Pipe Maker

Pipe maker and player Ian Kinnear, who works from a small shop in Brechin, Angus, may not fancy joining the camel-riding pipers in Oman, but he is doing a roaring trade in smallpipes. Orders are coming in thick and fast from all corners of the globe and he produces 60 sets of smallpipes a year.

Smaller cousins to the grand Highland pipes, smallpipes are more suited to playing with other instruments. Ian has at times had a waiting list of six months as demand for them has continued to grow. And, he says, this quieter option is far more popular with the neighbours.

"The Highland and smallpipes use the exact same fingering, so it’s just the case of learning the bellows techniques. A lot of my market for smallpipes is from Highland pipers who want to do something else rather than just play on their own or play in a pipe band. Increasingly, my market is from America. I supply half a dozen specialist shops over there."

Ian took up the pipes aged 10, after an instructor visited his school. Such tutoring is common in the Highlands, but not many of his classmates were keen at the time.

"Not a lot of children took up the option when I was there. Maybe more would these days, now that there’s a lot more interest in Celtic music. By the time we got into secondary school, I was the only one still playing," he laughs.

Now, though, piping is back in vogue. "There’s a lot more interest in folk groups than there was 20 years ago. This has coincided with the revival of interest in the smallpipes.

"I’ve played in Brittany, America, and Germany, and wherever you go the pipes go down well. People throughout the world seem to identify with them.

"I think a lot of countries have their own indigenous pipes and they’re always interested to see other pipes as well. There are a lot more pipes in the world than people think. But as soon as you mention pipes, people still think of the Highland pipes."

Other pipes? Whatever does he mean? "There are Polish pipes and Sicilian pipes, which are all rudimentary bagpipes. The Spanish play the Gaita, which has a similar tone to the Highland pipes, although not quite so loud.

"The smallpipes are ideally suited to playing with a fiddle and guitar, or small ensemble. You do get three or four smallpipes playing together, but that’s as far as you’d go."

A set of smallpipes will cost anywhere between £400 and £1200 – the difference in price being produced by the level of ornamentation. You can’t, however, expect to be blowing sweet music right away.

"How long it takes to learn depends on the individual. You have to learn for a couple of years before you get anywhere near a real set of pipes!

"You learn the finger technique on a practice chanter. It’s about two or three years before you progress to the pipes. You’re then building yourself up to blow the full set of pipes. I suppose it would take a youngster four or five years.

"Really, it just depends on how much aptitude you have to start with and how much practice you’re willing to put in. I was keen enough, but I wasn’t doing anything ridiculous like playing six hours a day. A lot of your practice is going along to a pipe band and spending a couple of hours a week doing that, so you’re not just hammering it out on your own.

This all sounds like a long and arduous process. Could there possibly be an added attraction?

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