One size did not fit all
I may be having a minor episode of PTSD, this afternoon. I had a flashback, to that winter when I was supposed to become a piper.
We were living in an area with a proud military heritage, deeply rooted in an imagined Scottish past. A place where every child will begin the long path to become a member of a band. A pipe band. Either you know the reference and love it, or you are like the rest of the world.
Here is the thing. The instrument given to every new piper is a chanter. And this is a case where there is only one way to learn. The military way, where one size fits all. I was a wee lad, barely big enough to stir my porridge. It did not matter. I was brought to the classroom, in the furnace room of the local high school and issued my own instrument (or torture).
My fingers were far too small to stretch from one hole to the next. And a double-reed military surplus chanter requires an incredible amount of air, just to get a squeak or squawk, my father relented. I think I might have been sent to guitar lessons. My father was not a musician, and this was all theater. Or a desire to teach me a valuable lesson about the way of war.
