question

Uilleann Pipes
1

do you think there is any objective basis for calling a piper or pipemaker ‘great’ or is it possible it’s just something unique about them that we respond to and that others don’t necessarily

in the case of piping I think you could say objectively that someone had total mastery of the instrument - but what is it that sets them apart as ‘great’?

likewise some makers who I have no doubt make first-rate pipes, but who seem to be elevated as having something magical about their pipes, as though it’s implied that nothing else, no matter how good, is equal?

2

For the first question, I would fall back on a quote from Duke Ellington: “If it sounds good, it is good.” If a lot of people agree that a particular piper is good, I suppose that would elevate them to “great”.

As to pipe makers, if they do make first-rate pipes, does that not imply that anything that is less than first-rate is not equal?
First-rate, in my understanding, would be an attractive, robust set that in the hands of different pipers consistently allows those pipers to produce the music as best they can.

3

It’s all in the detail.