I have been reading the tributes to the late Joe Shannon. Unfortunately, I did not get a chance to meet the man, nor have I heard his music. One tribute states “Joe Shannon is one of the last representatives of the “American” style of playing the uilleann pipes.” Now, I think I have a good idea about what is meandt by this statement, but can someone define this for me and give me some feel for if it is still a valid destinction in the piping world of today?
Thanks,
t
I can’t think of any pipers today that play in this style. I have heard some private recordings of Paddy Moloney where he definitely captured the energy of this style but I can’t say for sure that it was, this style. It is still a completely relevent style though in my opinion and one that is well worth researching and striving for.
I tried to meet Joe on my last two trips to Chicago but both fell through. I’m not even sure why I wanted to meet him so badly, maybe as he was a constant link to Mike Carney and piping of the last couple of centuries? I was compelled to meet him though and I am sorry it never came to be. May he rest in peace.
Did you hear the Céilí House tribute to Joe Clean Tommykleen? It is archived here:
http://www.uilleannobsession.com/links_radio.html#ceilihouse
Slán,
Patrick.
I think the term refers mostly to the pipers of the 78 rpm era, Tom Ennis, Patsy Touhey, Mike Gallagher, Mike Carney etc who recorded in America.
Maybe it’s better for Jim to go into this but Joe Shannon once told me how he played at home with the 78rpm’s ‘just myself and Tom Ennis’
Sean McKiernan has mastered the style quite well but mixng it with great measures of Willie Clancy, a powerful and intriguing mix indeed.
I hope to transcribe a few tunes of Joe’s for a future issue of An Piobaire. and that will get into what is the American style. Touhey ends up being the source, with Tom Ennis, Mike Carney, Michael Gallagher, Tom Busby, and Joe Shannon picking up aspects, for the American style.
One hallmark is to trill and not roll notes, especially G and A. Joe was always moving his two top fingers (the vaudeville piper Charley Mack told him that Touhey was always moving his top fingers when he played) but also was able to ‘hammer’ down his top hand ring finger twice when playing G. That same movement allowed Joe to play a bottom D with that same movement repeated fast in place of what most pipers would consider standard there, a cran. None of the pipers mentioned ‘embellish’ C natural in their playing.
Orriginaly Posted By Patrick D’Arcy
I can’t think of any pipers today that play in this style. I have heard some private recordings of Paddy Moloney where he definitely captured the energy of this style but I can’t say for sure that it was, this style. It is still a completely relevent style though in my opinion and one that is well worth researching and striving for.
Orriginaly Posted By Tommy Kleen
…“Joe Shannon is one of the last representatives of the “American” style of playing the uilleann pipes.”…
From the sound samples that I’ve heared it sounds like it’s a highly technisized clossed style of fingering. I believe that Paddy Moloney plays a very simmilar style of fingering to Tommy Reck (although not as heavily articulated). It’s a sound that (I love) and have been trying to mimik ever since a went to a Chieftains concert last year. No sucess so fare I’m sorry to say.
It would be nice if someone could do a write up of this style in An Piobari and compare it to todays open and closed styles. Jim when you transcribe the tunes can you also write an article on this style of piping include some definitions of techniques and how the played.
Cheers L42B 
This is very interesting stuff.
Speaking of Sean McKiernan, last year there was a brief posting of some of his playing. The recordings were pulled before I could get at them. I would love to hear Sean, and that storied set of pipes! Any way to give them a listen?
t
bump
Any (more) experienced pipers care to comment on this so called “American” style of piping. It’d be great if we could hear some sound samples (if possible). Maybe some tutorials as well.
When I saw Paddy play a few tunes a while back. He seemed to do cranning on the G. But I don’t know if that’s really what I saw. Paddy was playing the jig so quickly that I couldn’t pick up on the technique being played.
Cheers L42B
I’ve heard it all now, American style, I give in. 
Wake me up someone Pleasezz. 
Prefacing with my ignorance, I’ve heard that the “American Style” was the style brought to the New World in its day and survived basically unchanged while pipering on its native soil continued to evolve. The older ways eventually got the name “American Style” and implied a window into the past, not unlike Cape Breton music is to Scots music these days.
Anybody else heard this one?
bump
Let’s keep this thread alive fellas’s. I would like to find out more about this ‘American style’. Let’s bring back the old times on this forums of interesting discussions and opinions on piping style put out in the open (but without starting WW3 please). It’ll help beginners with their piping ten-folde.
Cheeres L42B
Hey Clean Tommykleen,
Sean MacKiernan is a consumate piper, just wonderful stuff. He does have the thrust of the American style alright Peter but I think his Clancy influences pull him away from the Yankee shorelines and closer to the West Coast of Eireann. What do you think?
There are some photos of Sean and his marvelous pipes on my site Tommy incase you weren’t aware? I remember there were videos… mighty stuff! Wasn’t it a Spanish piper or someone that took the footage?
