In the past few years, bands like the White Stripes and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs have used them in performance. The revival started in Scotland, where traditional bands began spicing things up-abandoning what one British writer recently described as a culture whose “only index of musical value is absolute fidelity to a pre-existing canon of traditional tunes, memorialized and ossified over the centuries.” Bagpipes have since appeared on some unlikely and far-flung stages.

Yes, bagpipes are back, albeit somewhat changed. “Bagpipes are finding their way into all sorts of places they’ve never been before.” “It’s not the old standards that I grew up with,” affirms Walsh, who handcrafts bagpipes in Antigonish, N.S, where he now lives. Finlay Macdonald, instructor at Scotland’s stately National Piping Centre, has drawn crowds with his jazz-funk rendition of Bulgarian Red. The House of Edgar Shotts & Dykehead Pipe Band, a 15-time world champion, has been writing its own songs for competition. This spring, the 2010 bagpipe competition circuit will kick off but by the (ear-splitting) sounds of it, things will be different this year. Then, clad in regulation kilt, hose and ghillie brogues, he did his best on competition day to play it with nary a bad note. Almost half a century ago, the then-13-year-old from Yorkshire settled for a “dyed in the wool” military number: the kind of crusty, no-nonsense ballad sure to tickle the judges’ fancy. When it came time for John Walsh-a two-time world bagpipe champion-to pick out his first competition tune, he simply leaned on tradition.

Jazz bagpipe player