Capt. Hesketh Miller plays an instrument that not many try outside of Scotland — the bagpipe. Miller, a member of the 603rd Air Control Squadron at Aviano Air Base in Italy, has been playing the instrument for almost half his life. (Kent Harris / S&S)
AVIANO AIR BASE, Italy — Hesketh Miller appreciates an audience as much as the next musician. He’s just not sure his potential audiences always appreciate him.
After all, it’s not all that easy to play the bagpipe softly. And it’s not a sound that Italians are used to hearing in their neighborhoods.
“Since it takes an hour to get in tune, it’s not something that I play at home,” he says. “It’s not the kind of sound you’d want to be foisting on people.”
That includes his wife, Maria.
“She’s from the Dominican Republic,” he says, “so as far as she’s concerned, it’s completely foreign.”
So Miller, a captain in the Air Force and senior director for aircraft control with the 603rd Air Control Squadron, sometimes practices during lunch in a parking lot on the unit’s compound. He also found time to play while the unit was deployed to Iraq earlier this year.
“He was our music pretty much every night,” says Master Sgt. Chris Lopez.
Senior Master Sgt. Arleen Heath said she heard the distinctive sounds near a shift change on Balad Air Base early one morning. She said had to investigate.
“I thought, ‘That’s quite a sight to see in a place like that,’ ” she recalls, adding that it was a nice change of pace. “I think for a moment or two, I didn’t think I was [in Iraq].”
Miller has played the bagpipe for 10 years. He’s part Scottish, but the bagpipe wasn’t something passed down.
He said he always liked the sound of the pipes, so when his parents saw a bagpipe band at a parade, they asked how their son could learn to play.
The pipers graciously offered lessons.
“It was free, so the price was right,” Miller said, smiling.
The instrument itself wasn’t free. A set of bagpipes ranges from $800 to $1,700, Miller says. He’s had the same set he bought through the mail a decade ago.
“Bagpipe gigs will generally bring back your investments after about six or seven gigs,” he says.
And apparently fewer if alcohol is involved. Miller says he played at tailgate parties before football games while attending Boston College. He’d make at least $300 a shot in tips.
“They’d also give you beer and food,” he says. “I could stock my refrigerator until the next home game.”
Miller says the school’s fight song was a favorite. But he adds that other songs are harder to play.
“The national anthem is one they always ask for that just doesn’t work,” he says, noting that his instrument can only hit nine notes. “So you’re limited in what kind of music you can play.”
Miller has played at a number of happy occasions — such as weddings and anniversaries — and more somber events such as funerals. He received praise for his performance during the services for Airman 1st Class Antoine Holt, a fellow member of the 603rd killed in a mortar attack at Balad.
“It was very memorable,” Lopez says.
Miller, who doesn’t play any other instruments, hopes to form a bagpipe band of sorts at Aviano. But an advertisement he placed in the base newspaper, the Vigileer, hasn’t gotten any responses.
Lopez said Miller sounds just fine on his own. But the music isn’t something he and other airmen are used to hearing.
“He was taking requests,” Lopez says of the nightly sessions in Iraq. “We just didn’t know what to ask him to play.”
