Corvallis — You can hear the bagpipe a block away. The bagpipe is like that. To some, it’s the music of the gods, to others, the sound of two cats of different sizes sewn inside a burlap sack and loudly protesting their mistreament. Either way, there’s no denying that its singular sound carries.

On this particular occasion, however, you can hear the bagpipe because its player, Rob Gandara, has left his front door open, as if serenading the neighborhood with its banshee’s wail. He’s rehearsing along with his band, Ordinance, for a performance at Cozmic Pizza in Eugene, and after that, at SummerBlue, a fund-raiser for the Benton County Democrats to be held from 2 to 7 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 25, at Dancing Oaks Nursery outside of Corvallis.

The event will feature wine by Airlie vineyards, food and plenty of intriguing foliage. But most of all, it will feature music, running from the jazzy beats of the John Bliss Xtet to the melancholy singing saw instrumentals of Crosscut to the Spanish-Celtic hybrid that is Ordinance.

The band has grown slowly over the years from the roots Gandara laid down back in 1997, when he first decided to learn the bagpipe while traveling around Spain. Returning to Corvallis, he began performing at the Saturday Market, on street corners, outside bars, wherever.

His guerrilla take on the traditional instrument would eventually evolve into a St. Patrick’s Day tradition involving roving from bar to bar, picking up followers along the way. In 1995, he picked up a second instrumentalist, as well, in the form of Molly Gage, a violinist who agreed to make the rounds with him that year. The following year added didgeridoo player Dan Berry to the mix.

“At some point I realized the band needed a didge,” Gandara said. “It came to me in an epiphany.”

Adding the didge meant that another D or C note an octave below the ones Gandara’s bagpipe produced would be added to the sound, creating a low-end to the harmonic drone. “It adds a quality you won’t hear with any other bagpipes,” Gandara says.

Yet even that drone wasn’t enough for Gandara, who recruited local drummer and actor Craig Farrell to contribute guitar to the mix after running into him at a punk rock festival at Starker Arts Park. Earlier this year, Joel Hirsch joined the procession, contributing de Jimbe and other percussion.

On a sunny Thursday evening all of them except Hirsch are crowded into Gandara’s living room, churning out a sound that is part traditional Celtic music, part danceable rhythms and part punk attitude. Gandara is playing a Gaelician bagpipe partially of his own construction. He says it’s softer than a traditional bagpipe, and if the calmly cooing baby on the floor is any indication, he’s right.

Still, the music is far from soft, beginning with a surreal, almost spacey humming courtesy of the pipes and the didge. From there, Farrell begins to add bright, rhythmic layers with his acoustic guitar, and Gage brings in the sound of an Irish fiddle courtesy of her amplified violin. The contrast between otherworldly droning of the wind instruments and the earthiness of the strings is startling and yet soothing at the same time.

From there, they move through a more traditional jig to a piece highlighting the violin, allowing Gage and her bow to wander cheerfully around the neck of her instrument. Farrell rocks the baby, Emmett Gage, gently with his foot as the tune flows along.

Then Gandara says, “This is our foray into pop music,” and the band launches into “The Raggle Taggle Gypsy,” a traditional piece adapted by the group to suit their very contemporary needs.

Sad violin joins in the harmony created by the bagpipes and didge as Farrell takes the spotlight, singing in an Irish brogue somewhere between the traditional wail of a folksinger and the sneering attitude of Shane MacGowan of Pogues fame. The nontraditional bass of the didge keeps the beat pulsing at the low end. In some ways, the music sounds like the soundtrack to a Celtic Western, if that makes sense.

“What I feel in this music is how it’s the sound of a passionate culture,” Farrell says. “When you listen to Celtic music, especially music composed for the pipes, there’s no mistaking the emotions behind it. You can hear how people fought, loved, mourned and partied in this music.”

“I think of punk the same way, music expressing raw emotion, something you can close your eyes, bow your head or raise your fist to.”

Ordinance has two albums, “Pelican” and “Crow,” the second of which was produced by Dave Trenkel in his Corvallis studio. For more information, see www.myspace.com/

ordinancecelticmusic. For more information on Gandara’s instrument-building business, go to www.pipemakersunion.com.