So, my lovely parent’s came over today to pick something up, and my Mom asked me how the pipes were coming along. I replied that after about three weeks, I’m still butchering things up, but exponentially more excited about playing them with every day that passes. So, I played her a terrible version of that Uilleann pipe part on Mike Oldfield’s Ommadawn (track 2, 7:12). Well, I’ll tell ya, a tear welled up in her eye and I thought she was gonna bawl. I really couldn’t tell if it was because she was proud or because she thought I’d be better by now!!! Nothin’ like a Mother’s love.
A tear wells up in my wifes eye everytime I play, she is wondering how something so expensive could sound so bad. I tell her it’s not me it’s the weather!
I can remember at the time being well impressed at Mike Oldfield’s virtuosity, with all his bells whistles and PIPES(!)
I think it turned out to be Paddy Maloney playing that bit
A number of us from the L.A. Scots Pipe Band played Highland Pipes on a cut of Mike Oldfield’s Tubular Bells II CD. Eric Rigler coordinated the piping, and I think he also composed or arranged the piping parts as well. I would think that it would have been Eric Rigler playing the Uilleann Pipe parts, but for some reason I wasn’t invited to that session.
