HI just trying to connect, gripe, rejoyce, moan, trade licks, tricks, tunes, gig horror stories and basically bug others afflicted with zampogna + bechonnet + biniou obsession. (dont tell me Im the only one…~!) [<www.zampogna.org> This is me,(in the hat) playing my now-defunct Guido Ianetta 25’ molise zampogna. I’ve seen the light, shed the innertube, and now play a 25’ molise by Luigi Ricci (goatskin, with ‘Bordone modificatzione’)
Favourite zampognari:
Pietro Ricci
Lino Miniscalo
Nico Berardi
and no, I havent beyond-a-shadow-of-a-doubt found the Taylor’s address in Philly. 8) :poke:](%3Cwww.zampogna.org%3E%20This%20is%20me,%28in%20the%20hat%29%20playing%20my%20now-defunct%20Guido%20Ianetta%2025%27%20molise%20zampogna.%20I%27ve%20seen%20the%20light,%20shed%20the%20innertube,%20and%20now%20play%20a%2025%27%20molise%20by%20Luigi%20Ricci%20%28goatskin,%20with%20%27Bordone%20modificatzione%27%29%0AFavourite%20zampognari:%0APietro%20Ricci%0ALino%20Miniscalo%0ANico%20Berardi%0A%0Aand%20no,%20I%20havent%20beyond-a-shadow-of-a-doubt%20found%20the%20Taylor%27s%20address%20in%20Philly.%20%208%29%20%20:poke%3A)
Ted Anderson plays zampogna I believe, he contributes to this board from time to time. I’d suggest sending him a PM. His user name is, what else, Ted.
In the meantime, what’s with all the non Uilleann Pipes post as of late? I’m not yet to the point of moving them elsewhere, but I am to the point of asking that the topics posted here remain Uilleann related to some degree or another (and Justine’s topic is related to UPs… just for those who would cite it as non UP), please. Thank you.
So thats ye is it? Nice hat…wot the feck has this got to do wi this forum?To remind ye
Uilleann Pipe forum
A forum about Uilleann (Irish) pipes and the surly people who play them.
Moderators rich, Dale, Alan, Nanohedron, Joseph E. Smith
Slán Agat
Uilliam
hahahha Ive aged a bit since that jpg…BUT although I could suggest that the UP (especially the regulator idea)is directly descended from the southern European dual chanter tradition through the now lost Sordelinna perfected by JB Riva of Pavia, Italy, in the early 16th century after repeated attempts to make the first recorded double reed bellows pipe (the Phagotus ,developed by Afriano degli Albanesi, also late of Pavia) actually play; …NAH …fugettaboutit
…we now take you back to the regularly scheduled Uilleann surliness…
you mean-a Vincenzo e Luigi?
(its worth going to Scapoli zampognafest August 28-30 just to hear UPipers play ‘Tu Scende Della Stella’) Keenan played there a couple years back. I dont see any famous uilleanisti on the 2006 programme
Im trying SO hard to stay ‘on-topic’
cant…hold…on…much..longer…
On a irrelevant side here is a weird true story that happened to me a couple of years ago with an Italian bagpipe. My apologies if this sounds like a Lovecraft story.
I found a very very old intact Sordelinna (like a small zampogna with short chanters) with chanters, wax picks, reeds but no bag with an antique dealer. The Sordelinna had a fantastic story and was fantastic in itself. The house it came from was reported haunted and the site of witchcraft and a murder the dealer told me?!?! The previous owners moved out because of supposed ghosts. The Sordelinna was found under a floor board buried in the house and uncovered when it was being remodeled. Now on to the strange part besides the freaky story I was given. The actual Sordelinna had African like daemons carved all over it. Even the wax picks were two were daemon heads. The effect was quite unnerving given the story behind this Sordelinna. The Sordelinna was very old and did look like it was found under a house but still in impressive condition and I could not believe it still has its single reeds despite what it went through. Being a poor college student the $200+ to purchase it would have been rough, and I was scared of the thing because the house was supposedly cursed (probably my Catholic upbringing screaming no at me) so I passed. From what I understand there are not many Sordelinnas in existence.
