It was just after 8 o’clock Wednesday evening when Howard Heller tore open a small plastic package of foam earplugs and shoved a spongy wad into each ear.

His fellow band members had already started warming up their bagpipes and were traversing the 12th floor of an NYU building in downtown Manhattan, skirling an out-of-sync mix of notes. In a few minutes, the group, an eclectic mix of about 15 people, would be standing in a semicircle practicing a fast-paced song, “The Jolly Beggarman.”

“I’ve been playing since 1992,” Mr. Heller said as he held up the clumsy looking instrument to explain each part.

Mr. Heller, who was standing in a 4-foot by 4-foot supply closet as he spoke so that his voice could be heard, is one of hundreds of bagpipe players throughout the metropolitan area whose market value suddenly skyrockets in the month of March, when St. Patrick’s Day parades and events get going.

The “pipe major” or leader of his band, NYU’s Pipes and Drums, Brian Meagher Jr., knows the routine all too well. He has been playing since he was a child and is regarded as one of the best pipers in the region.

Mr. Meagher has cut back on the number of March gigs he’s playing this year, but, even so, he has a half-dozen commitments and is farming out the ones he can’t make.

Mr. Meagher (pronounced MAR), an assistant district attorney in Brooklyn, is a fourth-generation bagpipe player from an Irish-American family that is accustomed to seeing him play at family functions with his father, brother, and cousins. He teaches several other bands in the city, including the Fire Department’s prestigious Emerald Society Pipes & Drums, and is a regular on the piping competition circuit.

Mr. Meagher played Saturday with the NYU band in the West Hampton St. Patrick’s Day Parade. He will play the city’s Fifth Avenue parade Thursday, a parade in Pearl River on Palm Sunday, plus an office party and a breakfast at Brooklyn Borough Hall before the month is through.

“The only reason I’m not doing more is because of my job,” Mr. Meagher said on Wednesday night after practice. “I know guys in the police band, in the fire band, they’re doing a tremendous amount. They’re probably doing five, six nights a week.”

The “pipe sergeant” for the New York Police Department’s band, Daniel Sprague, a Brooklyn police officer, is one of those guys. He and other members of the band, which also is part of the Irish-American police officers’ Emerald Society, flew to Florida this weekend to play a parade in Hollywood for retired police officers.

“It becomes a very busy month with everything from St. Paddy’s Day parties to parades, to weddings, to funerals,” Mr. Sprague said during a phone interview Friday afternoon.

“I have at least one parade a weekend. I have several weddings per weekend. I’ve got different St. Patrick’s Day parties at grammar schools, at high schools, and at other organizations,” he said.

Last week he played at St. Edmund’s School at Brooklyn and in a St. Patrick’s Day parade at Binghamton. On Thursday – the actual holiday – he’s playing in a law office, a brokerage firm, in the Fifth Avenue parade, and at a bunch of bars, including P.J. Hanley’s, an Irish pub on Court Street in Brooklyn. His motto is: “St. Patrick’s Day starts very early in the morning and ends pretty late into the evening.”

Mr. Sprague, who lives at Tottenville on Staten Island, shares the passion Mr. Meagher has for the instrument. Both practice daily, teach bands, and compete. They talk about the instrument as they would a friend who is part of their lives, for better or worse.

“It’s an instrument that requires a lot of dedication,” Mr. Sprague said. “It’s a simple instrument in the principal breakdown of it, but it takes coordination. Once you master it on the recorder then you have to learn how to blow up the bagpipe, squeeze your arm, and keep the pressure on the bags. Getting that nice sweet sound takes a lot of practice.”

Though the instrument is most commonly associated with the Irish and the Scottish, it is said to have ties to dozens of different cultures over thousands of years. It is still used in the British military, a fact Mr. Meagher, who regularly cracks jokes, pointed out when asked about his no-nonsense leadership style with the NYU band.

On Wednesday he methodically made his way around the semicircle during practice, tuning each member’s instrument so that all of the bagpipes’ tubular “drones” produced melodies in the same key. The band, which is tiny compared to the municipal bands, is a mix of NYU graduates, students, and people with affiliations to the school, some looser than others. Band members said their “pipe major” has a special gift for finding the perfect pitch.

Mr. Meagher, who was wearing a green-striped shirt, also seems to have an uncanny ability to identify who has failed to make a clean stop. In piping, all of the air must be released from the instrument’s bag before the song ends. Otherwise the air trails out of the drones and the stop is considered flawed.

At Wednesday’s practice the culprit was Howard Heller. Mr. Meagher made the group replay the end of the song several times before its finish met the major’s standard.

All the musicians had red faces and puffy cheeks as they followed Mr. Meagher’s count.

So where does the passion for such a primitive instrument stem from for a single guy living on Manhattan’s East Side?

“What I love is that I have a special relationship with my family because of the pipes,” Mr. Meagher said. “It’s a relationship that I probably would not have, but for the pipes.”

One member of the NYU band, John Maynard – who colors his bushy eyebrows green when he plays St. Patrick’s Day events – said the opportunities to perform are countless.

He chose a light schedule this March, but in the past he played in the AIDS unit at Bellevue Hospital for several years on St. Patrick’s Day, and he almost always plays in the “all inclusive” parade in Queens – the city’s only one in which gay and lesbian groups are welcome to march.

Another member of the group, John Henderson, joked in an e-mail that piper’s wives – most of the pipers are men – come in two types during the busy season: “Very Understanding” or “Ex.” His, he said, falls into the first category.

Mr. Sprague said his wife has always accepted his passion, even during March, when he divides most of his free time among St. Patrick’s Day events.

“On our very first date I picked her up in a kilt, so she sort of knew what she was in for,” he said.

His daughter is only 17 months old, but he’s hoping she’ll pick up the pipes, the drums, Irish step dancing, or some other skill that she’ll perform every St. Patrick’s Day.

Mr. Meagher was supposed to attend Fire Department band practice tonight, but it was canceled, because all the musicians were too busy with their hectic St. Patrick’s Day schedules.