Me? On the Radio? With my bagpipes?

One day I turned around to see a lady walking up to me.  I stopped playing wondering what she wanted - was I annoying her?  was she curious about who the heck I was? She introduced herself as Tanya Brown like I should know who she was - I didn't.  So she had to explain further.  She is Tanya Brown, morning DJ on FM 95.1 which is a Cummulus Radio station.  OK.  Now it was starting to make some sense.  We share a building with Cumulus radio but I didn't realize they had their actual studios right there.

Well, Tanya asked me who I was and what was I doing practicing every day.  I explained that I'm fairly new to the pipes, play with the Charleston Police Pipes and Drums and am practicing hard to get better and compete.  She asked me if I'd be interested in coming on their radio show and play something.  I told her I could get her a better piper than me but she told me they wanted me because I'm a girl.  I told her I could get her a better  girl piper than me but she said they wanted me because I'm outside practicing every day in my bare feet.  I told her I'd to it.  We exchanged phone numbers and agreed we'd talk soon.

Tanya called me later that week and asked me to play on Friday morning.  I told her that would be fine. Then she asked if I knew any top 40 songs on the bagpipes.  I must confess, I laughed- or rather, I guffawed.  The bagpipe has 9 notes and plays in one key AND  I don't know what any of the top 40 songs are much less know them.  But instead I heard myself saying "sure, I'll come up with something by Friday".  Fast forward through a mad google search for Top 40 songs, You-Tube videos to hear the songs, playing some of the songs on the chanter to figure out if it could be done and finally narrowing it down to "Moves Like Jagger". Then there was the hours of practice trying to get it down...and I was ready.

Friday morning arrived.  I was out in the parking lot tuning up at 7:30am!!! talking to my friend Shannon in Vegas who had gotten up early to log on and listen via the internet.  I called Tanya and told her I was outside and next thing I knew I was in the studio watching them during the advertisement and had them talk through what they would ask me and coach me through where to stand and what to do.  Then it was show time.  They asked me about how I got into piping (to embarrass my kids), did I play with a group, did I play for weddings etc etc. and then it was time for "Moves Like Jagger".  I blew up my bag, got through the first 2 measures and one of my tone enhancers fell out and a terrible squawking commenced-thankfully they were just cutting to a commercial and that was the end of my radio career.

The first text I got was from Annette, in Williamsburg.  It said "you're pathetic" and I responded with "yep, but you got up to listen to me" and she texted back "I had to listen to make sure you didn't make them call me on the air.  I had to know not to answer the phone".  Yep, it's working-they're embarrassed.  Stephen did tell me begrudgingly that I did a good job.

Here's the link for the broadcast.

http://images.radcity.net/5047/5022529.mp3