Honeymoon Bridge : Crowdfunding until January 15th 2026
Rewards on Crowdfunder
Help record Honeymoon Bridge – a new double album of Scots songs and tunes for Lindsay System Scottish smallpipes and fiddle.
If you’ve just seen a short video of a glowing new bagpipe in your feed – that’s me. The instrument is the Lindsay System Scottish smallpipe chanter, a two-octave, keyless chanter I’ve been shaping for nearly twenty years.
Honeymoon Bridge is where I sit down with that chanter and long-time collaborator Roo Geddes to record the Scots songs, original pieces, airs and tune sets it grew up on in my hands. An intimate, slow-burning, pipes-led record – rooted in old music, but very much alive to now.
My last crowdfunded album, Two Boats Under the Moon, began life on this same platform and went on to:
- ★★★★★ BBC Music Magazine
- ★★★★ Songlines
- ★★★★ The Scotsman
It also found a home with US folk radio – reaching the NACC Folk and FAI Folk charts – and drew kind words from musicians there, including singer-songwriter Tom Brosseau, who said it “will warm your heart.”
Crowdfunder backers made that first album of old and new Scots songs possible. This time the pipes are stepping forward. The aim is simple: to give the Lindsay System smallpipes the focused, full-length, ballad-and-tunes record they’ve quietly earned.
What is the Lindsay System?
On the surface, it looks like a set of Scottish smallpipes – the quiet, indoor cousin of the Highland pipes. Inside, the Lindsay System is a different kind of chanter. Instead of the usual one-octave range, it stretches to just over two octaves (and with careful voicing, close to three), while still sounding like Scottish smallpipes and feeling natural under a piper’s hands.
In a tradition as careful with change as Scottish piping, it’s rare for a new design to take root at all. Since I first brought it out in Glasgow, the Lindsay System has moved from workshop experiment to working tool: it now turns up in concerts, recordings and teaching as well as in my own work.
Two early prototype sets are now in the Museum of Piping at the National Piping Centre in Glasgow, and the system has already appeared on film soundtracks such as The Outrun and My Old School, as well as on stage, on a range of critically acclaimed records, and in teaching.
What will the album feel like?
At heart it’s an intimate duo record – smallpipes and fiddle, with my voice stepping in on certain songs and ballads, and the occasional piano from Roo. The album sits in the same quiet, luminous world as Two Boats Under the Moon, but this time the pipes are the main storyteller, with Roo’s fiddle and piano close at their shoulder.
We’re drawing on two strands:
Traditional tunes – pieces like “Auld Springs Gie’s Nae Price”, “Echo Mocks the Corncrake”, “How Can I Be Sad On My Wedding Day?” and other rare old Scots tunes that this instrument grew up with, and grew around.
New writing from the same ground – songs and instrumentals shaped on the Lindsay System, including the title song “Honeymoon Bridge” (written for the bridge in Glen Croe on a perfectly frozen day), and new work such as a setting of the G. M. Hopkins poem “Inversnaid”, alongside more that will unfold as we rehearse.
It’s also a rare thing: a contemporary singer-songwriter record where the singer accompanies themselves primarily on the pipes, alongside self-accompanied traditional singing and tune sets that have bonded strongly to one instrument over years.
Why now?
Over the last decade, the Lindsay System has been steadily taken up by pipers and has found its way into film scores, commissions and album projects. The instrument has arrived. What hasn’t been gathered in one place yet is the strand of repertoire it came out of in the first place – the old tunes that made the instrument necessary, and the songs and melodies written with it in hand.
Honeymoon Bridge is a concentrated window into that repertoire – a living, playable songbook for this new voice in Scottish music, and a chance to hear an instrument that’s already travelling through the world, brought back to its source and heard at full length.
What your support will pay for
Every pledge, large or small, goes directly into:
- Studio time and engineering – time enough to record at a listening tempo, not rush through sets.
- Fair fees for Roo and any guests who join us on specific tracks.
- Mixing and mastering, so the smallpipes and fiddle sound as rich on speakers and headphones as they do in the room.
- Artwork, design and manufacturing of physical copies, plus a proper digital release.
- The practicalities of postage and campaign costs, so rewards actually reach you.
We’re also applying to Creative Scotland’s Crowdmatch programme. If accepted, a portion of what you pledge here will be matched by public funding – effectively doubling your help.
What you’ll receive as a backer
At Crowdfunder you can choose between early and standard digital albums, signed CDs, two-album bundles and the limited three-disc bundle including the Chanter 2 EP. For a very small number of supporters, there’s also the chance to own a precision-made 1:1 scale Lindsay System chanter display model, mounted and signed, together with the full music bundle.
Above all, whichever level you choose, you’ll know this record exists because you chose to help make it happen. If the idea of old Scottish tunes and new songs carried forward by a new Scottish instrument appeals to you – whether you’re in Glasgow or North Dakota – please consider pledging.
Help us cross Honeymoon Bridge together, and give the Lindsay System smallpipes the double album they deserve.