Hi All…Just thinkin to myself and was wondering seeing as I took up piping later than I would have liked to, have there been cases where people have taken up the pipes late and made really good players? Has anyone seen anyone make remarkeable progress in short time? Has anyone seen anyone just take to the pipes and become a special player relaitively quickly? Or does the 21 year thoughts of Seamus Ennis stand
10 years will make an excellent piper, if hes single, and tied to a chair on an island? 
You didn’t really take that seriously, did you?
John Murphy of London had made the jump pretty quickly back in the 1980s. One year he was a student at Willie Week and the next year featured in the Recital.
Hi Droner,
The only people I have seen make rapid progress starting late on the pipes have already been excellent flute or whistle players.
They already have most of the finger control in place and just need to adapt. Although they may also have the disadvantage of fingers locked to another way of playing.
For the rest of us, as Danny alludes to, it’s down to practicing the correct things.
Starting late will slow your progress (kids form new neural links at twice the rate of adults) but determination and a good teacher will see you through.
No competent piper is ever be as good as they want to be, so I think it’s important to enjoy where we are now as well as look forward to the future.
Good luck and good night
David
I pretty sure that the more intensive your study and practice, the quicker will be your road to proficiency.
But don’t rush things just to try and ‘catch up’. It’s probably a bit like the hare and tortoise - start slowly, take it slowly and by 10 years you’ll probably be streets ahead of where you might be at that time if you try and rush it. That’s the mistake I made in the beginning because of one of those adolecsent fears that if I don’t get a set of pipes by the time I’m 21 it’ll be the end of the world.
Cheers,
DavidG
Don’t go it alone… the best of tutorial media is a far cry from one-on-one lessons with an experienced piper who is ALSO qualified at teaching.
Having a quality instrument that’s well reeded improves your odds and CONSISTANT daily practice even if it’s 15-20 minute sessions is better than trying once a week for 1-2 hours.
…I was 22 when I was bitten, and it took until the age of 40 to get my hands on a set…a long 18 years. Of course, barely a moment goes by when they aren’t being played…except for school, work and sleep…which I get very little of.
Rushing is indeed a bad idea. Intensive practicing (and doing so correctly) can be a bad thing too, but I can’t seem to help myself. I guess it really depends on an individual’s personal strength, dedication and adherence to repetition in learning the chanter and it’s many facets. Knowing when to stop practicing is equally as important, as there comes a time where continuing to do so could cause harm.
Through it all, don’t forget the joy that the pipes bring to you, and the reason why you decided to learn how to play them in the first place.
I played the GHP for a few years (was a mistake really, I thought they where Uilleann pipes but thats another story) then gave them up due to the hate of the regimented crap. Anywho a friend has a set, gave em a shot, straped em on for the first time and in a few min i could do a scale. got hooked, bought a used set later that week (thank you chiff and fipple) and after takeing this summer off (busy and out of country) so about 8 months of playing, I try to play every day. even just 20 min, sometimes I get in 2 sessions, maybe a hour each. So time wise I have put in a lot of hours in that time frame. Its not that you get better over time you get better the more time you put in. I have times where I cant do anything right, the reed is fighting me and it is frustrating, though I slog though the 30 min and try again the next day.
All that being said, with talent and time (ie 5+ hours a day) I figure someone could have “mastery” over these damn things in 7-10 years.
On a side note, just having rememberiance (sp?) day events, and hearing and seeing the GHP again in person, wild horses could not drag me back. The freedom and the huge range with limitless variation and the time and effort needed to be able to pull them out is far far better.
Every hour of sweat now is one second of that perfect sound later
A very good friend of mine, who is teaching me, is an excellent piper. He’s been playing about 10 years and has incredible ability, using the full capabilities of his full set. He probably practiced for 3-4 hours a day for the first 8 years. He was also fortunate to have both Bill Ochs and Mick O’Brien as teachers. But, he has said to me “If I can play them, so can you” though he does tend to be self-depracating. I’ve easily put that many hours a day into the fiddle, so with that, plus my flute and whistle experience and his teaching. Hopefully in 10 years I’ll have an answer! He did say “I don’t want to see you show up with the pipes at the session for at least 3 years.” He was smiling when he said it, but it’s advice I intend to take. I do kick my self for not plunging in when I first thought of it, but hindsight’s 20/20.
Willie Clancy wasn’t exactly a spring chicken when he started up…
I didn’t take up the uilleann pipes until I was 22 (four years ago)…about ten years later than I would have like to have started, I reckon. If you listen, listen, listen, and try to practice every day, you’ll slowly but surely start to sound more and more like what you want to sound like. Granted, you’ll never get there entirely; none of us will. If we all sounded exactly the way we wanted to, what would be the point of playing in the first place? It’s that “being on the cusp of the next step” feeling that sustains you and keeps you at it.
Hi Droner
What was your question about: Was it just a question, or are you looking for special motivation? Do you feel too old for pipes?
best
You ca nmake fairly quick progress, technically. like John Murphy, mentioned by Jim above, having started late, at 22, I progressed fairly quickly from class to recital: Breandan Breathnach asked me to do a lunchtime recital at the 1985 WCSS, with barely four and a half years of playing behind me (although I have no illusions about the fact the weather was atrocious and everybody else probably refused to do it, knowing the pipes would probably fail and I am sure whatever I played then would embarrass the arse off me now).
When I ‘graduated’, 21 years of piping in the bag, a few years ago I started to get the feeling I was getting somewhere, understanding the music and knowing what to bring out. Ennis had, in a way, a point. There’s more to it than learning a few cranns and triplets and it takes a while to put it all together and that was I think what he was getting at.
There was two things I was asking about really…No 1 had anyone seen any special person who seemed to take to the pipes quickly and master the easily and No2 I was probably hopin I can get get to a really proficient level even having started late in comparison to most, looking for some kind of reassurance…thanks guys
How do you qualify as a piping teacher? A CCE approval?? :roll:
Nope…and..uh, nope. Face it, you’re over the hill and you’ll never amount to much. 
C’MON, relax and don’t worry about when you got startded. As Sportin’ pointed out, Willie Clancy got to the pipes a little further on in his years than most, and it doesn’t seem to have made a difference to him or us…though I have to wonder what he might have gone on to do if he had been playing the pipes as a kid.
Seems to me that folks here have been giving you nothing but plenty of reassurance…so go with it. Get away from the monitor, pick up that ‘ol octopus and start a’ squeezin’!!
Just wonderin’…what’s the benchmark of a ‘proficient’ piper anyway?
Being able to string three tunes together without stopping?
Playing those three tunes without making a mistake?
Playing them in time?
Not squeaking?
Having your regs in tune with your drones? 
Being able to improvise really ace-hot variations at the drop of a hat without working them out on paper at home first and still be able to get back to to the tune again and in time and at the right place in the bar, ie, not a quarter beat ahead/behind?
Dunno.
Cheers,
DavidG
I assumed Tony meant these were mutually exclusive as no formal joint qualification exists.
Teacher training give a lot of transferable skills that you can use to apply to different teaching situations.
In this case a qualified teacher who was also a piper would be able to:
- Apply “Task Analysis” i.e. Have a clear understanding of all the stages, techniques and skills involved in playing pipes.
- Assess the student i.e. Find out what the student wishes to achieve and identify the strengths and weaknesses of their current playing.
- Devise a personal curriculum i.e. Decide were to focus teaching and learning to achieve the maximum progression.
- Give lots of positive feedback as well as direct constructive criticism.
There’s more that teachers do but I have a large stack of marking to get finished.
David
…I suppose all of the above would be a start.