So bag covers, in terms of the material and the functionality and the style, have evolved over the years. You might have seen tartan bag covers, velvet or velveteen bag covers. Maybe you saw corduroy. These things go through different styles.

Now this is almost like a microfiber, but it has a little bit of stretch to it. I guess it’s just going the way a lot of clothing is going these days that have technical fabrics that are water resistant or moisture wicking or are better with dealing with the UV from the sun.

There it is. It’s got the water-resistant logo there on the back, WR. And on this side we’ve got the R.G. Hardie & Co. logo and Peter Henderson. Very cool embroidery.

And I never play pipes without this, the non-slip Dyson patch on both sides, on the body side and also on the arm side.

So when we unzip here, what do we see? This is set up just the way I like it. This is the Bannatyne hybrid small bag with the zipper on the bottom. My favorite bag. I’ve got some videos I’m working on all about the different sizes of bags. I love a small bag. There’s no advantage to a larger bag.

Zipper on the bottom instead of the zipper on the side. They do sell one with the zipper on the side. I don’t know why anybody would get that. The zipper hits right in my forearm. Not comfortable. Zipper on the bottom stays out of the way.

Then we’ve got the classic Bannatyne bottle tube trap. So when I blow into the bag, all the air travels through this tube, catches any spit, little bits of mist and spray and condensation. And then connected to the bottom of the drone stocks, I have the Driflo system. So at the bottom of each one of these drone stocks is one of these. And this is the Driflo system.

It’s a fantastic system. This attaches to the bottom of the drone stock. So when I inflate the bag, the only way that the air can get to the drone, which is up here, is by traveling through here, the little holes at the end here. And as the air travels through, the silica gel removes the moisture from the air. So hot, wet, steamy breath over here, and by the time it gets to the end, it’s still warm but dry.

So that is a great thing for keeping these drones dry, which means your pipes stay in tune. They’re easy to tune. They stay in tune. So that is a must for me. The hybrid bag with the bottom zipper, the bottle tube trap, and the Driflo system. Get my zipper zipped back up. Velcro on the back. Nice and snug.

So the way that I put my drone reed in, I hold the drone reed nice and firm. It’s not particularly fragile. I stay away from the bridle and the tongue. That part is fragile, but I hold it nice and snug and twist it in there.

Let’s listen to what that sounds like on its own. Perfect. That’s exactly what I’m looking for in a bass drone. Two tones, and when it kicks into that second tone, a rich, nice sound and steady. That’s great. Efficient, too. That’s what you expect from these Ezeedrones.

Middle tenor. That’s great. Outside tenor.

So as I would expect, a couple of these joints are a little bit loose. That is totally to be expected. It’s totally normal that it will compact down over time. So maybe over the first day or two or even weeks, you might have to add a little bit more. No problem. So that’s what I’ll do now—just add a little bit of hemp on here.

That’s great. If you ever pull your drone reed out for any reason, you want to make sure it’s nice and tight before it goes back in. And don’t bump the reed on the stock. If you touch the reed to the stock, pull it out, put it tight again, and then put it back in. So the rule is the last thing that the reed touches is your hand.

Push it in again. So I have it in there snug so it’s not going to fall out. Bass drone’s loose too.

So if you’re thinking about getting a set of pipes, I would say the most important thing to spend your money on is a set that sounds great, which means it’s made out of high-quality materials, it’s got a great design, and the quality control is high.

So you’re going to get that from any set of bagpipes from R.G. Hardie. If looks are important to you—and looks are important to most people—or having some extra decoration is important to you, then that’s also an option.

The PH1 set, if you check out that video on the channel, that’s a classic set which would be imitation ivory mounts, engraved nickel. And then there’s a PH2 with the blackwood mount. It’s a very cool look that’s becoming pretty popular these days. And then you have this Heritage model with these boxwood mounts.

So once you pick your mount style—whether it’s the imitation ivory, the blackwood, or the boxwood—then the other options you have are for the engraving. And the PH01s and the PH02s come with the classic thistle Celtic and a Renaissance pattern, which is a swirly engraving pattern.

And then in this Heritage model, you’ve got this spectacular engraving on the nickel and also in the wood itself. Before I blow these up, I just want to go and talk about a few of the other really cool design features. One is this Viking compass. I think they call it a Vegvísir. It’s a compass symbol, and that is all over this cool round feature.

Then there’s a dragon motif. This is what you’d see often on the bow of one of these Viking longships. Coming off the front is this head motif. So this is cool. There are actual runic inscriptions that spell out Peter Henderson, Heritage, and Viking. And there are also other runes on here: courage, protection, music, friendship, and good luck. So all kinds of cool symbolism here right here on these amazing pipes.

