At Ohio State, Saturday football games bring a wide range of sounds to the tailgates outside Ohio Stadium — speakers blaring music; empty beer cans rattling on the asphalt; throngs of people cheering, “Go Bucks,” or “O-H” and “I-O” back and forth at each other; and of course, bagpipes.

That last sound usually comes courtesy of 17-year-old bagpipe player Brody Alexander, who said he’s been performing at home football tailgates for the past three years. 

“A lot of them ask me if I’m going to be the halftime show, and I’m like, ‘Oh, I wish, hopefully someday.’ They always just come up to talk to me and say, ‘Oh, I’ve seen you play here and here and here,’ or they ask me to come back to their tailgate, so it’s really nice,” said Alexander, a senior at Columbus City Schools’ Fort Hayes Career Center. “I always get to see people that I know, and they know me, and they’re happy to see me there.”

For Alexander, playing the bagpipes — whether at tailgates or at the National Veterans Memorial and Museum, where he performed on Veteran’s Day earlier this month — is a way for him to connect with people through his love for the instrument. 

The first time Alexander heard the bagpipes, he was just 3 years old. 

More specifically, Alexander said he heard them while accompanying his grandfather to greet veterans at John Glenn Columbus International Airport as they arrived home from a trip with Honor Flight — a nonprofit organization that flies World War II and Vietnam War veterans out to Washington D.C. to visit memorials dedicated to their service. 

“My great grandfather was in the military, so my grandpa was a really big part in [Honor Flight]. He would take me to every single homecoming when the veterans would come home,” Alexander said. “I would go there, and I would go shake their hands and salute all of them for the heroes’ welcome. There’s always a really long line of people, and they have signs and they have all this stuff. And then there’s bagpipes to welcome them home because it’s just a nice sound.”

When describing the sound, Alexander said it was deeply emotional in a way he had never heard before.

“It sounded like a more beautiful organ because it has a lot of different sounds that you just don’t really hear,” Alexander said. “It has the background sound of the drones, and then it has the little sounds from the holes and stuff, so it has a lot of different sounds, and it just really spoke to me.”

Alexander said this sound was “so amazing and so different” that it sparked an enduring interest in the instrument.

“I reached out to the bagpiper who was there at Honor Flight — and it was only this one bagpiper, he was really old. I just talked to him, and I was like, ‘I love this sound,’” Alexander said. “He said, ‘You should try to pick it up, you should try to find lessons.’”

According to his mother Courtney Mahovlic, Alexander was a student at Central College Christian School when he met Glenn Mackie, a local bagpiper teaching lessons to children in the school’s basement.

“There was this sign at the school where [Mackie] was trying to start a band,” Mahovlic said. “Specifically, he was trying to start a kids band. It said, ‘Want to learn how to play the bagpipes? We’ll teach you.’ So, [Alexander] went to him.”

Alexander said when he went in for his first lesson, Mackie was surprised at how young he was.

Brody the Bagpiper plays “Carmen Ohio” on his bagpipes amongst tailgaters before the Ohio State football game. Credit: Sandra Fu | Photo Editor

“He was like, ‘Whoa, you’re way too young,’ because I was younger than anybody who would ever really go into it,” Alexander said. “I was 7. The other kids around were, like, 14 or 15. He was like, ‘I don’t know this is gonna work, but we can make it work.’”

Mackie, who has taught the bagpipes to children and adults for over 25 years, tells the story in a similar fashion. He said Alexander remains the youngest student he has ever taken on.

“[Alexander] showed up with his grandmother at 7 years old, and the kid was just so adamant that he wanted to play the bagpipes,” Mackie said. “First of all, I don’t know if you’ve met [Alexander], but he is probably the nicest, most respectful young man I’ve run into in a long time. And so I said, ‘OK, I’ll do it,’ and that’s how it got started.”

Alexander said he considered the bagpipes the next logical step of a childhood fascination with instruments and playing music. Along with the bagpipes, Alexander said he plays piano, violin, guitar, trumpet and percussion.

“When I was really young, I would always be playing instruments. I have videos of when I was just learning to walk, picking on the piano, and screaming and singing,” Alexander said. “Piano was my first instrument, then violin; that was right when I got into kindergarten, and I was picking that up really fast, so then I just started expanding and doing every instrument I could.”

Mackie said that though it took effort and patience to get Alexander fully comfortable with the bagpipes, he was impressed by the young musician’s work ethic, motivation and positive attitude. 

“Initially, it was a lot of work because he was into a lot of other instruments. He played piano, he played violin, he played guitar, you know? I’m like, ‘OK, this kid’s just got way too much going on,’ and I’m thinking, ‘I don’t know if this is going to work out or not,’” Mackie said. “But he just kept working at it. And he really stuck with the bagpipes. I could just see the determination in him. This kid’s gonna get there, he’s gonna actually do this.”

Mackie said he was particularly impressed by how eager Alexander was to perform for audiences. He said as soon as Alexander graduated from his practice chanter — a smaller variation of the bagpipe’s chanter, or a pipe with finger holes on which the melody is played — to the bagpipes, he began playing in public.

“Here’s a kid who must have been, let’s say, 9 years old when he got his bagpipes,” Mackie said. “Once I got it set up for him, and he started playing, he immediately went out and started playing out in public. He just couldn’t wait to get out there and do it.”

Mahovlic said she admires and appreciates her son’s willingness to share his music with people, whether he’s talking to passersby at Ohio State tailgates or playing for veterans and first responders.

“It was just amazing because he could always pick something up, and he could just play it,” Mahovlic said. “I’ve always just been in awe because I have no music abilities, none whatsoever. I don’t know where it came from. It’s just a gift that he has, and he loves to share it with people.”

For Alexander, the bagpipes’ expressive sound sets it apart, which he said motivates him to continue practicing the instrument and growing as a performer. Alexander said he’ll even be performing at the World Pipe Band Championships in Glasgow, Scotland, in 2026.

“I like how when I get to play in front of people, I touch every single one of them,” Alexander said. “When I get to play, I get to pour all my emotions out into my music, and it just makes me feel really happy.”