invite came through Lorne MacDougall who arranges music for the Red Hot Chilli Pipers and is part of the organisation. Lorne was ap- proached by the composer of the film, Patrick Doyle, who is Scottish and who also wrote the film scores for some of the Harry Potter mov- ies. Lorne received the music from Patrick and then arranged it for bagpipes and the band went down to a first-class recording studio in London for the session and had a great time. When we were in the studio the music was being changed all the time and Patrick gave the pipers a free hand to experiment a bit with the score, listen back to it and decide if it was working. “It really was great fun and something I’ll
remember for a long time. I can’t wait to see the final product when it is released.” As well as a very busy musical life, Craig has his hands full with running his own firm, Wallace Bagpipes. Since joining the company he has moved from testing and developing the products, to making the bagpipes, and then to running the operation for the last seven years. “When I joined, Jim Wallace and David Hendry were finalising the development of our bagpipes. As they were both engineers they had no problem creating the outer shape of the drones and chanter, but it was the internal shapes and the sound they had to develop and that is when I was brought in. The set of pipes we produce today is based on a set of Hendersons from 1912, with some changes to accommodate the higher pitch that pipes are played now,” said Craig. Over the past seven years, Wallace Bagpipes
have done a lot of sponsorship and have agents selling their pipes all over the world. Craig has built up Wallace Bagpipes as a trade company, rather than a retail company, and views the ‘trade’ label as an important aspect of how they do business. “If someone came to our factory door looking to buy a set of pipes I would hap- pily give them a tour of the factory, let them hear the pipes and then direct them along the road to The National Piping Centre to buy a set. “I believe that attitude shows a loyalty be-
tween the manufacturer and the agent. The agents are doing the hard work of stocking, advertising and selling our pipes so it is only fair that we direct business back to them. That policy has worked for us so far and has helped us to build strong relationships with The National Piping Centre, and the likes of Terry Lee’s Tartantown business in Canada. If such agents are willing to sell our pipes, it shows
that Wallace Bagpipes are producing a top class product,” said Craig. “The company is now structured so that I am less hands-on making pipes to concentrate on sales and customer relations, but in the first four years I was in the workshop making pipes during the day and then doing admin etc in the evenings. I have built up a great staff base and now have three employees, Steven Toal and Peter McGrath, who were previously time-served pipe makers at Kintail Bagpipes and piper Bryan Sinclair who served his pipe making apprentice- ship with Wallace Bagpipes. They all work well together and look after the factory making sure everything is going to plan while I’m away at workshops or with the Chilli Pipers. However, I do test every set of pipes that leave our factory. Most of the pipes we send out are sticks and chanter only but I do test the bores, woodwork and the combing and beading. When we do send out full sets of pipes with a bag and reeds I’m the one that fully assembles them, so when I do go away the pipes are waiting on me to return. It is a job I could easily leave to the staff but I know that if I do all the assembly, setting up, testing and playing then the customer can take the pipes out of the box ready to play. “From 2005 till 2009, we were just trying to get the product out there but I believe we are now well established. Everyone knows the brand and a lot of the recognition is because I go all over the world to teach workshops. When I’m at these workshops I find that people have heard of Wallace Bagpipes as a company even if
they have never seen or heard a set of our pipes. “Meeting people at these workshops allows them to get to know me, learn about Wallace Bagpipes, hear and see the instrument and even get a wee blow of my pipes if they want. At times, it was a struggle to get the company to this stage but I thrive on that, and have always believed our pipes can rival the best of the other pipes on the market. “Now that I have full control of the company,
I have ideas to promote it further. There are events we have organised in the past which have helped grow the company and that is going to continue from now on.” One of Craig’s promotional and educational tools is a lecture called “Understand and Ap- preciate Your Bagpipe” which he has given at workshops all over the world. He will be presenting the lecture in New York in May at the Highland Arts Festival which follows the Simon Fraser University Pipe Band concert at the Lincoln Centre in Manhattan. “Wal- lace Bagpipes have a strong presence in North America now, and because the SFU pipe major Terry Lee is an agent for us, I have been invited in as a guest to give the lecture,” explained Craig. “The lecture is an idea I had a while ago and it was sparked when I was abroad at a workshop and caught two young boys sword fencing with their bagpipes. As a pipe maker you can imagine my reaction, so when I got a hold of them I explained the time, effort and pride that had gone into making the pipes as they had no clue whatsoever.
PIPING TODAY • 23
Photo: Simonetta Ecchia -
www.simonettaecchia.com PROFILE
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