I’m interested in finding out a little about new techniques that can be attirbuted to specific pipers - as far as I know Paddy Keenan and Finbar Furey came up with the back d treble and paddy keenan came up with the d csharp c natural triplet - i stand to be corrected - any others that people out there know about?
I don’t know if we can say they came up with these techniques.
Pat Mitchell mentioned in an interview that Seamus Ennis would occasionally roll a Cnat, which in his opinion would have “bemused” his father, Jimmy Ennis.
Didn’t Johnny Doran already start Coppers and Brass with DCsharpcnat? I think I heard Ennis do the same in the third part of Dwyer’s hrnp on occasion. Not sure I’d call those ‘innovations’ though, have used triplet myself at times long ago without hearing Keenan do it, it’s a bit of an obvious one if you play around with the key. I think I was trying to play The Acrobat in G at the time, or something silly like that, and stumbled into it.
I would be reluctant to attribute any particular technique as an invention of any one individual piper. To do that, you would need to show no one, ever, had played that before and it is impossible to make that argument, as there were many unrecorded pipers around Ireland, England, Scotland, and America in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Sure, we know SOMETHING about piping technique because have access to tutors like Geoghahan’s (sp?) but you can’t really say that people limited themselves to whatever the tutor said any more then than they do now.
Silverspear is correct.Nothing new under the Sun I say.
Kinda kills this thread don’t ya think…and the next one perleez 
Uilliam
I don’t know, we could continue to flog it a bit, like the proverbial dead horse.
Mikie Smyth showed me a particular way to do rolls - you slide the very end of your fingers bent - he told me he’s never seen anybody else do it and that he does it to be able to reach the regs at some stage in certain tunes.
Kinda hard to do anyway, but the sound of the roll done this way is slighty different from a normal one.
I think I may be correct, that Tiárnan Ó Duinnchínn uses the same effect on some tunes to great advantage. Very effective - if a little difficult to put in place for those, like myself, who struggle with the purity of the tradition, let alone the other additions that Mickie Smyth gives us to contend with.
Pwt
Like I said nothing new under the Sun…how much further do ye need to flog this one? 
Uilliam
I know a piper who when playing the jig Sean Bui ,instead of playing the crans he farts,and they are in perfect time and in tune with his playing.
No other piper in history has ever done that.
RORY
Come now, Rory, You are being modest! 
Mikey Smyth, 1994, Fleadh Ceoil, Clonmel.
I was there.
Mukade
I’ve been practicing for years,but I just cant get the timing right,but I’m glad Mikey cracked it.
There is a thing Liam O’Flynn does with when playing the gold ring.In the fourth part he sort of squeeze’s out the E and it give it a very distinctive quality that I’ve not heard another piper do.It could be a nuance of his rowsome chanter.
RORY
He was 10 years old at the time and he used his bellows to get the sound.
Maybe that’s cheating.
Mukade
What about the technique of double, trebling or even quatrupling rolls - is Johnny Doran the first to be recorded doing this?
What about the technique of double, trebling or even quatrupling rolls - is Johnny Doran the first to be recorded doing this?
No, Touhey was doing that on some tunes in the O’Neill cylinders. And Carney on the Ravelled Hank as well.
just one more question and i’ll let this thread go to bed - the trill that liam o’flynn plays with his left hand - i’ve heard this from seamus ennis too - did ennis invent it or did touhey and the likes use it too?