Mmmm…Merlot!
Patrick.
Spelling correction.
Call me neive Patrick. But how do you define the ‘American Style’ of piping. Is it possible to flesh out (as it where) on what’s already been said. I’d like to find out more.
Cheers L42B
I have some early tapes of him here and at the time he was very strongly studying Carney and TYouhey, no Clancy had crept in at that time. I think his piping now is much richer much more developed than when he was jsut doing the touhey thing, he came back t oireland to hear Clancy and living in Connemara, what else can you be drawn to than the Whesht.
I think Jim outlines it very well there L42B. All you need do is listen to some old recordings of Patsy Touhey or Tom Ennis or Barney Delaney or or or… The 4 CD compilation called “Farewell to Ireland” is a good source for some of this stuff: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B00001R3IJ/uilleannpipesobs/
If you are a member of NPU you can go into the archives on their website and look up old An Piobaire magazines. There is a ton of stuff in there related to the American style of playing. Look up Tom Busby, Mike Carney and Patsy Touhet in particular for a wealth of articles and tune transcriptions.
Ya’ll come back now, ye hear?
Patsy D’Arcy.
Mike Gallagher, listen to him, some detailed notations appeared in the Piobaire. He’s much better than Tom Ennis and (I think) sound a lot happier than Touhey, lovely bouncy rhtyhm and great effective use of the crunchy bits.
And don’t forget to look into Pat Fitzpatrick’s regulator style 
Tom Busby learned from Mike Carney who was friends with Touhey, Tom knew the pipers around New York. He always called this the Connaught style, not the American style. As it happens most all of the pipers who recorded in America were from Connaught. Sean O’Nolan was from Wicklow but still sounds much like the other pipers, albeit not very commanding. Tom Ennis was Chicago born but played a lot with Touhey, and grew up listening to Barney Delaney who was from Leinster. Delaney and Touhey both picked up technique from Billy Taylor as well, who was from Louth. O’Neill’s description of Delaney’s playing is something like “easy and rolling,” so I’ve always wondered if the two recordings we have of him were just Delaney showing off his mastery of the tight piping too. If you want to learn about the Connaught style most everything to be known is in the Mitchell/Small Patsy Touhey book. It is subractive in ways - these pipers never yanked the chanter off the knee to bark or swell notes, for instance. Tom Busby himself told me that.
Paddy Moloney learned much like the rest of us - he picked up a bunch of things he liked in various pipers and mashed it into his own playing, according to the Chieftains bios. Perhaps you’re associating him with the American crowd since his playing is very jolly, unlike the stiff backed funeral music on albums like the Drones and Chanters Vol. 2 (excepting Joe McLaughlin).
So are you saying that Irish traditional playing & styles are “funeral” as
dead or miserable?, 
are you sure that! the so American style was’nt borrowed maybe from the Taylor brothers whom maybe learnt it from some of the early Drogheda pipers or traveling pipers? before moving to
America, if this so called American style was ‘SO’ hip man, Why? was’nt it carried on in the Wonderful American Style, :roll: why ain’t we hearing all you American pipers blasting it at us funeral like players 
, yes tunes played on a narrow bores do sound sweeter and jolly, big bore sets produce big sounds for big boys, 
as for the “drones and the chanters” are you saying that Sean Potts & Ronan Brown playing them English made Concert & Narrow bore D chanters are funeral like, 
there’s is only two styles of piping as far as I’m concerd tight and open, with “Irish” area playing influences. 
The American pipers are more friendly.
Except Royce.
My whole point is that these “American” pipers didn’t think of themselves as such. Their style of playing died out due to lack of interest/instructors back home, and Leo Rowsome and Seamus Ennis seemed to become the two big role models for the remaining 50 pipers. Ennis described his father’s style (which he emulated) as being a mix of everything he thought best in the pipers that came to Dublin for the early Oireachtas. Undoubtedly more than a few of these pipers played in a style much like the ones who recorded in America. Dinney Delaney’s playing sounds very much in this vein, fast and very tight, no audible barks or wails even in places where they’d fit.
O’Neill’s Irish Minsterels book has a quote from Willie Rowsome describing James Cash as being able to play in 10 different styles, suggesting that there was a lot of variety in the playing back then.
The Drones and Chanters guys never spontaneously go into something like “Oh Susanna.” Hence funeral. Ronan Browne seems like a bit of a weirdo, though. Maybe he’d be up for it. They’re all still mighty musicians. And Tommy shared that story about Gay McKeon throwing a cat.
Why was Liam O’Flynn on that record but no Paddy Keenan? And weren’t they going to do Piper’s Rock Redux or something similiar?
re. Pipers Rock Redux - Closest to this I have seen is “The Humours of Piping”, which includes Claire Byrne, Patrick Davey, Barry Kerr, Darragh Murphy; all from the North.
djm