Queen Elizabeth's Alarm Clock Is Live Bagpipes

Forget the classic alarm clock noise: Queen Elizabeth's day begins with the sound of live bagpipes every morning. A musician, titled Piper to the Sovereign, plays the bagpipes at 9 o'clock a.m. for 15 minutes within earshot of her window every morning.

Wherever the Queen sleeps—Windsor Castle, Buckingham Palace, or Balmoral—her bagpiper is there to get her day going. However, the musician reportedly does not join her at Sandringham. According to Tatler, "they never have room to put him up."

Former Pipe Master Gordon Webster served as the Queen's piper from 1995 to 1998, and said he had to memorize over 700 songs, because "the Queen doesn’t like you repeating the same tunes every day."

The tradition of a royal bagpiper began with Queen Victoria in 1843 after she and Albert visited the Highlands and stayed at Taymouth Castle, according to Bagpipe News. Victoria wrote to her mother during the visit, "We have heard nothing but bagpipes since we have been in the beautiful Highlands, and I am become so fond of it [sic], that I mean to have a Piper, who can, if you like it, pipe every night at Frogmore."

Soon, Victoria hired Angus MacKay as the first Piper to the Sovereign, and he played in the mornings and evenings. According to the magazine The Graphic in November 1882, "Queen Victoria is awakened every morning by sound of the Royal bagpipes beneath her bedroom window; the music generally lasts from eight to nine o’clock."

That role has continued over the decades, through present day; the current piper is Pipe Master Richard Grisdale, from the Royal Regiment of Scotland, who began his tenure in 2019.

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