Angus Martin is known by his colleagues as an accounting associate in the Department of Musicology, but students may know him as the bagpiper man in Dunn Meadow. It’s how Martin spends many of his lunch breaks.
“I stuck to playing this instrument simply because I liked it,” Martin said.
He is also part of a band called the Fountain Trust Pipe Band, which is based in Covington, Indiana. Sponsored by Fountain Trust Company, a local community bank, this grade-3 pipe band is one of the two competitive pipe bands in Indiana.
The band’s first taste of competitive success was in 2013 when it won first place at the Central Illinois Highland Games in Springfield, Illinois.
“Each member of the piping band should play in total unison, and this level of precision is not required in a lot of bands playing other musical instruments,” Martin said.
On an individual front, he is a grade-1 piper, which is the highest of all amateur grades, and has had decent success through the years, Martin said.
Earlier in his career, Martin was crowned the champion supreme in consecutive years at a Midwestern bagpiping competition.
“Solo events are good because I get to be creative with the tune settings,” Martin said.
He has won a few awards at the BC Pipers’ Association Annual Gathering, an internationally renowned contest, that recently took place in Vancouver, British Columbia.
Martin also provides lessons to aspiring bagpipers and to those who want to hone their skills in the musicology department.
“My aim is to raise the level of playing of this instrument in Bloomington, and I currently have a total of eight students in which six of them are active,” Martin said.
His vision is for his current students to go on and give lessons on their own to others wherever they plan to settle. However, if events are scheduled in the musicology department, he plans to start teaching by traveling to his students’ homes just like he did in his initial teaching days.
Martin, who was initially eager to play the guitar, has been playing the bagpipe from the age of 8 mainly because of his father’s inclination toward Scottish heritage.
“My father was in the army, and the instrument is still in existence because of Britain’s control over Scotland, and it has a strong connection with the military,” Martin said.
Growing up, Martin would play a lot of the tunes of his role model Bruce Gandy, a Canadian bagpiper who used to be a judge in many events in Martin’s hometown.
“I have always admired how he balances instrument with life because it is always pretty hard,” Martin said.
In the future, Martin wants to move into the highly competitive open grade, the toughest of all levels. The United States has only about 50 open grade pipers.
His message to aspiring bagpipers is to find a really great instructor and a band.
“The bagpipe is a hard instrument to learn and play on your own,” Martin said. “It involves a lot of complexity you won’t know until you run into it, so a teacher is great way to guide you through the frustration running through while learning”.
