I received a call one day from someone looking for a piper. He was a classical musician from LA and had already received a recording from another piper in town. We talked for a minute and then he asked the most peculiar question. “Are note errors acceptable in bagpipes?” He explained that, in the recording he had received, note errors were obvious.

Some pipers fool themselves into believing that the general audience is so unsophisticated that they are not able to tell a good bagpipe from a bad bagpipe or that they are not able to detect notes errors. This is entirely wrong on so many levels. I will not bother to elaborate.

Whether you’re playing a private gig or you’re playing within the band, your responsibility is to present a properly tuned instrument and to play tunes correctly without note errors. End of story.

So why do note errors occur? It’s very simple. You have not mentally prepared yourself to play error-free. Whatever it takes, and this is probably different from piper-to-piper, you have to study, internalize, rehearse, and otherwise prepare for that moment when you’re required to perform. If you can’t play without note errors, you’re simply not ready to perform in public.

At band practice we sometimes struggle through new music with obvious difficulty, including note errors. This should be a temporary condition. Expectations should rise with each passing day and the music should be free of note errors within a reasonable amount of time. By the time the band is performing these tunes in public, the music should be error-free.

The big question is, how do you get there?

Put your practice chanter down! Hum or sing the tune until the melody is in your head. When you do pick up the PC, take things a measure or two at a time to get the melody settled into your head and hands. Don’t gloss over things. If you make a mistake, go back to the beginning. Fix it. I am a huge proponent of “The Rule of Three.” Unless you can play a tune over three times in succession without an error, you don’t know the tune! Start over. Do it again, and again, and again until it’s right.