I was asked recently if I thought it would a good idea if the chapter about pipemakers in O,Neills IMAM was updated with all the pipemakers around at the moment it be quite a substantial chapter, but maybe it could even be a book
With pipemakers willing of course a few pages on each maker (strictly non promotional) with a brief or maybe not so brief paragraphs on how they got started ,who they learned from a few photos of their work and so on.
This was being asked as a fund raising idea for the NPU, but the real question being asked was would this be a financially viable idea .Would people buy such a book
The cost of printing is very high these days but if each pipemaker made a small contribution and donations by pipers (given credit in the book) this would help!
This is just an idea in its infancy it will probably never happen but I for one would buy a copy (for a good cause)
It could also be looked on as an important historical piece of information
Any other ideas to get this off the ground would be welcome but again the main question is would it sell?
I would have to agree with Jim. Pipemakers come and go on a regular basis. As well, they tend to migrate (change locations) so that the book would be out of date by the time it made it to the presses. However, such info put up on their website would be of interest to prospective buyers. As a fund-raiser I think this is a bust, but as a source of information, I think it is the sort of thing NPU should be doing anyway.
I think a better way for NPU to raise money would be to put on a fundraiser dinner inviting business owners to attend followed by a concert with some of the best uilleann pipers performing, a professional standard presentation of uilleann piping.
At the intermission (break to our Irish conspirators) a presentation or plea for funding should be held by a speaker emphasising the tax breaks available to donators.
NPU is a business and should be treated as one. Maybe it wouldn’t be a terrible idea to hire a professional fundraiser to work for them or to consult? To be honest it is very frustrating seeing NPU run so amateurishly… I think there is a huge potential for them to succeed both financially and culturally but there seems to be this archaic fear of financial success. It’s very unusual?
I think it depends on how well the book is produced, if it would be similar to say, The Blooming Meadows i.e. well written in depth interviews written by someone with insight in the subject and good photography it would be a great book.
It would also be probably too expensive to produce (having writer and photographer travel to see makers worldwide would not only provide an interesting logistical problem but would also be financially prohibitive). Merely sending out a questionaire to makers and do it on the cheap wouldn’t do either, if only because most wouldn’t bother responding, having pipemakers do their own write up or having pipers (and probably the usual suspects at that) sing he praises of the man who made their pipes wouldn’t give you the best result as an historic record.
It is an idea worth pursuing, though maybe not as a fundraising effort.
I suspected this mumbo jumbo would,nt fly but if you don’t ask youll never know. Although I think some people missed the point(a common occurance on this forum it would seem)This was not some list of pipemakers that would be consulted by someone looking for pipes ,but more a written account of the pipemakers of the day. As for the suggestion that this should be covered by pipemakers websites,well websites come and go (stevenson)as we know and then the information is lost forever and by their nature are promotional which again would not be the object of the book ,not too mention the fact that the best three pipemakers alive today don’t even have websites.
Pipemakers in my opinion are a very interesting bunch of people and I always read any snippets of information I come across about them . I have read the chapter on pipemakers in O,Neill,s book many times and Im sure some of our knowledge of these pipemakers would have been lost only for him .
As has been said before on this forum there are talkers and there are do,ers and hopefully the commitment of the do,ers still outweights the apathy of the talkers and someday someone will write such a book
I’d certainly be interested in reading a book about pipemakers and their histories, musings, ideas and insight into the pipes…especially the older makers who have seen the development of the Uilleann Pipes from roughly around the turn of the previous century to the present day. I wonder how many pipemakers would be willing to sit down to be interviewed for such a publication? Would they be adequately compensated for their time?
I honestly feel that it would have to be an all or nothing kind of undertaking. Any half-hearted attempt at such a book would be a shameful waste of paper and an insult to the artists featured within its pages.
It’s funny, in graphic design I run into all kinds of people, but moreover there are generally two camps of thinkers:
Engineer/Lawyer types; and
Marketing/Sales types
both VERY different.
I will pontificate in VERY general terms
The one half prefers lots and lots of detail. They absorb themselves in the inner workings and depth of the topic. Mostly they are intereseted in words - diving into histories, factual accounts, inter-relationships, end results. They’re the kinds of people who when they buy a digital camera, they sit on the loo reading the manual from cover to cover. They read National Geographic, scan the pictures, but spend way more time reading the articles.
The other half on the surface seem to be so much more two dimensional, but don’t let that fool the former. They tend to be much more absorbed with the mood, visual appearance and don’t delve into a huge amount of literal detail, preferring a document that they might make their own conclusions about. They are the kind that LOVE the pictures in National Geographic, but spend hardly any time reading the articles. The scenery, the people, the faces and species are fascinating in a completely different way.
I know which one I am. Now the question is, who would buy such a thing and what kind of person are they? I am in agreement as to the “not half assed” approach, but you just can’t please all the people all the time.