If you don’t believe this stupid story I don’t blame you, I question it sometimes.
Grazie, Patrick
Bzzzzt; mayhaps you refer to the Surdulina, sounds more like what youre describing, is the 3rd most popular pipe in the boot.
If you’d actually found a Sordelinna(yeah, heh) $200 wouldve been a small price to pay for the only surviving one, adding in, of course, the price for a suitable exorcism.
So you don’t like Zampogne and “other Bagpipes” that’s too darn BAD …cause they are such a relief to play when your Irish Cyclatron is DOWN (usualy due to some reeds not working properly) ! Back in the 1980s…true story…An Irish Man / PIPER, came up to me whilst I was playing my Scapoli Zamp (by Ettore Di Fiore)…on the street in San Francisco…
The PIPER said, “That Pipe is MARVELOUS…they threw away the CHANTER, and KEPT the DRONES and REGULATORS !!”
I told him I needed a Piffero (CHANTER) player to get the full effect, as it is really a 2 person / people / MAN / operation.
The Irish Piper told me he was only there in California for a holiday, and besides, the CHANTER REED in his practice set wasn’t working, atall atall, etc.
“No problem !” I replied, as I pulled out the Piffero out of my case, and said,"Just stick this Piffero in your gob and you’re AWAY TO THE RACES…well he had never LIPPED a reed before (The piffero NEEDS the OBOE embrosure, to play in tune), and he failed to get even a SQEEEK out of it…“Too Bad” I said, "cuz if I have a Piffero player..I could knock out more music, than the limited supply of notes that I have on this HARMONY instrument. Ted Anderson (on Piffero) and I have played the North Beach (San Fracisco) Italian Fair, many times…the “Xmas REVELS” Italian Xmas show in Oakland (year 2000)…more recently for a Italian Club’s luncheon in San Jose, this last May…we were a real hit with those Business men paid to play and a lunch thrown in, as well! Part of “The Barry O’Neill Thesis”,(see Sean Reid Society Journal) is the historical fact that: THE FIRST REGULATOR was on the Sordellina of Michele Todini, (also known as the “Neapolitan Musette”). Recently, the method for it was printed up in 1996, the Baldani tabletture…showing the interplay of the 2 chanters and the REGULATOR (a DRONE with keys on it, the whole Pipe was double reeded). A German Piper, named Horst Grimm, has attemped a reconstruction, and there was a big article about it in the “Circolo Della Zampogna” a few issues back. The Calabrian Surdellina is actualy a plain, single reeded instrument that is NOT that Rare (No Regulator either, sorry Jason !!) I have rebagged and rereeded several of them over the years and they are still being made in Italy. Alot of them are elaborately carved-up but I have never heard of a “Demonic” one before…the Calabrians usual go out of their way to have Angelic-style Pipes, with pure White-Haired Goat-skins for BAGS…and plenty of Wax Picks to Ward OFF the EVIL EYE (Maloccio!!!) or let it pass through.
Grumble if you must, about “Other Pipes”, they ultimately lead to the AMAZING PIPES we attempt to play !!!
Mille Grazie a “Giovanni lo Zampogaro” AKA: Sean An Piobaire / Xuan El Gaitero / etc etc. Sean Folsom
Well this is a good thing exactly the sort of stick-up-for-your-zampogna post I’d been hoping for not even scratching the surface of harmony + counteropint until you get a Molise 25 con mod. so there’s like what 6 of us? 7 if you count the oboist I coruppted into Piffering for me but we need more repertoire gotta 2 1/2 hr Italian fest coming up + everyone wants ‘Al Di La’ instead of Tratturo.
Well Chas, Great to hear you’re serving the Philadelphia Italian community, my friend and amateur Zampognaro, Lionel Bottari, of Chicago, vacations there, from time to time, with some friend of his. Lionel was my roadie and translator when the Circolo Della Zampogna flew me to Italy, with 20 sets of pipes, to play at the 20th Festa (in 1996, and it used to be always the last weekend in July). It was the 20th anniversary of the festival, that started in 1976 in the polar opposite time of year from XMAS.
