Scots Musical Tradition Gets a Professional Boost

Arts grant brings bagpipe training to more Highland Park students

Since 1934, Highland Park High School has featured a regiment of bagpipers, including the popular all-female Lassies of the 1960s and ’70s. Yet waning student interest in recent years threatened to cease the beloved Scots tradition.

“When we came in, we had three pipers here at the high school,” band director Daren Jordan said. “It was all student-run — students teaching students.”

With two pipers graduating last year and the third graduating this year, Daren and his wife Monika, HPISD elementary music coordinator and music specialist at UP Elementary, knew they had to do something to prevent the tradition from being lost.

“Last year I put a little recruiting package together for the middle school, and we recruited about 12 interested kids,” Monika said.

The Jordans applied for an HP Arts grant last year which came in the spring of this year. With that, they were able to bring in seasoned professional piper Don Shannon to teach. 

Originally from Northern Ireland, Don has more than four decades of piping experience, having played with Ireland’s musical ambassadors The Chieftans and for dignitaries such as Queen Elizabeth II, Prime Minister Tony Blair, and President George W. Bush. 

“He’s already teaching some of our students private lessons, and he’s coming here on Wednesdays to teach the kids,” Monika said. “Part of the grant was for him to repair our old bagpipes which were collecting dust. He’s amazing.”

With 10 new pipers now at the high school, recruitment is on for seventh and eighth graders and any high schoolers interested in the attention-grabbing instrument. 

“There’s a whole process of passing off pipes to get your kilt — to be able to actually play the bagpipes at any performances, games, things like that,” Daren explained. “It usually takes about two years to earn your pipes and your kilt.”

Don’t expect to see 10 players this year, Monika noted. “You’ll only see about two. But one child progressed so fast — I started him last year at this time, and he’s already on his pipes, which is so exciting.”

Bagpipe season doesn’t end when football does.

“I get constant requests for them to play in the community at different events,” Daren said. “They play at graduation, leading the graduating seniors in. It’s just a really great tradition.”

During a recent bagpiper class, Shannon tapped the sheet music and instructed his students as they fingered their chanters, “You’ve got the black and white; now you’ve got to add the color.”

Historically, the Great Highland bagpipes of Scotland and Great Irish warpipes of Ireland were used in battle to announce an attack and alarm and confuse the enemy. Highland pipers continued to play in battle during the early attacks of World War I, when the practice was discontinued due to the high casualty rate. 

“They play at all the football games,” Daren said, smiling. “Coach Allen loves to use them when they’re warming up to throw off the other team.”