Pack Your Bag(pipes) with Ross Jennings (Classic)

The Atlas Obscura Podcast

Ross Jennings, known as The First Piper, shares his global journey to play bagpipes in every country, blending cultural exploration with mus

Key takeaways

• Bagpipes have ancient origins predating Scotland, with roots possibly in the Middle East.

Main topics

• Global cultural exploration
• Bagpipe history and origins

Notable quotes

"I thought, you bastard. You've beaten me by 108 years."

Conclusion

Ross Jennings continues his quest with wonder and humility, finding de

Transcript preview

Speaker 2 (0:00) Can you tell me a little bit about you and your bagpipes? Do you have them with you where you are? I do, I do. They're Speaker 3 (0:08) right over Speaker 1 (0:09) here. Let me just stretch. Oh. Speaker 2 (0:11) There they are. I see them. I'm throwing them over my shoulder. So I'll blow. Speaker 3 (0:19) The first sounds you'll hear, they're kind of, which usually turns into a nice, are the drones. Speaker 2 (0:26) They Speaker 3 (0:27) form a collection of notes that don't change. Speaker 3 (0:37) Yeah. That's quite a lovely sound. Now, if I squeeze a little harder on my bagpipe bag, that is where you get the kind of real screech, the Speaker 2 (0:47) meh sound, Speaker 3 (0:48) to put it in a very academic way. Speaker 2 (0:52) This Speaker 3 (0:54) is very loud. Speaker 2 (1:11) Ladies and gentlemen, it's nine o'clock in the morning where Ross is right now. And I apologize for getting you kicked out of your apartment. Speaker 2 (1:25) I'm Dylan Therese, and this is Atlas Obscura, a celebration of the world's strange, incredible, and wondrous places. Today, I'm talking with Ross Jennings, also known as the First Piper. I Speaker 3 (1:37) started this journey in 2014, and it's cheesy, but it has been life-changing in a very wonderful way. Speaker 2 (1:45) We're going to hear how bagpipes took Ross far from Scotland, all around the world, and how he found... a connection everywhere he went. More after this. Speaker 2 (2:15) I've known Ross Jennings, or at least sort of known of him for years. One of the things that Atlas Obscura does is lead trips around the world. Small groups, like 12 people, going all over the place. And Ross led some of those trips for us through Scotland. What I didn't know about Ross, at least not at first, is that he's been on a world-spanning quest for years now. So Speaker 3 (2:42) the quest is to play the bagpipes. in every country of the world. Speaker 2 (2:46) Ross began his quest back in 2014. He's piped in more than 100 countries now, from Mozambique to Peru. But his interest in the bagpipes began way, way before that. Speaker 3 (2:58) Okay, bagpipes. Gosh, where do I start? The history of the bagpipes dates back thousands of years. Music historians tend to align on the fact that pipes come from the Middle East. That's what they're certain on. Lots of people suggest Egypt. Basically, where they had shepherds, sheep, goats, they had bagpipes. But then certain countries kind of claim that we've got Iran and Persia. Of Speaker 2 (3:21) course, when people think of bagpipes, they think Scotland, which makes sense. They've got a lot of bagpipes there. And Ross is Scottish himself. But for most of his childhood, he actually lived in East Asia, mostly in China. Speaker 3 (3:36) It's great when you live abroad, but I think when you're away from your birth country or your cultural country or whatever that might be, you learn about these cultural aspects from that country and then you yearn for it. You become more like that. So often they say Scottish people become more Scottish the further they are away from Scotland. Speaker 2 (3:51) It was while Ross was living in China that he first got interested in his Scottish heritage, in country dancing and in bagpipes. He loved the idea of them. But there were just not a lot of places to learn how to play the bagpipes in China at that time. And when Ross was 14, his parents sent him to school in England. And one day, they had a school assembly. And