it, and you place the middle of your fingers over the wholes, rather then your finger tips.

For the first hour is the beginners session, I was there with 3 others....all school age, one of which I saw his form with date of birth and gasped when I realised he was born the year I was doing VCE. Oh heck, a boy who is up to my shoulders represents how long I've been outa highschool for, holy moly!!

We went up and down the scales....which is no easy feet coz unlike the recorder, it's not all straight up and down of fingers off/fingers on, it's all different combinations, so your brain is getting a great work out as you read the music sheet and hand/eye co-ordination making sure the right fingers are in the right place!

I had a good chat with a guy after, whi had been learning for 3yrs, and he says that you will learn on the Chanter for 6-12mths before progressing to the bagpipes, but then the finger holes on the pipes are slightly different, and other things involved in the pipes, so it's like learning another instrument.  He has just started in the actual band since last december. 

So this is no short term, fly by night, project! But he did say that the more time you take on the Chanter, the better a piper you can be ;)

After the beginners class finished, the older players came in for practice(one lady 30-ish looking, then mostly older greying men smelling of Old Spice and Brutt33!), still just on the Chanters, and I stayed a bit to watch and listern.....lovely, spine tingling music!

The Chanter is sort of bazooca sounding compared to the pipes, but once it's playing an actual song, it still sounds magical ;)

Funnily enough, small world as it is, the man who sat next to me knows my brother!  He had a funeral company diary infront of him and I asked if he was a director, he said no with a laugh and said he hangs around a lot of funerals.  I told him my brother is a funeral director and he asked his name and company and turns out they worked together earlier today! lol He does the piping for my brothers funerals.

After a bit of listerning, I thought I had beyyer get back to my JackJack, not leaving him to long with Nanny incase the dreaded "seperation anxiety"was rife tonight, but he had conked and had been calm and lovely the whole time I was gone, yay!!

This is me with my Chanter!  Which I can't wait to practice on and play it for JackJack and all the family ;)