The Greatest Bagpipe Learning Website Ever Created (Full Tour: BagpipeLessons.com Inner Circle)
by Jori Chisholm, Founder of BagpipeLessons.com
Last Updated: September 12, 2026
After twenty-five years of teaching, I rebuilt the whole thing from the ground up. This video is the full tour of the new lesson library website for my Inner Circle — what is in it, how it is organised, and how to get an answer out of it in about ten seconds.
The heart of it is the search bar. You are not searching a list of lesson titles. You are searching every minute of every class, every course and every tune lesson I have ever recorded, and the result takes you to the exact moment where I answer your question. Type in “crossing noises” or “pipe chanter reeds” and you get guides, lessons, tunes, courses and the specific moments inside the videos, all in one list.
In the tour I walk through the search, the topic guides that pull every time I have ever taught a subject onto a single page, the 74 tune lesson downloads that are now included with membership, the courses and the Skills Map, the weekly live classes and their chaptered replays, the community and Q&A, the highlight-to-ask and highlight-to-save features, and how all of it works on your phone wherever you happen to be practising.
Now you can get every single bagpipe question answered instantly, no matter where you are.
Key Points in this Video:
- Search is the whole point. Every minute of every class is indexed. Type a question and land on the moment it gets answered, not on a list of videos to wade through.
- Topic guides. One page per subject — the birl, the D throw, drone tuning, steady blowing, crossing noises, attacks and cutoffs, grace notes, reeds, pipe bags, memorising tunes, competing — pulling in every time Jori has taught it, going back years.
- 74 tune lesson downloads, now included. Previously sold separately, now part of membership at no extra charge. Every tune has a full recording, a taught lesson, sheet music and bonus material — and the recording and the sheet music were built together, so they match.
- Courses and the Skills Map. Learn the Pipes, Bagpipe Foundations, the Reeds and Setup masterclass, Compete With Confidence and more, laid out on one roadmap from complete beginner through to competing and beyond.
- Every live class recorded, chaptered and searchable. Each class gets its own page with a summary, chapters, key takeaways and every member question linked to the exact moment it was answered.
- Highlight to ask, highlight to save. Select any line of text on the site and either post a question about it straight to the Q&A page — with the quote and a link attached — or save it to your personal dashboard as a saved quote.
- It remembers where you were. Saved lessons, in-progress lessons, mark-as-complete, and a recently viewed list.
- It works anywhere. Everything in the tour works the same on a phone or an iPad — at band practice, in a car park, at the Highland Games. The new site is twenty times faster than the old one.
Chapters:
0:00 Intro
1:21 How BagpipeLessons.com began
3:55 The search bar
5:11 Topic guides
6:44 Tune downloads
7:40 Courses and the skills map
10:09 Live classes and replays
11:10 Ask a question, save a quote
13:07 Progress tracking and your phone
13:36 Two free Zoom classes
14:24 Why this matters
15:23 Membership and prices
16:40 Closing
Watch the full tour above, or read the complete transcript below.
Want to see one of my live classes first?
I’m teaching two free online Zoom classes this month. Both are free, both are open to everyone, and registration is required so I can send you the link.
- Your Pipes Should Be Easy for You — Tuesday, September 22, 10:00 AM Pacific. Register for September 22
- How to Play Clean & Fast — Saturday, September 26, 1:00 PM Pacific. Register for September 26
Come to one or both, ask me a question, and see how it feels. It’s the same type of class my Inner Circle members get each week.
Video Transcript: This is the greatest bagpipe learning website ever created. There is nothing like this in the world. There never has been. I’ll say that, and I’ll show you why. Hundreds of hours of lessons and live classes, every single minute of it indexed and searchable. This is the website I’ve been dreaming about for 25 years, and it just went live this week.
Nothing like this has existed for pipers, not anywhere and not ever, until today. In this video, I’ll walk you through every one of the main features, how to search, guides, tunes, courses, live classes, the community, and most importantly, how to type in your question and get the answer in seconds.
Stay with me to the end, and you’ll know exactly where to go when your next piping question comes up. Decades of teaching all in one place. All right, let’s dig in.
That was a real question. It took about four seconds. This is my new Inner Circle Lesson Library website, and it is live right now. I’ll show you exactly how it all works and a lot more that you can do with it, but first, let me tell you how this website came to be.
