Bagpipes are not like a trumpet or a piano. You don’t just buy them and they ‘go.’ They need to be set up so that they fit you and are efficient to blow.

Setting pipes up well takes skill and experience with pipes and pipers. I have spent 50+ dedicated years as a piper — many at the highest international levels as a soloist and bandsman — and 40+ years teaching workshops, summer schools and privately. Combine this experience with my training and experience for 20 years as a professional communicator and I have been blessed with a set of skills very few bagpipe suppliers and teachers can match. Twenty years of teaching piping full-time at St. Andrew’s College in Aurora have helped too!

My travels and my network of contacts in the world of piping mean that I know the suppliers I work with well and can talk frankly with them about any concerns I have. I am fortunate in that they respect my opinions, so we work well together. As a result, I am always abreast of new developments and such important facts as what reeds go well in which chanters and pipes!

I’ve worked hard to develop these skills and gain this experience, and I’m proud of the instruments I send out. I’m proud to be a piper, so I always send out instruments that uphold my pride in the bagpipe and my business.

This is why pipers come to me. Those who understand the subtleties and intricacies of one of the most challenging instruments in the world stay with McGillivray Piping, Inc.

I hope you will too.

If you have any interest in my piping life, you can read my bio here on my pipetunes.ca sheet music site.