S1mon raised an interesting point over in another thread and so not to hi-jack that thread ,I thought it might be interesting to ask if pipers think the pipes are a versatile musical instrument. Apart from a bit of guitar strumming I’ve never played anything other than Irish music so I don’t know, but has anyone tried playing any other type of music on the pipes with success .
Will the pipes become an instrument used by non-Irish music playing musicians on a regular and lasting basis ? In my opinion, no.
On his album The Gift he plays a Bach suite on the uilleann pipes, playing as part of a typical Baroque ensemble. It’s brilliant! He not only plays the Bach in a way that’s idiomatic to Baroque music, he also allows the pipes to sound like pipes, with barks here and there etc.
He also plays a jazz style piece or two there. Also brilliant.
I think they sound too idiosyncratic to be anything than a novelty bit in other genres of music. I’ve heard the baroque and blues tracks in O’Sullivan’s “The Gift” and while its a fair effort I think people who actually know those genres of music wouldn’t exactly be impressed beyond the novelty of the attempt.
I’d love to be convinced otherwise. But so far, not yet.
Sure, it’s true that the pipes can be, and are, used now for a wide variety of musical styles. My group does some slow reggae with the pipes and, ya..it works. And not that long ago you couldn’t turn on the radio or television without hearing the UP’s in a commerical of some sort, or in a soundtrack- they really do grab the ear.
To be honest however, what can tend to limit the pipes versatility are the restictions in terms of key and chanter range. Other than that you’re good to go.
I’d go along with that ,there are better instruments than pipes to play jazz ,blues on or what ever you choose ,where as all pipers know the best instrument to play Irish music on is the Uilleann pipes.All your fiddles,flutes and accordians are just wannabes.
What about the pipes and other traditional instruments the the metal band in extremo play? I love irish music first but I love heavy metal and it works beautifully.
I think that if anything’s going to slow the penetration of the pipes in non-irish forms of music, it’ll be the sheer size of the commitment that piping demands. It’s a tough instrument to double on if you want to do it well, so having a piper in the band is more likely to mean having the pipes as a near full-time part of the arrangement, aside from diversions into the standard pipers’ doubling instruments, whistle & flute.
What I mean is that you’re more likely to have a piper who doubles on flute once or twice a night than you are to have a flute player who dips into the pipes. Mick McGoldrick is the only example of the latter I can think of.
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I think that so far, the pipes are having the greatest penetration in other european trad genres, where the influence likely deriving ultimately via Planxty (ok, and Paddy Keenan/the bothies). Liam O’Flynn might turn out to be a figure like Michael Coleman in terms of influence. Coleman’s records changed more than irish music; the giants of quebecois fiddling were all greatly affected, too, as were others in Cape breton and Canadian Old Time music, to name only three. Yes, most of these were already playing fiddle, so Coleman gave them only repertoire and technique, but I’d be surprised if there were’t also a few to who were inspired to take up the fiddle by Coleman records. I think the progress of UP into other genres is diectly analoguous, differing only in that it involves a transfer of a new instrument along with repertoire and techique.
If you listen to, say, breton UP-containing bands from the seventies and eighties, you hear a lot of irish tunes coming out of the pipes. As time goes on, you start hearing bands that have adopted the instrument & the technique, while sticking to the repertoire of some other tradition. That’s the process that’s interesting me. I’ll bet that somewhere in Quebec there’s a unilingual francophone quebecker who’s playing the pipes in an exclusively quebecois-trad band.
Well, ok; but I feel that this bagpipe, much moreso than many others, can escape its “ethnicity” with relative ease.
Ive said before online, that the steel drums were also in such a situation; until some enterprising TV composer utilized steel drums at exactly the right dramatic point, in exactly the right setting; (sometime during the mid-80’s ) so as to completely expunge any tropical connotations from the score.
Today, I delight in the unexpected steel drum riff in an otherwise faux-gamelan beatbox mix.
mmm..the unpredictability of the instrument, and its changing response in varying playing conditions is a bigger obstacle than artist dedication, imo.
mmmmm…the main restriction is lack of dynamics, n’est pas?
I think a lot depends on your “conception” of the instrument. You can either play the chanter alone and play along with other instruments (and possibly try to „mock“ equal temperamented tuninng) or you can play it „solo“ above the drones and have/enjoy the resulting intervals in just tuning. In the latter case all kinds of „folkmusic“ (Swedish, Norwegian, Appalachian, Bulgarian, Hungarian, French,…, Gospel [pentatonic], Blues) and modal scales (church music) makes sense. You even covincingly can play a „break“ in a jazz-formation if you have agreed on improvising over modal scales (preferably of course myxolydian). Even some pentatonic popmusic works well (I think of „Yellow Submarine“ but this isn´t called „Popmusic“ any longer but „Evergreen“ meanwhile). You can play the Blues (solo) (improvise over the A-scale – E, G, A, B, Cnat, D, e‘, fis~, g‘ a‘,)
or it is possible to convincingly play Gershwin´s „Summertime“ (e‘, B, e‘,…) (some players with „feeling“ can even cope with the questionable „high“ („fish are jumping and the cotton is high“) by a gracenote or pressure-change). On the other hand – it is possible to play Glen Miller´s „Chatanooga Choo-Choo“ (if you start with B, Cnat, C#, D… „Pardon me boy…“, you can play it without keys) but it does not sound too convincingly.
An example: Most of you know Jerry O´Sullivan´s „Non-Traditional“ tracks on „The Gift“: Mr. O´Sullivan plays along with other instruments (that are typical of the particular genre). He could well have played the „Wayfaring Stranger“- jig without the Guitar, but he would not have played the Bach-tracks without Harpsichord and Cello and he definitely wouldn´t have played „Clear Blue Sky“ without the Piano.
ok…let’s clean this up a wee bit, in as non-threatening & friendly a manner as possible
This is not quoted correctly, nor does the quotation match the original comment. Im sure it was just a typo?
Let’s take an excerpt from ChasR’s post, above:
Comment #2:
**ChasR’s Friendly Ripost to Comment #2:**mmm..the unpredictability of the instrument, and its changing response in varying playing conditions is a bigger obstacle than artist dedication, imo.
Comment #3:
ChasR’s friendly Ripost to Comment #3mmmmm…the main restriction is lack of dynamics, n’est pas?
Thought we were speaking of the versatility of UP; s outside of the context of ITM, where dynamics run rampant, hand-in-hand with tonalities, chords, lines & accidentals, in a Dyonisian music orgy, sort of.
magroibin’s observation is well taken; the chanter is not fully chromatic, in a 'modulate from Dmajor to Ab melodic minor sense; & goshdarnit, where’s that low “C”
But personally I find myself often wanting to crescendo/diminuendio a held high G rather than just alter its vibrato & tonal shading. I miss that option on all pipes, in fact.
Lastly, seems to me that anyone sucessfuly taking the instrument beyond the pale of ITM is already unquestionably comitted to the uilleann pipe.
) so as to completely expunge any tropical connotations from the score.