I started BagpipeLessons.com in 2001. My dream was to use this new thing called the internet to help people learn to play the pipes and to play better. Along the way, things have grown and changed. In 2001, the site went live. Mostly, it was a way for people to get in contact with me and to get some basic information about learning to play.
In 2003, I was the first person to teach bagpipe lessons online with a webcam. This was way before Zoom or FaceTime or even Skype. Now, in the many years since, I’ve done a lot of other things: the first downloadable tune lessons, the first downloadable video lessons, sheet music, MP3s, plus countless one-on-one bagpipe lessons, pipe band workshops, and teaching at summer schools around the world.
In 2011, I ran a 30-day challenge on my BagpipeLessons.com blog, and it was put together completely remotely with students around the world. It was such a huge success that I decided to turn it into something permanent, and I started this online lesson library called the BagpipeLessons.com Studio, and then it grew and grew.
In 2020, I added weekly online group classes on Zoom, and now the whole thing is called the Inner Circle. It’s got hundreds and hundreds of hours of all these recorded Zoom classes, plus all my tune lesson downloads, video lesson downloads, and all of my online courses. Everything is available to watch on replay from your computer or your mobile device.
But there’s so much material that it got harder and harder to find what you wanted and to find your way around the site. So I went back to my original dream, and I built the entire website from the ground up. It’s a completely new design, and it’s a thousand times better than the old one.
Everything is searchable and findable. Courses, topic guides, highlights, video compilations. You can ask a question about anything and get an answer in seconds, and there’s a whole interactive, supportive piping community in there with you. I’m so excited that this dream has finally come true. This is everything I could have hoped for when I started BagpipeLessons.com 25 years ago.
If something like this had existed when I was learning I would have lived in this site. So let me show you the whole thing, every part of it, and what I’m most excited about is seeing what you do with it because there are no limits to what you can learn when you’re interested, curious, and motivated with so much high-quality information at your fingertips.
So let’s start at the homepage. The thing I want you to look at is the search bar. This is the key to the whole site. This is where you can find answers to anything you’re looking for in all of my content on the site. So here’s what you do. Let’s just say we wanna work on crossing noises.
So look what came back. This is not just a list of titles. This is a guide. This is a lesson. This is another lesson. And then we have moments in the videos. These are actual quotes where I talk about crossing noises across all of the hundreds and hundreds of videos on the site.
Okay, let’s look at something else. Let’s look at pipe chanter reeds. Boom. There you go. All right there. So I want you to notice what is in these search results. You have live classes, you have topic guides, tunes, courses, all of it in one list.
So you don’t have to know where the thing lives on the website. You only have to know what you wanna learn about. This is the part I’m most excited about. You can get every single bagpipe question answered. You can get any bagpipe question answered instantly, no matter where you are. Type in what you’re looking for, get the answer.
Now let’s find every single time I have ever taught about the birl on one page. So we go to the guide on the birl, and it pulls from every time I’ve ever talked about the birl, even if it was years ago. If it’s in one of my online courses, if it was in one of our live sessions, a Practice Chanter session where we cover different topics, it’s all here in one page.
It’s got a short version. It’s got moments from all the different videos, essential things you need to know about the birl, more highlights. Everything you could ever wanna learn about the birl is here on one page. No more searching, no more hunting.
Let’s take a look at the other guides that I have here: attacks and cutoffs, crossing noises, grace notes, technique, tune types, sound and tuning, breaking in a new reed, chanter reeds, maintenance, drone reeds, pipe bags, memorizing tunes, performing at gigs, playing in a band. So many different things, gear and products.
It’s all here. Each one of these is the definitive comprehensive guide on that topic, pulling in information from all of my courses, all of my videos, all of my lessons into one place.
So let’s go here to the drone tuning guide. This is everything about drone tuning in one place. You can click and watch the video. I describe it, I show it.
So let’s take a look at the D throw guide. This is everything you need to know about the D throw pulled together from every time I have taught about the D throw. There’s a short version, and then it has moments from all these different videos where I’ve talked about the D throw.
So we’ve got a guide all on drone tuning. We have one on steady blowing. This is everything you need for all of these important topics in one page.
Let’s look at tunes. I’ve got 74 tune lesson downloads all available, all included for you with your membership. You can sort by playing level, you can sort by tune type, you can sort alphabetically.
