I wrote this for the liner notes of my  CD SOME OF ME PIPES, released in 2009. I give a description of the pipes I play on the CD and  what woods each one is made of  made of , and where in the village of Ashby Parva, each of  these trees grew.

I am a self-taught musician and bagpipe maker. I learn from experience and from my mistakes. I often describe my approach to learning new things as “Someone told me- and I discovered it all by myself”. Initially, I taught myself to make whistles from old tin cans, before turning my attention to bagpipes. I shall ever continue to be delighted by the variety of sounds I can achieve from a combination of holes in wooden tubes and reeds made of yoghurt pots.

I originally developed the Leicestershire smallpipes with my brother John. These pipes have a simple chanter and one drone and are mouth or bellows blown. I have a special affection for them. On this CD I use chanters in various pitches- all played with 'covered' fingering.

The English Great pipe is based on a fourteenth century manuscript illustration of the Miller in Chaucer's 'Canterbury Tales'. My original chanter was pitched in high D, but I have gone on to develop chanters in a variety of pitches. These pipes are the mainstay of the English bagpipe trio, The Goodacre Brothers, who play them together with Leicestershire smallpipes.

I developed the Cornish Double pipes from a carving of a piper dating from 1510-1532 in a church in Altarnun, Cornwall. It has two chanters, one for playing the upper half of the range, the other the lower. There is no drone pipe, but as my chanters can play the bottom tonic note of D they create a 'virtual drone'. Many depictions of similar bagpipes from this era can also be seen in churches throughout England.

..................SOME OF ME WOODS

Most of the pipes that I play on this CD are made from trees that grew in the village of Ashby Parva in south Leicestershire, where I was born in 1950.

My G English Great pipe is made from a fallen apple tree from my grandfather's garden. Before cutting the tree, I scrumped enough apples to make 49 bottles of wine from it. One day I plan to have a ceilidh where we will drink this wine whilst dancing to these pipes.

Across the road is the churchyard where my Aunt Alice was buried in 1944, near a flowering cherry. This tree died a few years ago and from this I made my Leicestershire smallpipes. These pipes are part of my family tree.

In another orchard, beyond the churchyard, on my Dad's farm, grew the pear tree from which I made my D Great Pipe. The low D chanter is made of gorgeous plum wood from the grounds of the Peebles Hotel Hydro, in the town where I now live.

One set of my Cornish pipes is made from a cherry tree from the other end of the village, about 400 yards from where I was born. The other set I made from an almond tree that grew in Montgomery Street, Edinburgh, near my old workshop.

Julian Goodacre April 2009