I’m thinking that there would be a very limited market for this book…mostly made up of Uilleann Pipers, from all kinds of camps. It would take a bunch of cash to produce it and I am not certain there would be a very big profit.
Still, if someone were to toss a load of cash at this project, and do it up right, I would buy the book and enjoy reading it… but mostly for the pictures.
I’d be more interested in seeing an entire illustrated history of pipe making coming from the club. A coffee table type book of nice pictures is expensive to produce and will always be very audience specific. If it’s worth doing at a considerable cost then I’d be inclined to push for the ‘whole hog’: an illustrated history of UP making and makers from it’s known historical beginnings charting all the major design and fabrication developements.
It would be a work of the magnitude of the upcoming Ennis tome of course. What it needs more than anything else is somebody to take the project on (ie. work). There would be a serious amount of research involved to do it right I imagine.
Patrick, the club has a full time, fully qualified administrator who does great work with re. fundraising as far as I am aware. A major blow to the club’s funding has and is being controlled. What do you think the club needs funds for at present? Does somebody need to get rich? Have you something in mind? Would you like to get involved in fundraising?
The idea of an outside fundraider has been aired at several meetings of the commitee. It has not yet recieved a favourable response for good reasons, that is not to say that if it suited at a future date that it would not be an idea to run with. There are several issues involved with that path that I will gladly discuss on the NPU website forum (it will be undergoing a very welcome overhaul soon.)
That would be a great idea if there was sufficient detail in that future pipemakers could actually use it as a reference. This would make it a must-have. However, if it gets watered down to be just a picture book with lists of names and places, its appeal would be very limited. I understand from previous posts by Evertjan that he is getting a lot of flack from some current pipemakers for trying to post measurements and details on historic sets.
As far as I am aware the work on the building is from outside funding raised specifically for that purpose and provided specifically for building related works. BTW The building looked fine to me the last time I was in it… people just need to start doing things in it! (Of course the recent run of recitals in the very elegant newly refurbished upstairs rooms went very succesfully).
Why do you want the building in ‘top order’? Have you something in mind? A good number of members will probably never set foot in good old no. 15 H St. My priority would be to get as much good stuff as possible to those members with the resources available. You could pour as much money in to the building as you wanted and it would still sit there.
The building inside was never finished; the archive is hardly usable - from printed materials to recordings; almost nothing is on display there; the front room has looked like a wreck for its 20 years of operation; NPU never even kept its donation board in the dark entry hall up-to-date (wonder why the club doesn’t get a lot of donors?); not much activity or interest there to recommend a non-piping person or tourist to go there. With the push to finish the building ‘once and for all’ according to Sean Potts, that’s the plan that everyone on staff and the Board should be working toward.
Coffee-table book? How about the club using its digital camera to do the same through its bulletin and web site? No budget needed; no need to wait for an ‘updated’ web site. Results could viewed next week.
The currect web site is fine but needs some relevancy, emphasize sales of its items with pictures, descriptions, and sound bytes, drop the embarassingly slow checkout engine, eliminate the slow response time (change web provider?), and problems that seem to knock the site down.
The Board needs to treat the club as a national institution and appeal to the Irish nation for support and funds, ie directly to all of the people of Ireland and elsewhere and not limited to its Irish government grants and aid programs.
You’re quite right about the ommission, Generally as the designer/photographer and creative director on most of my projects, I am the only artist/creative type working on it. So, in my world, creative artistic types are much closer to describing myself.
I honestly couldn’t pigeon-hole an artistic type. Having first hand experience, we’re too diverse a bunch to categorize, don’t you think?
So by ‘finish the building’ you mean that you are not talking about building work but the work of the administration staff, the archivist and the board… I see.
I am not sold on using room in the building for any substantial tourist display personally and I am not convinced that having tourists wandering around the building is in the interests of the club, it’s resources, it’s staff and club members under present conditions. I certainly see where there is work to be done on making the building and archive more accessible to members, pipers, or those interested in piping. As far as I can see the work is being done although it will always be a work in progress. I should point out that the club has only three paid full time staff. If you could specify your misgivings about the archive I’m sure that Terry would like to hear about it. His email address is:
As far as I’m concerned the building is finished enough to serve it’s purposes. The classes, recitals, talks, board meetings, admin. etc.
I wasn’t proposing a ‘coffee table book’ but an indepth study of the history of pipe making and pipe makers. Regardless of what format you publish this in it will be a major work of research and will take considerable efforts on one or several peoples parts. There are plenty of snaps of sets of pipes on the web.
Major work (and expenditure) has recently been discussed and approved on the website front.
I don’t know of anybody on the board who does not think the club ‘major’ or a ’ national institution’. To find funding of the sort you talk of takes a full time professional push, as of yet such an approach and the terms of it have not been seen as suitable. It has been discussed.
Pity you did’nt see fit to bring some of these things up at the AGM in Virginia recently, Jim. The board were all there and could have discussed it with you in person.
