The Bagpipe Society

Californian Bagpipe Diaries

When I moved to New York to start a fellowship on the Metropolitan Musem of Art’s bagpipe collection in September 2023, I realised that this would be the perfect opportunity to meet the pipers of the USA. The 2020 online IBO

conference and the online community that grew from it (better known as Dronehenge), created a lovely transatlantic link between pipers from Europe and the Americas. I decided to go on this trip at the drop of a hat, after having pretty much worked through the Christmas holidays, and needing a serious break from the basement of the Metropolitan Museum, where my office is located. California seemed like the perfect place to get a good dose of vitamin D to see myself through the New York winter.

I put a notice out on Dronehenge and contacted a couple of other pipers I knew who were in the area. The community really came through: within two hours, I had a plan. San Francisco, Santa Barbara and Los Angeles. I had homes and people to meet in all three places. And here I was, a couple of weeks later, in my first destination, after a six-hour flight.

Friday 20 Jan 2023

I can’t believe I’m in San Francisco. I arrived late and found my way to my cheap hotel on Bush Street. It’s too late to do anything, so I just bought a Californian roll to get into the local mood, that I scoff down before going to bed.

My room is just above the hotel’s bright neon sign, and the sound of traffic regularly makes the thin windows vibrate. The room is heated by one tiny radiator in the corner. I have to crank it up to 5 for it to heat and when I do so, it

starts hissing and puffing, releasing clouds of hot steam. I feel like I’m in a seedy novel, but this is even better: it’s the start of my Californian Piping Community Tour.

Saturday 21 Jan 2023

It’s New Lunar Year’s Eve. To celebrate, I ate lunch at a Chinese restaurant and visited a fortune cookie factory in San Francisco’s China Town. I hadn’t realised until now that fortune cookies actually had Japanese origins and became a successful American product associated to Californian Chinese-Americans from the Second World War; the Chinese community took over the production after the Japanese- Americans were interned following the bombing of Pearl Harbor (see Jennifer 8 Lee’s book The Fortune Cookie Chronicles: Adventures in the World of Chinese Food, 2008, for the full fortune cookie story).

Sunday 22 Jan 2023

After a day walking over Golden Bridge and getting some stunning footage with the San Francisco Bay in the background, I hop onto the BART (San Francisco’s local train network) to Berkeley, and walked to the Starry Plough, a local pub in a residential neighborhood, where a large and lively session was taking place. There, I met Cathy Chilcott, my main contact in the San Francisco area. It is the wake of the pub’s former landlady, and all Berkely’s folk musicians have turned up. I was introduced to the group by Shay Black, the session leader. My Galician muiñeira went down well, and shortly after I’m invited to come closer, towards the inner circle where I finish the night, despite not knowing most of the Irish repertoire played all night. It was a great place to listen from, though. That evening, I also bumped into Sean Folsom and his family who were, serendipitously, visiting the area. We had a good chat about bagpipes of all kinds and Sean showed me one of his prized Highland pipe sets. I leave around 11pm to get the last train back to San Francisco, but Cathy and I will meet again on Tuesday.

Monday 23 Jan 2023

No pipers nor piping today. I rented a car and went to visit the majestic Red Woods. These are the tallest trees in the world, as tall as a 23-storey building.

I pulled a bagpipe out and played in the natural cathedral, an awe-inducing moment.

Tuesday 24 Jan 2023

I met Cathy in Berkeley in the evening, after a lazy day catching up with life admin (one has to do this even in California apparently!). After dropping my bag off at her house, we head off to a Thai restaurant to celebrate her birthday, which is tomorrow. Cathy is a hugely important person in the folk world on the West Coast. She hosts regular sláintí in her beautiful house, opening her doors to the Irish piping community. She also organises house concerts and is an important stop on the West Coast touring circuit. After the delicious meal, we head back, and we get the gaitas out. Cathy also started learning playing the Galician pipes after workshops were organised in California. We go through our repertoire, and have great fun playing in harmony. Her dog sits in and listens attentively, colonising one of the sofas in her upstairs sitting room. By 11pm I am exhausted, and after saying goodnight crash in an extremely soft and cozy bed, where I fall straight to sleep.