This was done so that every Zamp-piper is home / hanging out / doing nothing musical.
Thus, the Festa made it possible to make some money in the summer, especialy for the Zampogna makers (the Di Fiore brothers, Geraldo Gualtieri, Luigi Ricci, Pietro Ricci & etc.). I paid Luigi Ricci with a 6mm gun drill from Danjon Tools, to make me a new high chanter to replace a broken chanter that I got in a trade (zamp for a Richard Maheu Bulgarian Gaida) from Mike McNinch…it’s a 4 palmi Neapolitan Zampogna that had been in upper New York state (key of Eb) it’s slightly larger than the biggest Scapoli Pipe of 32 cm. (my Scapoli Zamp is the one in F#). This “Zampogna di Napoli” HONKS !! It’s my favorite Pipe, and I have it reeded with my own #6 plastic reeds! The plastic is cut out of “Big Gulp” cups etc.
THEN I have a Gran Zampogna from Campagna, that’s 5 palmi (key of C major). Not to be outdone, my friend Ted Anderson went to Scapoli and came back with a 6 palmi ( a LOW A flat), from the Forestieri brothers (now too old to make any more of them). Ted is matched (or tied) for “Biggest Zampogna on the West Coast” with a guy in Vancouver Washington named Marc (Brad Angus’ next store neighbor) who has a 6 palmi by the other guy who still making them, and Marc ordered an 8 palmi (The BIGGEST / low G ), but hasn’t got it yet. As to Piffero repetoire, the home boys adapt all kinds of tunes: popular songs, waltzes, polkas, masurkas,even Argentine Tangos! No complete, or even partial book, has ever been published that has any of these tunes in regular music notation.
I told herself “La Presidente” della Circolo…Antonietta Caccia, to please make one up and print it, but that hasn’t happened yet !
Maybe Pietro Ricci could do it as he is a Music teacher, living in Isernia
(county seat of Molise province), but I understand that he’s been estranged from the Circolo, for what I don’t know…? so I suspect that the Circolo would not be the publisher, even tho’ they have some funding from the Parco Nationale di Abruzzi. To conclude this overlong posting, Chas… check out these web sites: www.hotpipes.com which is Oliver Seeler’s web site with 30 pipes of my Bagpipe collection, and then there’s my under-developed-ment site: www.seanthepiper.com with the article / interveiw that the Circolo did with me, just before I went over to Italy (LO! THESE TEN YEARS PAST). I had a great time… and I was the one who got Paddy Keenan interested into going over himself, after I talked it up and showed him some of Lionel Bottari’s videos… Zampogne AND the “Bella Ragazzi” natch ? Keenan also went back a second time (for 2 years -in a- ROW).
Over and Out for NOW
Sean Folsom
Sean..who is it ye are talking about when ye write? "So you don’t like Zampogne and “other Bagpipes” that’s too darn BAD "?? and.. ??Gumble if you must about “Other Pipes”
I don’t think anyone said they didnae like the things or Gumbled(grumbled even) about them other than the obvious statement that the Uilleann Pipe Forum is for Uilleann Pipes which is not unreasonable.That is why this post has been moved to the Pub.
Slán Agat
Uilliam
hahahha Ive aged a bit since that jpg…BUT although I could suggest that the UP (especially the regulator idea)is directly descended from the southern European dual chanter tradition through the now lost Sordelinna perfected by JB Riva of Pavia, Italy, in the early 16th century after repeated attempts to make the first recorded double reed bellows pipe (the Phagotus ,developed by Afriano degli Albanesi, also late of Pavia) actually play; …NAH …fugettaboutit
Keenan played there a couple years back. I dont see any famous uilleanisti on the 2006 programme 
exactly the sort of stick-up-for-your-zampogna post I’d been hoping for 
so there’s like what 6 of us? 
and.. 