i am at the NW Seattle Tionol and I am in the beginners group. With the tutor there are 4 of us in a tiny room. We are playing a simple tune and we all are getting notes right. But the oddest thing is that while i am playing… I cannot hear my chanter? If i make a mistake i hear it but it was an odd sensation where i wondered if i actually had air going into my chanter and maybe I was mime ing the tune. Is that typical, or maybe my chanter plays a bit softer, or do I have bad ears. It was actually not fun as I really like the sound of MY chanter. Note that i have never played with a group of people in any instrument before.
In highland piping if you are playing with others and you can hear your chanter…you’re either terribly out of tune, playing the wrong note, or off the beat. I would expect the same will apply to the UP as well.
Frank
Yeah, it is. Like sitting in a busy, loud session. You can’t hear sh ** t. Just have to move your fingers in the right order and hope the tune is coming out alright.
Bob, I hope that you are enjoying the Tionol. They are wonderful events all around. Great for connections, affirmation, and later on, the acquisition of new skills. You only have four pipers together? Wow, I have not been in a class with less than 10! It can indeed be difficult to hear yourself in such a group. I always found that I could hear mistakes, but was often unable to identify where, or from whom they were coming.
not fun? if i could only recapture the 1st time that happened to me,mustve been just a kid, when I momentarily became a piece of something greater than the sum of its parts, subordinated to the whole, in with the flow, lost individualism for the sake of the vibe..a trancendence of sorts eh?..although, i bet everyone would have noticed, if you had stopped.
4 of you & the instructor made 6 pipes all total (math for musicians 101 rofl)
geez thats one of the reasons i keep going back to ensembles.
congrats! 
not fun? if i could only recapture the 1st time that happened to me,mustve been just a kid, when I momentarily became a piece of something greater than the sum of its parts, subordinated to the whole, in with the flow, lost individualism for the sake of the vibe..a trancendence of sorts
Weren’t we talking about a class of beginners practicing a new tune here?
level dosent / shouldnt matter. Group co ordination and cohesion is a cornerstone of the Orff approach, for ex. If elementary school kids with no previous familiarity with musical craft can attain this ‘greater than the whole’ aural experience, then how would adult learners be any different? The OP himself stated that “it was his first time playing with others” & it seemed to be a weird sensation he’d never had, so why not point towards the positives? I bet there’s many of us who had the chills the first time they played “Lightly Row” in ensemble unison, wether or not theyd ADMIT it, corny as it sounds, or have otherwise repressed the memory, is another story 
so im makin marinara outta that tomato… 
Group co ordination and cohesion is a cornerstone of the Orff approach, for ex.
Coordinated group playing is not something uilleann pipers are known to strive for. I have not come across whole groups of beginner pipers playing in unison as a means of teaching (and I wouldn’t immediately think of it as a beneficial approach to teaching the pipes) but I have, on occasion, heard beginning pipers practice that way. I can’t say hearing the result was generally anything, well, transcendental.
I don’t even like playing in a session where there is another piper, will switch to concertina most of the time, even at tionol mass piping sessions. It’s just not a quality of sound that is improved with quantity of instruments IHMO.