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ARCHY. J India ' s first Female Bagpiper
Known to be India ' s first female bagpiper, tell us about your start and how you chose to pick up this instrument.
As a person, I have always been drawn towards uncommon things, things that are different and that everybody isn ' t doing, something that stands out from the crowd. That ' s just always been a personality trait. So when I first saw Bagpipes being a played in music video of a Band from Switzerland it was instant love to the magnificent instrument, its sound and how different it looked from the other instruments I ' d seen. The characteristics of Bagpipes and my trait of being drawn to uncommon, different things just found each other at a common spot and started to shape a story. I looked on the internet relentlessly on how to learn this instrument, emailed several Bagpipers unknown to me seeking some guidance and help on how to learn it since there was no teacher I could find locally. It was very exciting yet disappointing since my excitement would make me do a lot of research but my lack of knowledge or contact would yield me very less results in getting started with learning the Bagpipes. Finally, after then receiving my initial guidance from a veteran piper in the US over emails, I knew that if I was going to learn this instrument, I had to learn it myself and so with the help of an E Book and some guidance online I started to learn. It was really difficult, probably the toughest and bravest thing I have done. An instrument that was regarded as one of the toughest and physically demanding instrument I had to learn via a book. There were times when I wouldn’ t understand anything, I ' d cry alone because I ' d get stuck and have nobody to help me but the intense love for learning this instrument and making a mark in this world with something different always motivated me to continue and not give up besides the circumstances. This proved to be the best thing I decided to do, unknowingly I happened to become " India ' s 1st Professional Female Bagpipes " and received a National recognition and award recently from the President of India under the " First Women Achievers Awards ".
In a country where this instrument pretty much doesn ' t exist, how did you manage to break barriers and learn the art of playing this wonderful instrument?
I believe, that one of your biggest barriers is yourself, your thoughts and your own beliefs about you. Once you learn to deal with that, everything else can be dealt with.
You are a self taught musician. What were the challenges you had faced when you were learning the instrument?
Not having a teacher physically to monitor your progress and to check your mistakes and just trusting yourself and the material you have, to do that is one of the biggest challenges.
You ' ve played covers of popular songs and have reached out to many thousands of people. How did you promote your music at a time when Internet and social media was still not a big thing?
I still remember putting my first video( cover of Inis Mona) out when musicians and bands were still only putting out their music on Soundcloud. I had only told my close friends and immediate family about the pivot in my career from being a Vocalist to trying to learn a completely different instrument so not a lot of people knew. Hence, I thought that when I do decide to tell people about this, I will not just post an audio but make a video showing this great instrument and the new side of me being a " Bagpiper ". That was the first idea when I posted a video. It was for my friends, the music community I knew to " watch and hear " the new
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