I was watching the Pres. Ford casket arrive at his library in MI on Tues. and a bag piper was playing Amazing Grace as the casket was taken from the hearse into his library.  The pipers pipes failed.  He just could not hit some notes in the song.  It was bad enough the piper stopped and restarted a couple times and fought through it the rest of time.  I'm assuming they had a very expirienced piper for the procession so I'm assuming it was no fault of the piper.  It was very painful to watch.  I would definately question my fate if those pipes were leading me into battle.  What was the problem with his pipes?

Kent

I'd question my fate if any pipes were leading me in to battle.

One of two things were the likely cause of that disaster.

1. Catastrophic instrument failure- something happening that caused his pipe to start leaking air, from perhaps dropping a reed or maybe even a hole in the bag.

2. He lost his nerve and didn't breathe when he was supposed to.

Sad state of affairs, and I feel sorry for him. I play countless jobs each year, and I can hardly imagine the stress of playing the President's funeral.

Quoted: One of two things were the likely cause of that disaster. 1. Catastrophic instrument failure- something happening that caused his pipe to start leaking air, from perhaps dropping a reed or maybe even a hole in the bag. 2. He lost his nerve and didn't breathe when he was supposed to. Sad state of affairs, and I feel sorry for him. I play countless jobs each year, and I can hardly imagine the stress of playing the President's funeral.

One of the above.

I was at the practice on Monday (New Years day) and the piper played it perfectly both times (that I seen).  I imagine it was stress or failure.  It was quite warm yesterday here as well (almost 50 which is really warm for Jan) so I doubt the weather was to blame. It's to bad it went bad for him, I bet he really feels bad about it.

I felt very bad for him as well.  Knowing nothing about the pipes my first thought was mechanical failure.  The problem was always at the same spot in the song making me think the reed just didn't want to vibrate at one certian frequency required for the note.  My wife commented that he's probably going to go home and burn those pipes after they let him down.

Kent

Could be the reed, they can be finnicky at times.  That could explain why certain notes didn't hit.

Bummer. That blows.

My buddy's stepson was part of the Honor Guard that carried that casket. That had to be a big honor.

I don't know anything about bagpipes, as the only musical instrument besides drums I have ever played is trumpet. But just judging on where the "breaks" or "wrong notes" occurred, I would tend to think it was equipment failure as well. I remember asking myself aloud when thye sour notes started...."WTF is wrong with this dudes bagpipes?" It seems it always happened at the same point too, where he had to get pretty high. Ah well. I am sure it was some sort of equipment malfunction. Anything using a reed can be a bitch. I was once in a marching band (played the snare drum) and it seems there was hardly a day that went by what we didn't have a sax or clarinet fuck up due to a reed.