I am just in the door after playing tunes in Friel’s all night, there were ten of us playing, I sat in the corner playing the whistle, Jackie Daly played accordeaon, Caoimhin O Raghaillaigh, fiddle, Jimmy Crowley and Sean O Loinsigh bouzoukis and there were concertinas and more fiddles and mischief of all sorts.
Anyway, it was a busy night and at some point there were several pipers in the house, there were Caoimhn and myself playing but very much not playing the pipes and in the bar were Sean Mckeown, Liam O Flynn and Padraig MacMathuna. Not playing. [and quite possibly I overlooked someone]
I couldn’t help thinking about the old joke, ‘what is a gentleman?..someone who can play the accordeon but who choses not too.’ and wonder if maybe that same applies to pipers as well.
Last night, for a non-scheduled party, I played music for Irish Set Dances http://www.eoni.com/~mlewis/neofs/cal.html for three hours, along with another fiddle, concertina, guitar, and accordian. I mostly played fiddle with the other musicians, but the dance organizer plays whistle, and dearly loves the pipes…and without warning me asked the troup if they’d like to hear the pipes on a three-part slide they were about to dance. The dancers unanimously approved, to say the least, and I was glad I was asked, rather than imposing them on the group. Now, if only the accordian player…well you know what I mean.
Session, like the one mentioned above at Friel’s, often have a life of their own though, and knowing when to go with the flow of other musicians is most gentle of a piper, IMHO.
My surmise is that that joke started off being about the definition of a gentleman piper. It’s sometimes shortened to “What’s the definition of a gentleman? - Someone who knows how to play bagpipes but doesn’t”. That version of it seems pretty meaningless to me.
I suppose I should have known the original joke was about pipers.
The evening before I was playing with Geoff Wooff and nobody considered the possibility that any of us would even think of bringing the pipes. Maybe there is a point to this all.
I don’t know about hte afterglow Roger [apart from the fact temperatures in Clare hit the 30 celsius this week which is unusual enough I suppose], all sorts of people turn up all the time.
[quote=“Peter Laban”]The evening before I was playing with Geoff Wooff and nobody considered the possibility that any of us would even think of bringing the pipes. Maybe there is a point to this all.[quote]
Hi, Peter.
Perhaps the crowd either didn’t recognise there were pipers in the pub, didn’t care to hear the pipes, or didn’t want to impose the request on the pipers?
I’ve heard that there are some areas, especially in concertina country, where the pipes aren’t welcome at sessions. Do you find this to be true at all?
Isin’t it true, Peter, that pipers aren’t all that welcome out in the country sometimes. Especially if they bring these gawdforsaken screamin loud PIPES. Even Willie Clancy wasn’t always welcome with his, right?
Maybe Geoff could make a narrow bore practice set they could keep behind the bar for you guys…that’s a real waste of talent you’re describing!
Gentlemen, I don’t know. How about “Thank God there is no smell.” (Oscar Wilde) (Not always the case…)
I’ve found that, on most occasions, pipes are indeed welcomed at sessions. I had played in a lovely sesion at Fureys in Sligo a few weeks back. Even though I was way outclassed by the magical local musicians and certainly was the least experienced musician there only playing pipes for 5.5 years now, and despite the fact that they deferred to me and largely played my repertoire as a courtesy to me, most of the patrons were more enamored with the pipes than the other instruments. I had a similar experience at Laura’s Pub in Carna a few nights later. On the other hand, at 8PM in Glencolumcille, I asked the proprietor of the B&B I had just booked if she would mind if I played my pipes in the anteroom. There were no other guests. shea said, “Are those the things that go like that?” (Vigorously flapping left arm). I replied, “Why yes.” She exclaimed, “No! I don’t like those things!” Ah well, so much for an interest in culture and heritage in the town that is most boastful of such an attitude and interest in the ways of the old, music, and language, where, I might add, at the Folk Heritage Center, a man was proudly and professorialy demonstrating how to properly thatch a cottage …er…using steel scaffolding and an aluminum ladder…hilarious it was! .
Would you have prefered him using one made of bogoak and have him shouting ‘begorra’ and ‘begob’ all the time?
Donegal and neither is Connamara is not exactly piping territory though in Carna they have Sean Mac Chiarnan, I can see that would be a hard act to follow. Maybe take up the fiddle and Sean Nos singing to fit in.
But it is true the pipes are not particularly well liked, at least in Clare and to be honest I have seen too many sessions been slaughtered by insensitive pipers that I see the point of the excersise. I will not normally take my pipes out to play. A week ago I had a few very nice tunes with Gerry Harrington and Caoimhin O Raghaillaigh but only after being pressurised into it [‘we haven’t tuned the fiddles down for nothing you bollocks’] and most of the time I left them playing together, music much too nice to have a piper interfering with.
I play a lot of the time with Kitty Hayes, concertinaplayer who maintains my pipes are the only decent one she has ever heard ‘can’t stand the squeaky things’ she usually says.
On one occasion she told me how Seamus Ennis came to her house on several occasions durign the late fifties to play with Paddy Killoran who stayed at the house whenever he was visiting Ireland [Killoran was married to the sister of Kitty’s husband, fluteplayer Josie Hayes]. ‘They were at it all through the night, couldn’t stand it and went to bed early’ .
I think you find this attitude not uncommon, offcourse people can be convinced by a tune well played n a decent sounding instrument. Overall though I hardly ever play my pipes out of the house.
I cannot abide concertinas, or accordians, for that matter. So there’s no accounting for taste. I can’t deny that there is skill required to play them, but the sound of them strikes me as obnoxious, and I hate the way their tone swallows up every other instrument, so that you can’t tell what anyone else is doing.
Joe Burke used to tell an old joke of how, when a local accordian player had died, and the family had no money to bury him properly, the boys at the local pub passed the hat around to make a bit of a collection for him. When the hat came roung to a local fiddle player, he asked what was the hat for. They told him it was to help bury the accordian player, and so he asked how much everyone was putting in. They answered him, a punt or so, and the fiddler put two in. “Here’s two,” he said, “and go and bury two of them”.
Would you have prefered him using one made of bogoak and have him shouting ‘begorra’ and ‘begob’ all the time?
Man, Peter, I take that comment as indicating that you can be presumptous at times. I hope that you were just trying to be humorous, at my expense, which, of course, I really don’t mind at all.
I’m not the one who proclaimed to be authentic and tied to the past. The residents of Glencolumcille and environs are the ones who maintain the folk heritage center and put on demonstrations. I certianly did not care how the fella accomplished his work, especially if he could use modern day equipment to decrease his risk of injury. I just saw the irony of the situation, was humored by it, and commented on it.
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