Celtic Kids: School program to teach pipes, drums

SANDPOINT — It all sounds a wee bit like a Scottish folk tale: A small town by a big lake — where morning mist hangs like a grey shroud over the water and furtive whispers tell of an unearthly monster that glides in silence through the inky depths — awakes one morning to find itself swept up in the lilt and furor of pipes and drums.

Children squeeze past parents who try to block the doorways, running off to follow the ancient music and unlock the mysteries behind it. The musicians guide them along, placing bagpipe chanters in their hands and drumsticks between their fingers. 

The kids learn the tricky embellishments of the pipes and the intricate flourishes of the drum. They come to know the history of the kilt and the sporran and, like a sprig of heather riding a north wind down from the craggy Highlands, they are spirited away by the magic of Celtic lore.

A romantic overstatement, perhaps, of what awaits Sandpoint-area students this fall, but not a bad approximation of the excitement three local pipe and drum instructors hope to generate with an eight-week Scottish music and history program that starts next month.

The program — Celtic Kids — will offer free lessons and practice instruments for about 40 students, thanks to a grant from the Equinox Foundation.

“Basically, our only requirement is that the parents are behind their kids, encouraging them to practice,” said Dan Walden.

Celtic Kids will launch as an after-school pilot program, he explained, teaching about 20 bagpipe students the basics of scales and the unique musical ornamentations of the instrument, while an equal number of snare drum students will practice technique and rhythm studies. Both groups will take part in music theory classes and learn about the history of Scottish music, as well as the parts of the instruments and the uniforms worn when playing them.

Joining Walden, who will teach piping and history classes, will be fellow piper and music theory teacher John Omodt and drum instructor Max Hefley.

“We’re targeting grades four-six, because that’s the best time to start,” Walden said. 

“Hopefully, we’ll get more kids signing up than we need.”

If that happens, Celtic Kids will be offered again in the spring, he added.

Walden’s own association with the bagpipes goes back to about the grade level the upcoming after-school program aims for when, at age 11, his parents informed him it was time to start learning a musical instrument.

“They said, ‘Pick an instrument you want to play,’” Walden recalled. 

“I thought I was being clever when I said, ‘OK, I want to play bagpipes — now find me an instructor.’  And then they did.

“When I first started, the bagpipes were taller than I was,” he said.

Once he got into uniform and began to play, Walden crossed paths or performed with most of the pipe and drum ensembles in the region, including Spokane’s Angus Scott Pipe Band, Albeni Falls Pipes and Drums in Priest River and Sandpoint’s St. Joseph’s Pipe & Drum Corps.

Celtic Kids, he pointed out, isn’t about the highly stylized, strictly choreographed nature of playing in a large group setting.  Instead, the classes are designed to spark a more general interest in Celtic music and culture — in this case, the Scottish variety — letting students take it anywhere they’d like to go from there.

“We’re just trying to bring more Celtic music to the community,” said Walden. 

An added benefit, he admitted, would be the possible infusion of young talent into the two pipe and drum groups that call North Idaho home. 

Between them, the Sandpoint and Priest River ensembles have about 30 pipers and as many drummers.  There is constant churn, however, in the age groups where musicians just start to develop their skills.

“If you get somebody into pipes in high school, you only have them for a couple of years before they head off to college,” the piper said.  “We’ve always tried to get kids interested from the beginning — the younger the better.  You need that interest to keep either of the bands going.

“But there are also people who are just interested in playing solo,” he continued.  “That’s what Celtic Kids will focus on. You play differently as a solo artist than you do when you’re in a band.  The music is more personal.”

According to Walden, the pilot instruction program would have been too expensive to mount without grant money from the Equinox Foundation — a Sandpoint-based, family foundation which funds projects that protect the natural assets of the region, support ecologically sustainable solutions for growth and development and nurture the long-term health of the region by supporting positive opportunities for youth.

“A lot of times, it’s the price that scares parents off,” he said, noting that the free music instruction program was designed to remove that barrier. “The practice chanters alone start at $80.”

The rest of the instrument, especially the professional versions with drone pipes and chanters made from traditional African Blackwood and adorned with silver joints and caps, can fetch an eye-popping price, the piper explained.

“Bagpipes can get really expensive,” he said.  “But mine are plastic.  I throw them in the dishwasher.”

Which makes, once can only assume, for a cleaner tone.

Application deadline for Celtic Kids is Sept. 20, and application forms are available at Farmin-Stidwell Elementary School in Sandpoint.

 For more information, call (208) 255-9032.