25 Jan 2023**

This morning was Cathy’s birthday. Unfortunately I didn’t let her have the lie-in she deserved as I had a 9am train to catch. But we did have time for a flash tour of her incredible house. No wonder pipers flock to her. Her house is a wonder. Built in 1923, its main feature is a large living room complete with a grand fireplace, high ceilings and large arched doors on either side of the room, the north side leading to a paved yard and leafy garden. I can only imagine how soothing and beautiful it must be in the summer. This is where the house concerts happen, accommodating up to 80 people in Covid-free times. On the first floor, the smaller, cosier sitting room features a beautifully painted wooden ceiling, reminiscent of folk art, but with its own special and colourful style. After a delicious breakfast of yogurt and fresh strawberries, Cathy drove me to Emeryville where I hopped onto the California AMTRAK train. Next stop: Santa Barbara.

26 Jan 2023**

I am sitting in Adam Phillips’ back yard. The sun is shining and it’s about 20 degrees in the sun. The weather is just perfect. Last night, Adam and Jennifer welcomed me into their family home, with their three children. Jennifer is a ballet teacher, and leads her own school. Adam is a music director and, amongst other things, leads Santa Barbara’s Folk Orchestra. He created it in 2017 to surround himself with people who he could play folk music with. Adam is a relative

Adam Philipps in his impressive music room

newcomer to the world of bagpipes, having bought his first set of pipes in 2016, but my, he already has contacts across the world and has used the power of internet to connect with key people everywhere. Even more impressive, and probably one of Adam’s proudest achievements is that one of his son’s first words was ‘bagpipes’. He already owns a tiny set of bagpipes made especially for him by Seivane. Adam has high hopes for his piping future. His daughters will most likely join band as well, with drums and harp joining the merry group.

This morning, we drove around Santa Barbara this morning, and at some point found ourselves a mere five minutes away from Megan and Harry’s home.

Apparently, Oprah lives here, as well as Ellen De Generes. It is a beautiful place to be, quiet, with palm trees lining the coastal road and pretty small Spanish style houses in the centre.

In the evening, Adams has organised a session with folk-minded musicians from Santa Barbara. There is no regular folk session here, so this is a real treat for everyone, me included. About two-dozen musicians turn up, and some audience members have driven over two hours to listen to the music. This makes me realise how small, but also how special this world is. People will travel for hours not for a concert, but just to listen to a session in a pub, and be close to this musical world for a short while. I am touched by how dedicated people are to engaging with European folk music. Amongst the musician is Brian Mann, who played the accordion for Coco and Encanto. We click, but he lives slightly too far away from New York to form a sustainable duo… At the end of the night, Adam, harpist Laurie Rasmussen, and I congregate in a local joint to have a late night snack before heading home.

27 Jan 2023

After a morning wandering around Santa Barbara with Adam, Jennifer and their youngest child, I head off to the station where the train will take me to the next stop: Los Angeles. The train was two hours late, and then just crawled across the countryside, which meant I missed most of the wine country landscape as the sun set early…

28 Jan 2023

I am at Scott Spencer’s house. Scott is currently working on a book about the NYPD bagpipe bands, a topic he presented on at the 2020 International Bagpipe Conference. We met in New York in September, when he was over doing fieldwork. It feels good to meet these online friends in person. This morning, Scott and I take the bikes and cycle across Santa Monica Beach over to Venice Beach. I have never seen such tall and thin palm trees. The surfers are out and the breeze is cool. You can’t get more LA than this…

29 Jan 2023

The highlight of the LA tour was most definitely the epic session organised by R.T. Taylor, eminent special effects specialist in the industry (he trained people who then worked on Babe, for example), and one of the main engines spreading hurdy-gurdy mania around the West Coast. R.T. has been to France many times and played with all the big names from the French folk revival. As soon as I got in touch with him (thank you Arle!), he got his network going and organised an incredible session at his friend Scott Gayman’s house, another passionate hurdy gurdy player and collector.

