PCM: How much time does the band practice?

DP: The time varies between the musical roles and the military roles. In any year it can be 60% piping & drumming and 40% military. Normally on a day to day basis all twenty eight members of the pipes & drums are together within the pipes & drum building and practice but within that is our military duties. We don’t have the luxury of practicing with each other every day.

PCM: How do you train beginners?

DP: When someone comes to the band we work with them to bring them up to the required standards of the band. So we work one on one with a lot of people and we have the piping class and drumming class within the band which the experienced corporal and senior members take the new members through.

PCM: Are the pipes military issue?

DP: We actually play silver and ivory bagpipes and we bought several sets that were made for us from the time of our Amazing Grace Album and those have been carried on since then and are very good bagpipes made by Hardy. We have several members who buy there own sets like myself. I have a  ull silver set by David Naill.

PCM: Who makes your band chanters?

DP: We use R.T. Shepherd pipe chanters. We use different chanters depending on whether we are going to competition or whether the whole of the army comes together for the Edinburgh Military Tattoo. Currently on the tour we are using the new Shepherd orchestral chanter which is pitched specifically for playing with a military band. That is the chanter we used on The Spirit of the Glen.

PCM: Do you use Shepherd reeds?

DP: Yes we do, that’s a personal preference, we like the combination of the fact that he makes a good reed for his chanter. For us it’s a working relationship between chanter and reed and that’s what we prefer to use.

PCM: Do you come from a musical family?

DP: On my mothers side my uncle, and great uncle and grandfather all played the pipes, fiddle and accordion so there was always an element of Scottish music in the family. My great uncle was in the 57^th Scots Highlanders so there was a military connection there with the Scottish Regiments. On my fathers side there were guitar players and keyboard players.

PCM: When did you start playing the pipes?

DP: I started at eight years old playing coronet and trumpet. I played in the Scottish Highlands National Youth Orchestra. I started the pipes when I was twelve years old. When I picked up the pipes I was playing with the McKenzie Caledonia Pipe Band in Dundee. When I became eighteen years old I decided that I wanted to take piping full time from a hobby to a profession. So my goal was to get a degree as a  Pipe Major. At that time universities didn’t offer the piping classes that they do now.

PCM: In an earlier interview you said with the new cd The Spirit of the Glen you want to convert everyone to the pipes.

DP: There are people who wouldn’t normally listen to bagpipes so I wanted to show people there is more to the make up of the bagpipes. I think most people are surprised that there are only nine notes on the bagpipes. It is a very difficult instrument to play and there is so much music that comes form those nine notes.