Join the zany adventures and crazy gigs of Susan Hadley Planck, expert bagpiper and master storyteller, as she mixes the culture of Scottish music with the distinctive cultures of China, Japan, and Chile, all with a twist of humor that ties them together.

Have Bagpipes … Will Travel

What does an aspiring American woman bagpiper who loves to travel have in common? Adventure!

• What was it like to play bagpipes to Chinese performing the martial art of Tai Chi?
• Or on the Great Wall of China?
• The top of Fujiyama in Japan?
• At the base of Mt. Fitzroy in South America?
• Or to compete throughout the United States and in Scotland with her band?

Imagine being one of 10,000 pipers marching down from Edinburgh Castle on the Royal Mile for the Millennium parade in the year 2000, and Prince Charles walks onto the competition grounds just as the author’s band began to play in their first Scottish competition.

Peek inside the unique antics of bagpipe bands—the members’ personalities, their peripatetic lifestyles, and maddening struggles to get their bagpipes simply to work. Who are these people anyway and what attracted them to bagpipes in the first place?

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There is a primordial sensual texture to bagpipe music, infusing the entire body.

Does the skirl of the bagpipes stir your soul?
Are your Scottish or Irish roots calling to you?
Have you ever wondered what a bagpiper’s life is like?
Do you like unusual travel?

In Piping Hot! Tales of a Wandering Bagpiper, Susan Hadley Planck combines her love of traveling and love of bagpiping delivering a unique, one-of-a-kind, entertaining look into the world of piping.

Videos below:
City of Denver Pipe Band playing at Stirling Castle in Scotland

Susan Hadley Planck is a master storyteller … sharing her stories, people, events and insights from her 15 years bagpiping around the globe for pleasure and in competitions. She is now mastering the Swiss alphorn.
 

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Susan Planck is as unique as her somewhat aimless wandering, whether as a teacher or with bagpipes. With her background as an elementary, middle, and high school teacher for over 30 years, with more than 30 different subjects under her command, she captivated children and adults as a classroom teacher as well as a bagpipe instructor and climbing instructor in her own Mt. Adams Wilderness Institute.

Attaining a lifelong dream of becoming a teacher and learning how to play the bagpipes shortly before she turned 40, she explored teaching many grade levels from kindergarten to elementary to middle to high school and adults. Susan enjoyed sharing the incredible mysteries of geography, language arts, history, and many other subjects with her students as well as the strange sounds of the bagpipes in her many travels around the country and world at large. She found nirvana in combining her loves of teaching, traveling, and bagpiping.

Moving to Colorado in 1985, she joined the City of Denver Bagpipe Band, an award-winning band that competed throughout the United States and Scotland. She quickly learned that bagpiping and teaching would change her life in ways never anticipated, including meeting her husband who was the pipe-major of the band.

Susan resides in Boulder with her husband, Andrew. They now spend time in their retirement from teaching (Andrew had taught French) mastering the Swiss alphorn.

Teaching the highland fling to students in Nepal

NOW AVAILABLE!
Curious Tales of a Wandering Teacher; What is Happening to Education Today?

A new, unique book, Curious Tales of a Wandering Teacher;
What is Happening to Education Today?
joins Piping Hot! Tales of a Wandering Bagpiper as a book
by an author who followed her bliss wandering from
state to state and country to country in various classrooms
while sharing the enjoyment of teaching and music. Her
Curious Tales will be available shortly to teachers,
students, parents, and anyone with an interest in what
teaching is all about, especially in these times of
such divisiveness in the schools.

Teacher, piper, and traveler Susan Hadley Planck weaves
together her sense of adventure with her
teaching and bagpiping.

CLICK HERE to BUY YOUR COPY from the AUTHOR

CLICK HERE to BUY YOUR COPY from AMAZON

A unique book, Piping Hot! Tales of a Wandering Bagpiper
is available to those people interested in all things Celtic!

Susan feeling like the pied piper in a small town in Chile.

Piper and traveler Susan Hadley Planck weaves together her
sense of adventure with her love of bagpiping.

Susan relates engaging stories of teaching in schools in
Oregon, California, Washington, and Colorado, and even
Nepal. Imagine playing bagpipes on top of Mt. Fuji
in Japan, on the Great Wall of China, at the base
of Mt. Fitzroy in South America and marching with
10,000 pipers through the streets of Edinburgh
in the 2000 Millennium parade.

These books are matchless, for those who have intimate experiences with teaching,
whether in the classroom or anywhere and those who love the skirl of the bagpipes,
have Scottish-Irish roots, or just enjoy interesting travel. Education is undergoing
real trauma today; Susan examines the evolution of just how much education
and curricula has changed in recent times. Enjoy reading about her zany adventures
whether teaching or bagpiping.

Susan writes from the perspective as a veteran teacher and member of the award-winning
City of Denver Pipe Band for more than 15 years. She gained insights into the antics of
students, fellow teachers, parents, and bagpipe bands, competitions, and piper personalities,
gigs from participating in “Memphis in May” celebration, and even Oktoberfests.
Humorously written, these books resonates with teachers, students, and parents, bagpipers,
and travelers looking for a different perspective.