A milestone of sorts for me I guess; I played my pipes on a stage in public, at a “cultural arts fair” at church. Audience of maybe 50-100? I didn’t count. A big step for me, as I’ve only been playing the pipes for about six months. I played “Cliffs of Doneen” and the first third or so of “The Frieze Breeches”. I was pleased; made no major errors beyond a squeak or two when dropping to the low notes in Frieze Breeches and kept reasonably good time. The audience loved it, though most of them had no idea what uilleann pipes were before today. If I can get a photo from some who were taking them I’ll post it here later.
My flat set did not carry as well as I thought it might from a stage in a hall, though I guess I should have expected that. They had a PA system so they miced it up for me, one on the chanter and one for the drones.
I also spent four hours in a class room at the church, explaining what uilleann pipes were and the differences from highland/war pipes, and playing for demonstration, though everything else I played besides the two mentioned above was from sheet music. I did explain about the oral tradition of ITM however and played my rote pieces over and over as much as possible.
Good for you, AD. Congratulations! And uilleann pipe demos are always fun. Curiosity is virtually guaranteed. You should carry a little plush, stuffed octopus and point out the similarities.
When it comes to demos, I often find myself playing guitar next to the piper. So my part of the demo consists of holding up the instrument and saying, “This is a guitar.”
I recently played a couple of tunes at a picnic. Afterwards, in the obligatory question and answer session, I was asked several times what was the difference between uilleann pipes and bagpipes.
