Bellows piper, Donald Lindsay, is heading to the south Atlantic island of Ascension. The 41-year-old electrician from Glasgow leaves with his family in July to spend the next two years on the island.
Donald, pictured, said: “It’s come at a good time. My wife saw an advertisement for a social worker on the island. She applied for it and was successful. I’ll be using the time to focus on developing my three octave chanter and to develop tutorials for it. ”
Donald, the current President of the Lowland & Border Pipers’ Society, has been working on this chanter for a number of years now. Around 50 pipers already have one. Said Donald: “This chanter can be played as a standard smallpipe chanter in the key of A but it has the ability to go down to D and above high A. It can go to at least B but in fact can go beyond that without the need for keys.
“The third octave is a little more challenging but one of things I intend to do when in Ascension is work on making the third octave more easily achievable. I’m at the next stage of development now which is to thoroughly explore the chanter and its foundational technique. I’ll have the time to do this on Ascension.”
Ascension Island is an isolated volcanic island, south of the Equator. It is governed as part of the British Overseas Territory of Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha.
In recent years Donald has taken The National Piping Centre’s Tuesday evening bellows class. When he departs for the south Atlantic the class will continue under Malin Lewis who is a student at the Royal Conservatoire in Glasgow.