Each one of these tune lessons has a full recording of me playing the tune on the bagpipes and it’s got a recorded lesson where I go through and teach you the tune. You can download the sheet music, download the recordings, get them onto your device, bonus material all about the tune, 74 different tune downloads.
This used to be a separate thing from the membership, and now it is included with the Inner Circle. And the recording of me playing the tune on the pipes perfectly matches the sheet music.
Now, there’s so much stuff here, so you don’t really know where to start. Where do I go? Take a look at my courses. A course tells you what to do first, what to do next, and where you are in the learning process. So maybe we’re at the beginning and we wanna do the Learn The Pipes. This is my beginner class.
Maybe we’re making the transition from practice chanter to bagpipes. You need the Bagpipe Foundations course. Maybe you want to really take your reeds and your setup to the next level. You go to the Reeds And Setup masterclass. Each one of these courses is a combination of classes organized, selected in the right order, and you can just go through them one by one or skip right to the one where you wanna start.
I love this one, the Compete With Confidence course. This is when you’re thinking about competing for the first time, or maybe you’ve competed and you wanna get more confident and more consistent in your performances, check out this course.
Competing for the first time, everything you need to know. Top mistakes and how to avoid them. Lessons from sports and performance psychology. Getting ready for your summer competitions. On the day, a minute-by-minute plan for competition success. Each one of these is an hour-long video detailed lesson, and each one of these lessons is put together into a course, so you can get exactly what you want and take your piping to the next level.
I’ve got courses on so many different topics. There’s something for everybody, whether you’re a complete beginner just getting on the pipes, or you’re looking to really improve in a particular piping area, whether it’s reeds or blowing or playing fast and clean or learning pibroch, setting your pipes up to be more efficient.
If you’re looking to buy a new set of pipes and you want some guidance there, it’s all here on my courses page. Now, this is one of my favorite things here is the skills map. At the top of the courses page, it’s all of my courses in a giant roadmap from the beginning all the way through, and I’m gonna be adding stuff to this, but it starts out with all of the courses for pipers that are just starting out.
Then we have a whole section about getting up on the bagpipes, a whole section on getting clean technique, and then a really big section on tone and tuning and setup, and this is reeds and blowing and all that stuff. Then tunes. You can jump around, but this is a logical progression that you can work through and really keep track of your progress, make sure you’re learning everything that you need at the level that you’re at.
How do we join the live classes? The live page shows you the next live class that’s coming up, and you can just click to join on Zoom. It has all of our upcoming classes. All of these are in Pacific Time, that’s my time zone, but you can easily find your time zone on here, and all the dates and times on the site will automatically convert to your local time.
But what’s amazing is that even if you are unable to join our classes live, all the classes are recorded, and they get their own page on the website. So you’ll see the latest classes all in an order here, so you can go through and watch what you missed. Every class recorded, transcribed, fully searchable, uploaded with its own lesson page on the site.
This is a replay from a class I did a few weeks ago. This is what it looks like. Got a summary. We got the video here. Chapters to find what you’re looking for, all about what’s going on in the class, some key takeaways, and it also has a section for all of the questions that were asked by members during this live session, and some of the best insights that we get in these classes come from questions from you.
This is one of the coolest things about this site, which is since every video is indexed fully searchable, you don’t have to watch a whole hour to find a little nugget of information that you’re looking for. You can jump right to that exact moment, and you can find what you want.
So life happens, you get busy, you miss one of the classes, it’s waiting for you. You can check it out and watch the whole thing or go and find exactly what you’re looking for. Members can ask questions in advance. Say you see that there’s a live class coming up and you go, “I have a question on that topic.” You can actually ask the question in advance, so when I do the live class, I’ll look at all the submitted questions and make sure to answer your question. That’s perfect if you can’t join live. There’s a Q&A section where you can ask a question, anything piping related, and if something pops into your head, you can just go right here and add it, to the Q&A section.
But here’s another really cool thing. I have a feature built in here that I have never seen on any other website.
Say you have a question about that. Well, you just highlight that, and then it’s a little ask a question bubble pops up, and you can just say, “Well, how much slower?” Post the question, and then it goes right in the Q&A page, and there it is. It’s got your question, it’s got the little quote there that you were asking about, and it has a link right to that page.
