DUNEDIN, Fla. — The city of Dunedin is embracing some its first settlers' roots — more than usual this weekend!
Their 55th Highland Games celebrates the city’s Celtic roots — add that to the street names and city pipe bands.
Festivities kick off Friday evening with a parade and party…all before Saturday’s main event.
“We’re gonna shut down the street on Broadway and have our games kick-off party on the street,” said Eric MacNeill, head of the Highland Games.
“We’ll have live music and vendors, of course some beverages, until 10 o’clock that night. So, it’s a pretty great way to start the weekend.”
Iain Donaldson has a tough gig — tuning bagpipes.
At a recent rehearsal, we got a look at how Donaldson runs the city’s pipe bands in Dunedin.
And each instrument is a handful.
“The bagpipe is almost constantly going out of tune because it’s so sensitive to heat or temperature and moisture,” said Donaldson.
Donaldson’s leading the bagpipes for the Dunedin Highland Games, the band started in 1964.
And he’s passing on the tradition to this latest generation of Dunedin pipers in Pinellas County, including his son Graham too.
Graham has also devoted decades to the bagpipe.
“You are constantly blowing into the instrument to make the noise come out,” Donaldson explained. “And when you take a breath, you have to squeeze with your other arm, and it has to maintain the same tone and pitch of the instrument throughout the time you are playing it. So, it’s quite an active instrument. There are no breaks really.”
But Graham, like dad Iain, is a Donaldson devoted to this Dunedin tradition.
“Well it’s rewarding if we can get it all together,” said Iain Donaldson. “The trick is to make 10 bagpipes sound like one.”
The sound of the Scotland Highlands here in Dunedin continues.