Scottish Piper

Scottish Piper was started in 1999 with the intention of providing free tuition to anybody that really wanted to learn the Great Highland Bagpipe, regardless of their financial background. Since then the company has never looked back. John and his pupils go busking regularly and appear at various hotels presenting their own show. All the money raised is banked and used to supply chanters, reeds, music and even bagpipes for the pupils. We also have a good social life with regular days out plus at the end of the year the kids get a percentage of the money raised. This year we bought an amplifier and a laptop, both batery operated, so that we can have our own custom made backing tracks for the “show” tunes as well as drum beating for the more traditional tunes.

When asked why he started the company John explained that he was invalided out of his work with chronic Pyoderma Gangrenosun and hospitalised a lot – “during that time the one thing I could still do was pipe so I decided that I would start teaching again but as I was not charging I would be able to pick and choose pupils and only teach those kids that really loved the pipes. I didn’t and still don’t worry about the standard they can reach as long as they really love the instrument but I have to be honest and say that I’ve been very lucky as all the kids have turned out to be great pipers”. “ I would also like to thank the kids’ parents and the people of Edinburgh for all their support for our school”