Bruce Teter showing the inspiration for his new musette bag

As Scott Spencer and I pull up by the pretty Californian bungalow, we notice that across the street a large group of individuals practicing their broadsword fighting. We can hardly believe our eyes. Which is the nerdiest group, I wonder? The broadsword reenactors or the hurdy gurdy/bagpipe gathering? As we approach the bungalow, we spot a piper coming out to tune his drones. This is Bruce Teter, who brought a rather exquisite baroque musette to the gathering, fully made out of ivory with small acorns at the end of the drone stock, and on each small drone adjustment.

Inside, the hurdy gurdy players are already in place. I can hardly believe my eyes. In this Californian bungalow, no less than 20 historical hurdy gurdies have been pushed aside to make space for the musicians. On the wall, a framed reproduction of an elegant French aristocratic lady playing the hurdy gurdy, on the other wall, a full suit of armour with broadsword and everything, on the third wall, a picture of Scott’s house in France. Where am I?! California, France, hurdy gurdy heaven? Ten minutes later, the pipers are ready. Here we all are: Taryn Spink, Scott Gayman, R.T. Taylor, Mary Vanhoozer, Sarah Beagle, Courtney Kraft, Martin Jaurez, Bruce Teter, Adam Phillips (who had driven 2 hours from Santa Barbara to meet the community), Dave Allen and Jonathan Parker (who had both carpooled up all the way from San Diego, over 2 hours drive away).

Introductions are quick, tuning is (as usual) slow, but we eventually get started. We first play Galician tunes, and then switch to French tunes. What an epic sound: seven hurdy gurdies and five pipers, along with Scott Spencer’s flute, which is completely and utterly drowned out. We take two breaks: one to be introduced to the hurdy gurdies everyone is playing, all beautiful pieces, another for well-deserved pizza, during which Bruce shows us his beautiful musette, fully restored, with a white lace and blue velvet bag.

At the end of the session, I hear a little more about R.T.’s story. He started on his first hurdy gurdy when he was a small child. There weren’t any around at the time, so he asked his father to build him one. A few years later, around the

Posing in front of University of Southern California

age of 12, he asked his father for a second one. ‘What are you going to do with the second one?’ his father asked. ‘Well, one for me, and one for someone else to play on,’ R.T. responded. His father had no comeback to that, so made a second hurdy gurdy. Unfortunately, the plan did not work out and that second hurdy gurdy stayed silent. It wasn’t until many years later, when he was at a festival playing the HG by himself, that a woman approached him: ‘Wow, you play the HG?!’.

‘Yes I do! Do you?’ asked R.T. back. ‘I don’t, but my friend does,’ she responded.

They exchanged numbers, and the two isolated HG players then got in touch.

This led to weekly HG duetting for many years, and kickstarted R.T.’s career as a HG player. He was 38. Since, R.T. has played all over the world, as he never travelled without an instrument when called out for a special effects job. He has shared tunes with the big French folk names: Bernard Blanc, Bernard Dubois, Maxou Heintzen, Eric Montbel and many more. He has given workshops everywhere, and currently has fourteen hurdy gurdy students. He may have retired from the film industry, but his hurdy gurdy career is still alive and thriving, if one is to judge the heartwarming entourage of hurdy gurdy players in the middle of the Californian West Coast.

30 Jan 2023

Scott Spencer invited me to give a talk at University of Southern California Thornton’s School of Music, where he works as an ethnomusicologist.

My talk was focused on the Metropolitan Museum’s bagpipe collection. It was the first time presenting the work I am doing this year, and it was fun to introduce what I consider a very endearing collection of unusual oddities to an enlightened audience. We had a good turnout, and a few more people dropped in online. After the talk, I chatted to some of the audience members. Megan (who thought I was Australian!), is a graphic designer who plays the Highland pipes; she had heard about the talk on Instagram and was fascinated by the boha. You may meet her at Le Son Continu this year as she opens up to the world of French and/or medieval bagpipes.

31st Jan 2023

And here I am, back at the airport. I am full of Californian sun, and the good cheer of new friends. California feels very far away from Europe, and yet these incredible people are able to stay connected to the Euro-folk world through sheer passion and dedication. I admire them and look forward to welcoming everyone in Europe once I am back! Goodbye California, and thank you to the community for your incredible hospitality…