When music teacher Pam Frasier saw her husband playing the bagpipes in the Bermuda Islands Pipe Band she couldn?t wait to join herself.

She decided to become a drummer, even though her main instrument was the flute. Over the course of a summer she taught herself to play the drums, and was performing with the Bermuda Islands Pipe Band by November, making her the only female drummer in the band.

She and her husband, Jamie, moved to Bermuda from Winnipeg, Canada two years ago.

?I play a snare drum,? she said. ?It?s called a side drum in the pipe band world, and there is also a base drum and a tenor drum in the band. I was lucky because, being a music teacher, I already knew how to read music. I was also on my summer holidays when I joined the band so I got a practice pad and drum sticks. I spent hours and hours a day learning the music. I was lucky because I could learn really fast, but it is never easy ? it takes a lot of practice.?

This week she will be performing with the band, the Bermuda Regiment Band and the National Gombey Troupe at the Musikschau der Nationen music festival in Bremen, Germany.

?I am really excited about going to Germany,? she said between classes at Clearwater Middle School shortly before leaving for Germany. ?I think it is going to be tiring at times, but it will be really fun. It will be the first thing like this I have ever performed in so I am really excited for that. It is also nice to go with my husband and the other band members. We have become really good friends.

?As far as Germany is concerned I have never been there and Bremen is out of the way,? she said. ?It will be neat to see a part of Germany that people don?t think of going to. There will be two performances a day, so it will be busy. We have all been trying to layer, because not many of us have our winter stuff here. It won?t be freezing ? I think it will be 40s and high 30s.?

There are 11 members of the Bermuda Islands Pipe Band in Germany, but the total number of members in the band is somewhere around 20.

?The numbers are always changing so I don?t know exactly how many are in the band,? she said. ?I think there was a time when we did our retreat last year when there were 19 people on parade. I think that is the biggest we have had.?

Mrs. Frasier said she didn?t know why she was the only female in the band, but she thought the numbers might increase in the near future.

?There have been other women in the band,? Mrs. Frasier said. ?There is a woman who is learning the chanter right now, before she gets her pipes. The chanters are the instruments that you use to practice the bagpipes, so you don?t have to be super loud and carry these huge things around. Hopefully, she will be getting her pipes in a few months or so.?

She said the Bermuda Islands Pipe Band would really like to encourage more women to join.

?There is nothing scary or very hard about it,? she said. ?It is just like learning any other instrument, it takes a little bit of work.?

Unfortunately, over the years drums have been perceived as a male instrument, possibly because of the way a drummer sits in front of the instrument, or possibly because making a lot of noise is associated with boys.

In the United States this trend is changing. An online website for female drummers www.drummergirl.com receives 5,000 to 7,000 hits per day. At Eddie Ming?s drum school in St. George?s there are several girls who are learning to play the drums, but at Clearwater Middle School, where Mrs. Frasier teaches music, there are no girls in the advanced drumline, although there are three in the beginner?s drumline.

?I do have a group of girls who like to do it, but generally it is mostly boys that like to come out,? she said. ?We have two drumlines in the school, one advanced and a beginner?s group. It is all boys, not because I chose boys, but because those are the ones who were interested.

?A lot of them take lessons outside of school. They are really keen with it. The other drumline I have is more of a beginner drum line. There are three girls in that. That is pretty much it out of the 26 kids who are involved in it. I am not sure why that is. I have never really approached the girls about why they don?t do it more.?

In fact, Clearwater Middle School is trying to ?drum up? more interest in drumming. The school is planning a drum festival in May and they are considering inviting a high school band to come to Bermuda from the United States.

Mrs. Frasier said last year, the Bermuda Islands Pipe Band played at Spring into the Arts for the schools.

?A lot of the kids who were there got to see me play,? she said. ?I play with them when we have drumline. I try to pass on some of the skills. I have only been playing for a year and a half but I do my best. Some of them have been taking lessons for longer than I have. We work with each other. I learn from them and they learn from me.?

Mrs. Frasier said the Bermuda Islands Pipe Band was not only interested in recruiting more women, but also more young people in general.

?Right now, there is a group of younger people, but not a group of really young people, kids still in school,? she said. ?We are really trying to recruit a lot. We have people learning right now, taking lessons on the chanters. We are always looking for people to come in and join the band. They can always come to our practices, if they are interested.?

For Mrs. Frasier and her husband, the bagpipes have special significance since they both have Scottish heritage.

?My husband and I both have Scottish heritage, my husband more so,? she said. ?We are Canadian, but in our ancestry, both sides of my family came from Scotland. I have no idea what part of Scotland, but we used to get letters all the time from the McNichols clan in Scotland. They used to send us letters to say come to visit us but we have never gone over. Maybe I will one day.?

Traditionally, the bagpipes were a war instrument, before evolving into an art form.

Mrs. Frasier talked a little bit about the different items that make up her uniform.

?This type of uniform is worn all over the world, except for probably Asian countries,? she said. ?Where I am from in Canada this is a really dressy outfit, but it is a typically dressy outfit. A lot of the competition bands will just wear white socks and brogues, the Scottish shoes, and then a blazer and white shirt and tie.?

She said she liked the Bermuda Islands Pipe Band uniform because it is dressy and stands out.

?Some days we hope that if we don?t sound as good as we could, at least we look good,? she joked. ?There are a lot of different parts on the uniform. It takes me a long time to get dressed.?

Her drum is attached to her by a sling. It is no light weight instrument. In fact, because it is made of Kevlar, it weighs more than the drums in the Bermuda Regiment Band.

?They are heavier than the Regiment Band?s drums, because theirs are made of wood and ours are made of Kevlar. You build some good back muscles when you are wearing them.

?We have been having lots of practices with the Bermuda Regiment and the gombeys and getting ready to go. Holding that thing for two hours is really hard on your back, but the next day you wake up you feel really strong. Every time you do it you feel a little bit more strong.?

Anyone interested in joining the Bermuda Islands Pipe Band should call band director A. David Frith or they can attend a practice.

The Bermuda Islands Pipe Band practices every Wednesday from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. in the music room at Saltus Grammar School.

?Most of us have to practice at home to keep up,? she said. ?It does take practice and we have a lot of performances. People could also talk to us at a performance. The Bermuda Islands Pipe Band also plays at Fort Hamilton at noon. This is always a slower time until the Beat the Retreats start up again.?