STV NewsAn Angus teenager who credits the bagpipes with saving her life has now composed her very own album.
Katie Robertson, from Carnoustie, who is known as The Wheeled Piper, has chronic health conditions and uses a wheelchair.
She first picked up the pipes in 2021, and the instrument has slowly taken over her life.
The 18-year-old began busking on the streets of Dundee and has thousands of followers on her social media channels.
“I first picked up the pipes in May 2021, and I didn’t have a clue how much it would change my life,” said Katie, who has curves in her spine from scoliosis, arthritis in her hands and lives in chronic pain.
“They (bagpipes) got me through spinal surgery that I underwent a few months later, and they saved my life when I neared organ failure just a wee while ago.”
STV NewsIt was after a performance at a village hall with acclaimed piper Ross Ainslie, who encouraged Katie to compose her own album, that the journey of making her own music began.
To achieve her dream of recording her self-penned music she needs to raise funds to the tune of £20,000.
She is three-quarters of the way to reaching her target on GoFundMe.
The misfortune of falling ill with Covid sparked a creative flair for writing her own tunes.
“I could suddenly just come out with these new original phrases of music that I would keep on adding to them and adding to them, and it would just evolve into fully fledged tunes,” said Katie.
“Once I had one tune, I would write another tune to go with it and then another one to go with that, and I soon realised these tunes weren’t just compositions that sounded nice for the sake of it, but they were a way of me displaying my innermost emotions.”
Titled Symbolism, the album, is the story of Katie’s life.
While there are no words, the tunes capture the emotion of her health struggles.
STV News“One of the sets, I hope people will be able to hear the uncertainty in it,” explained Katie.
“It was based on when I was in the hospital – I was near organ failure, and it was a really dark time in my life.
“I didn’t know if I was going to get better, and I tried to display with the music that chaos – you’re just in that eerie silence, you’re waiting, you’re waiting, and then they come to take you to the theatre.”
Due to arthiritis in her hands, Katie is unable to write but created the artwork to accompany the album using an app on her phone.
The images reflect the meaning of the music.
Any proceeds from future album sales will be ploughed into creating a tune book so other musicians can learn her tunes and find out more about the meaning of the music, the inspiration behind it, and the artwork.
“The eye is the window to the soul and my soul is made up of music. My heart and soul has went into creating music and I wanted to be able to show that.”
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