blow job

When I played the bagpipes sometimes my lips would slip on the wood and I would splutter and spit because the muscles of my cheeks would grow tired with the constant air flowing through the tubes. My mouth learned to suck round without any gaps so that the sound was total, unending and even. The feeling was of mountains and landscapes and huge skies and wind and loss. Distant armies fighting on into the evening would be evoked and soak the room around me and my ears would sing as I would bring breath and fluttering fingers over the holes of the chanter making tiny movements just visible to the eye at three beats to the second resulting in rhythm and melodic chanting. Circular breathing would allow a humming that would never end until I grew tired and the grip of my lips would begin to weaken.

Later I recognise that feeling of fatigue and of saliva leaking out of my mouth as I concentrate on evoking feelings and emotions in my audience of one, who is also my instrument. That relearning of pressure and timing and intelligent improvisation reminds me of what I had once been taught, though in pipe music there is no climax...only a sense of the constant within the changing. The sound of blood flowing round a body.

It makes me smile to think of those serious Pipe Majors, so masculine and strong and dignified, with their ancient histories and their military demeanour. Do they realise that they are training their mouths? I wonder how many of them have used their hard won skills for other, secret pleasures?