A Giant At My Shoulder

Uilleann Pipes
1

http://www.rte.ie/radio1/agiantatmyshoulder/1094827.html

Programme 1: 3rd June 2006
Liam O’Flynn talks about Seamus Ennis
(First broadcast 7th May 1999)

This is a link to Liam O’Flynn talking about his time with Seamus Ennis.Recorded in 1999 and re released by RTE :slight_smile:
Slán Go Foill
Uilliam

2

Is that the one where he talks about sitting in the Ford Zephyr with Seamus one night, Seamus driving along at high speed asking him ‘Liam, can you see a white line on the road’ ‘Yes Seamus I can’ ‘well Liam I can see two… and they are not parallel’ . :stuck_out_tongue:

3

:laughing: :laughing: :laughing:

4

So what is the Ghost C?

5

Good spot Uilliam
:thumbsup:

David

6

I private joke between Seamus and Willie.We will never know I suppose…
Slán Go Foill
Uilliam

7

If the RTÉ link disappears again, you can always find this program in Fr. Pat’s archives on UilleannObsession under 2002.
http://www.uilleannobsession.com/links_radio.html

(How does he do it?)

djm

8

Willie Clancy had a great way of playing C natural where he would roll his top hand index finger about halfway off of B and at the same time just very slightly vent the G and F# holes. At the Seattle tionól earlier this year, David Power said he reckoned this was one of Willie’s great contributions to the art of uilleann piping (and David makes great use of this technique as well, it should be noted). When done well, you can really get the chanter to growl and slur all the way up from G to a kind of flat, funky-sounding C natural…perhaps the closest a woodwind instrument can come to imitating the sound of a sitar or dobro…Anyway, this may have been the “Ghost C” that Séamus was refering to…But as Uilliam says, we’ll never know for sure.

9

Liam Flynn (not the Planxty piper) thought that Clancy was bending the CNat partly because the note was difficult to play on his pipes:-

“Take for example the C natural. This is a relatively new invention. In the
past it was keyed or you had to play some pretty weird and difficult
fingering to get a C natural of any quality. You just couldn’t get the
modern and much abused C natural note. You had to half hole and all sorts of things. Yes people did bend this half holed note all over the place,
Willie Clancy made a lot of use of this. It has been observed that bending
the note served two functions firstly it sounded good but also it meant that
a listener couldn’t notice that the note was two miles out of tune. When
a note is weak you ornament it to hide the weakness.”

10

So that’s what that technique is called Ghost C. I’ve been able to get a simmilar sound by openning up the Cn and doing a slide without a B note before it then half-holling the C# hole with Cn fingering. It sounds imaculate next to the drones :smiley:. I’ve also found out that I can get a Ghost A note on my bagpipes as well. This is done by playing A and oppening the Cn Key at the same time. It sounds very mystical.

Cheers L42B :slight_smile:

11

I am not so sure Liam O Flynn would say those things, actually I am certain he wouldn’t. . There used to be a blind piper from England posting to the lists named Liam Flynn. These comments surely sound more like his voice. I think you may have got the wrong end of the stick about who was actually making these comments.

12

Yeah, that kinda took me by surprise as well. There’s a picture of Liam O’Flynn grinning like a loon and playing with Willie Clancy as the frontispiece of “The Piping of Willie Clancy” book. He didn’t look too pissed off with Willie’s playing there.

I’m sure there are things about Willie Clancy’s style that O’Flynn isn’t crazy about, but I find it seriously hard to believe he would ever say anything THAT critical…

13

Peter is right! This from the Uilleann mailing list archive:

Date: Mon, 3 Jun 2002 19:51:37 +0100
Reply-To: Liam Flynn <[log in to unmask]>
Sender: Uilleann pipe mailing list <[log in to unmask]>
From: Liam Flynn <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: Re: Getting Started
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=“iso-8859-1”

Hi, I’m new on the list, and ‘no’ before anyone sends me a concert booking I’m not the famous Planxty piper. I have received some of his fan mail which is kind of interesting sometimes."

I remember being somewhat startled when this individual started posting to the mailing list several years ago, but there’s no need for alarm here. Not the same Liam O’Flynn we know and love.

14

I am very glad this has been cleared up.

15

Yes, I remember Liam Flynn from the Bromyard Festival years ago. He used to have a braille watch looped around his mainstock to keep track of the time.

16

Thanks for clearing that up. The fella posting on the mailing list obviously had a lot of experience, so I thought he was the famous Liam, but he did have some unusual opinions.

Andrew

17

I would say he had his own opinions..which is always a good thing.
Saw him a good while back in Milltown.(The year of the riot on the beach) He was the only one who enjoyed some healthy vegetarian food :boggle: frae a new age grunge selling rice and dog hair frae his old van/camper home parked on the corner of Ballards Rd.Poor old Liam was licking his lips and I didnae have the heart to tell him that the dog seemed to have more than a passing interest in the preparation of the dish of the day.In fact I would say that the dog did prepare the dish of the day. :wink:
Slán Go Foill
Uilliam