So unlike the PH01 and PH02, which have the traditional beading and combing, this has intricately engraved wood and then you’ve got these boxwood mounts that are based on the profile from a famous Peter Henderson 1910 set.

There’s a lot of different qualities of boxwood that you can get out there, so they go through a real careful selection process just to get the top-grade wood so that your pipes are going to look beautiful from the day you have them and last for a lifetime.

We were there visiting last summer with my family and got to see these amazing laser engraving machines where they can take these beautiful designs and put it right on the instrument. It’s not a mass-producing thing. It’s done with these green lasers that do the engraving each piece one by one.

So you saw me unpack these from the bubble wrap. These have never been played. Let’s blow them up. I’m just going to do the drones first and see how it sounds.

Amazing. Sounds great. Efficient. Smooth. I was just testing them. Shut off the middle tenor, tuned the two, brought in the middle, turned out the outside just to see how they sound. Really, really good. Beautiful blend.

Now the chanter they sent me—I’m going to get this going—but this reed is going to be all dried out. So this is the regular plastic chanter cap that comes with every Infinity Chanter. That goes in the garbage and we put the Tone Protector on it.

So the Tone Protector is a must. It’s going to keep your reed at the right humidity level so it actually functions. You don’t have to lick your reeds. You don’t have to pinch your reeds. Your reeds last three to four times longer. Less hassles, easier to tune, warms up quicker.

I’m going to grab an Infinity Chanter that I’ve got going with one of my Foundation reeds.

Tiny bit loose. Let’s add a little bit of hemp. There we go. Great.

Amazing. They’re warming up a little bit. My chanter’s coming up. We’ve got to retune them.

That tune that I played, I first heard it on a recording where it was played by Dr. Angus MacDonald, one of the all-time great pipers and just always plays interesting material. And that’s ‘The Unst Bridal March.’ And Unst is way in the most northern part of Scotland up in Shetland, where there is a lot of this Viking Norse influence, being that it was so far north in Scotland and closer to where the Vikings were.

I’m going to just tune it up, bring the drones down a little bit, and play a little bit more. They’re rich and warm and steady and efficient. So efficient, which I love about these Peter Henderson pipes. Amazing. I would play these in a performance, in a competition—absolutely no problem.

I guess I would be amazed if I didn’t know that this is what I expect from Peter Henderson and R.G. Hardie, which are bagpipes that sound great, are efficient, feel great to play, are easy to tune, stay in tune, and lock in.

I was not expecting them to be this beautiful and this intricate.

If you want something special—not only in terms of how your pipes sound and how they feel to play—you can’t get any more different and special than this.

Now from a distance, I think they’re going to look like regular bagpipes. When you get up close, any piper who’s been around bagpipes is going to go, “Whoa, what is going on here?” And if you’re around non-pipers, it’s a cool story to be able to learn about this engraving pattern and try to figure out what’s going on here with all the symbolism. So there you have it: brand new Peter Henderson Heritage Viking bagpipes, model PH1HV.

There’s some technology in here too. The blowpipe and the blowpipe stock are plastic-lined. Blackwood on the outside looks and feels like the classic blackwood you’d expect from a high-quality set of pipes like this, but the moisture never touches the wood—it goes straight through.

We’ve got the Bannatyne hybrid bag with the zipper on the bottom, the Driflo system, the bottle tube trap, the Infinity Chanter, and R.G. Hardie’s got a five-year guarantee.

You’re going to love these pipes. As the wood gets played in, this wood, which is a dark brown color, is going to go deeper into a rich black.

If you’re interested in getting one of these Heritage Viking bagpipes, contact me from the link in the description below. If there’s enough interest, I’m going to find out about getting some sets of these and getting them available on the BagpipeLessons.com shop.

They have a six-week waiting list, but I might be able to get you a set faster than that if I do end up getting these pipes in stock.

So check them out on the website, all the Peter Henderson bagpipes that I have available at BagpipeLessons.com/phpipes.

And if you’re looking for a set of bagpipes made out of plastic, you can learn about those R.G. Hardie plastic ones at BagpipeLessons.com/polypipes.

If you like this video, hit the subscribe button and click the little bell so you get notified when I post new videos. I’ve got some great new videos coming up.

And if you want to learn from me and be part of my community, join my Inner Circle and you get access to my lesson library with hundreds and hundreds of hours of recorded lessons, tunes, product guides. You get personal feedback from me. We do live Zoom classes every week, and you have an opportunity to submit your videos for feedback too.

So check that out at BagpipeLessons.com/membership.

Thanks to Alastair Dunn and his amazing team at R.G. Hardie for sending these beautiful, unusual, stunning bagpipes. What an incredible instrument on the outside and the sound that they put out.

So I’m going to play some more tunes. Thanks everybody for watching. See you next time. Happy piping.