If you find something that you really like that you want to remember, “Doublings start on the beat with their first grace note.” Okay, so maybe you just wanna remember that. You just highlight it and then go Save, and it saves it to your personal dashboard in a list of saved quotes. It’s like putting a little sticky note on it, putting a little highlighter on it, and you can find it later, and you can go and scroll through it and find all their saved highlights.
Another thing that this site does is it remembers where you are if you’re in the middle of watching lessons, it’ll show they’re in progress. You can also mark things as complete. If you can’t remember what you were working on last time just go to the recently viewed and it’ll pop up right there.
So everything you’ve watched me do works exactly the same way on your phone or your iPad. Doesn’t matter where you are in the world, on any device. It can be in the car, at band practice, in a parking lot, at the Highland Games.
Learn From the Best
I'm Jori Chisholm. I created BagpipeLessons.com to help you fulfill your dream of becoming a piper. I hope to see you soon at weekly online sessions of my Inner Circle.
If you’re interested in, in my Inner Circle and you wanna see how these live classes work, I’m teaching two free live classes on Zoom this month. They’re open to everybody. The first is called Your Pipes Should Be Easy For You. That’s Tuesday, September 22nd at 10:00 in the morning Pacific Time.
The second one is called How to Play Clean and Fast, and that’s Saturday, September 26th at 1:00 PM Pacific. You need to register for these Zoom classes, and the sign-up links are in the description below, and all the details on the time and date are in the description below. Come to one or come to both.
See how these live Zoom classes feel. Ask a question or just hang out in the background and watch and listen. It’s the same type of class that I do for my Inner Circle members almost every week.
Now, here’s something that I keep coming back to. Learning is fun. Getting better is fun. Being able to do something you’ve never done before is really fun. This is how I get inspired. You hear a pipe band or a piper, and you hear them do something really cool, or you hear a tune that you really like, and you think, “Someday I would like to do that.”
And then when that someday comes, that feeling is amazing. I think that’s one of the greatest feelings as a piper, as a musician, and as a human. Everything I’ve shown you today on this website exists to get you more of that feeling of learning and accomplishment and reaching your goals.
Why binge watch Netflix when you can watch something that supports your passion, helps you get better, and is a lot of fun to watch? So here’s what I want you to do right now, not tomorrow, right now, today. Go to the site and type in the bagpipe question you have been wondering about and carrying around the longest.
It will tell you everything you need to know about this place and how it works.
A live class with me on Zoom almost every week on the topics that matter most to you, this incredible new lesson library with everything searchable and every live class available to watch on replay, and answers from me and one-on-one support from me to help you reach your piping goals, all part of my worldwide community of fellow supportive pipers here on the Inner Circle.
Now, here’s the practical part. If you join this month, you get locked in at the current prices.
On October first, the prices go up. So if you join by the end of this month, September thirtieth, you get to keep the current price for as long as your membership stays active.
30th, you can still join. All the links are below, and join my email list because I do occasionally do promotions and other discounts. You can either pay monthly or you can pay yearly.
If you join with the yearly membership, you get a free one-on-one personal goal-setting session with me. We’ll both hop on Zoom, or we can do a phone call or FaceTime and talk about where your piping is right now, where you wanna get to, and we’ll make a plan that gets you there. The link to join is in the description below.
I love hearing from members with their questions. Some of my best lesson ideas have come from questions from you. Please subscribe and turn on the notifications because I’ll be adding more videos in the weeks and months to come. I am so excited that my dream bagpipe learning website has finally come true.
This is everything I could have hoped for when I started 25 years ago.
Thanks for taking the time to spend with me today. I can’t wait to see what you do with the new site. Happy piping. Mahalo.
What being a member gets you:
- A live class every week on the topics that matter most to you.
- The new lesson library — 790+ lessons, searchable to the second, plus every class replay, chaptered and indexed within days.
- Answers from me, and one-on-one support with your piping goals.
- A worldwide community of supportive pipers.
Join this month and get locked in at current prices.
On October 1 both Inner Circle prices go up. Today they are $35 a month or $348 a year. From October 1, new members pay $45 a month or $399 a year. Join by September 30 and you keep today’s price for as long as your membership stays active. Current members keep theirs the same way.
And if you join for the year, we’ll start with a one-on-one personal goal-setting session with me — we’ll hop on Zoom (or a phone call, if you prefer) — and talk about where your piping is right now, where you want it to go, and how to build a plan that gets you there.
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