When I am assigned a tune, I will do 2 things right away:

1. Find recordings online
2. Rewrite (scribe) it in my preferred sheet music software

All of the pipers I know do item 1, but question why I write everything else again. I have found that writing music helps me memorize and understand the music better. I’ll try to explain what I mean.

When I play through a tune the first few times, I’m looking for a lot of different things. I’m looking for which embellishments I have to play, and I’m looking for any tricky sections that create the equivalent of a tongue twister for the fingers. I’m looking for areas where harmonies fit in, or areas where the drum section can really make the score pop. I have to play through it a few times before I can really start thinking about those kinds of things.

When I write the music out however, I am very concentrated on what embellishments exist, because I must write them out exactly as they have to be played. I may realize that I’ve been playing the wrong gracenote when I was sight reading, and that is quickly corrected. Thanks to copy and paste, I also started picking out the repetition in tunes more easily, as it means less time scribing. Finding repetition means you also need to memorize less music!

Some software will play the music back for you, too. Using these features you can get an idea for ensemble and harmonies, or even write them in to hear it all together without having to get the whole band involved. This can be hit and miss though, as most scribing software isn’t made to handle the bagpipe intricacies.

For beginners I would recommend scribing for its learning potential too. Do you struggle to distinguish different embellishments? This is a great way to study how they look, and before you know it you’ll be able to sight read like the best! For advanced players, it’s a tool to help memorize tunes as well. You’ve been looking at the sheet and breaking it down to write it out, but you brain is also keeping track of everything too. You may find you’ve memorized a good chunk of it by the time you’ve finished writing it out.

But ultimately, I write out everything because I have a bad habit of losing sheet music. Having a backed up repository of music makes me feel more comfortable about always having it on hand, and about letting other people “borrow” my music to make copies.