Brooks: At this Minnesota college, every student is entitled to free bagpipe lessons

Before bagpipe rehearsal came the earplugs.

Mike Breidenbach, director of piping at Macalester College, proffered a pair with a grin before pipe band practice Wednesday night. Gather enough bagpipes in an enclosed area and it’s going to get loud. And there can’t be many places in Minnesota with more bagpipes per capita than this St. Paul campus.

After the earplugs came the first bagpipe joke.

“Do you know the difference between a bagpipe and a lawnmower?” said Breidenbach, who first picked up the bagpipes as a Macalester undergrad 32 years ago. He thought bagpipes looked like fun. He was right. “You can tune a lawnmower.”

In the Macalester College Pipe Band, they take the music seriously, but not themselves.

Bagpipes mark the big moments at Macalester: Graduation day, game day, first day of classes. Students who open acceptance emails release a flurry of digital confetti and a wail of bagpipes to let them know what they’re in for.

The first students unleashed the first bagpipes on campus in the 1930s as a joking reference to the college’s Scottish name. The bagpipes caught on. Before long, Macalester had a pipe band, highland dancers, an official tartan plaid and a standing offer of free bagpipe lessons — free bagpipes included — for any student who wanted them.

“It wasn’t the reason I signed up to come to Macalester, but when I got here and heard, I think during orientation, that there were free bagpipe lessons, I thought it would be a crying shame to pass that up,” said Matt Horwath, who graduated in 2019 with a degree in music, with a focus on bagpipes.

Around Horwath, in a loose circle, stood about 20 other pipers and drummers, warming up. The pipe band is open to students, alumni and the community. Some have been playing for decades, some are newcomers with a talent for a tricky instrument, including a few teenagers.

There are about 40 students on campus taking bagpipe lessons right now. A few will make their pipe band debut later this month.

Macalester senior Lauren Schutz joined Wednesday’s group practice for the first time, working her way through “Amazing Grace” with more experienced pipers. For now, she is reading the hymn off sheet music. In time, she’ll commit the piece to memory like the rest of the band.

Schutz, a competitive swimmer, signed up for bagpipe lessons sophomore year. She comes from a family of bagpipe enjoyers — a bagpiper once visited her grandmother in the hospital and serenaded her at her bedside.

“I wanted to try as many things as possible,” Shutz said. “And [bagpipes are] something that everyone loves. How can you not smile at a bagpipe player?”

Just in case not everyone loves bagpipes, Macalester equips learners with chanters — pipes that look a bit like elongated recorders — so students can practice without subjecting their roommates to a full-blast bagpipe solo.

One recent student was Michael Householder, who took up the bagpipes after his wife, Suzanne Rivera, became Macalester’s president in 2020.

“The sound of bagpipes has always fascinated me,” wrote Householder, who penned a loving history of the college’s love/love relationship with bagpipes, for an upcoming edition of Macalester Today. “I sometimes joke that I have learned two languages out of my love for Sue: Spanish so I could communicate with her beloved grandmother, and bagpipes so I could be a part of the Mac family.”

Back at rehearsal, Breidenbach lifted a knee and began to tap out the beat. Around the circle, pipes lifted. A low drone vibrated the air as bags inflated, and suddenly a keening wail — the skirl of bagpipes — blasted through the rehearsal hall at volumes that might make a bystander regret turning down that kind offer of earplugs. There is very little in the way of volume control on a set of bagpipes. Bagpipes keep it perpetually turned up to 11.

But if the past week has been a bit stressful for you, consider bagpipes. When you’re listening to marches, jigs and reels, performed by some of this nation’s finest pipers, those bagpipes and drums start to vibrate every negative thought out of your skull. Your foot may tap. A big loopy grin may spread across your face.

For those who celebrate, the Macalester College Pipe Band is offering a free concert; full of bagpipes, drums and highland dancing, at 2 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 17, at the Mairs Concert Hall, 130 Macalester St., in St. Paul.