Pay It Forward: Brìghde Chaimbeul on Martyn Bennett

Scottish smallpiper Brìghde Chaimbeul reflects on the influence that Canadian-Scottish musician Martyn Bennett had on her mesmerising sound.

Martyn Bennett was a musician from Scotland – a piper and fiddle player mainly, and then an electronic musician. I listened to him from a young age, but I feel like I got to know his music more when I started playing smallpipes when I was 14, 15. Martyn played a lot of smallpipes, and at that time – even now – they’re not as well known as other pipes. It was quite rare to find any recordings or videos or anything at all of people playing them. I was listening to Hamish Moore and Martyn Bennett.

Up until that point, I’d been playing the Highland pipes. But the instrument I play now, the smallpipes in C, is quite unusual traditionally. The key people normally play in would be A. The reason I started playing in C was because Martyn Bennett wrote a piece for smallpipes in C that I wanted to play in school. So I asked Fin, who makes my pipes, if he had a C set I could use. And that’s been my sound ever since.

There’s an album of Martyn’s called Hardland that was a lightbulb moment with his music. He plays some tunes that are slightly different to Highland tunes, more baroque-influenced from the Lowlands. But he recorded them on the smallpipes, and one track has this crazy sub-bass – this, like, blast. It starts quite traditionally, and then suddenly goes doooof. I remember thinking, that’s pretty epic. Nobody was doing that at the time. He was amalgamating soundworlds.

I have a yearning to make sounds I haven’t heard before, or have the pipes in a context I haven’t heard before, more than wanting to irk traditionalists. I suppose it’s just pushing the soundworld the pipes can be in. But also, it’s an atmosphere thing – like, stretching how much of that big, hypnotic drone atmosphere you can get out of an acoustic instrument. 

It is hard to choose just one influence, but with Martyn, it’s about the start of my journey. But Colin [Stetson] is a more recent influence, and collaborating with him was a massive turning point – expanding soundworlds and techniques, and even just practically, thinking about ways you can mic up an acoustic instrument to the point you’re getting this really big sound.

I always wonder what Martyn Bennett would be creating today if he was still here; it’s something I think about. He died in 2003. Fin and Hamish, who make my pipes, they would’ve played with him and known him. I actually did know his mother when I was younger. I remember being around her, and she would sing Gaelic songs.