I have just started my study of uilleann pipes. I play highland pipes quite well and I am enjoying this new challenge. I have a few questions for anyone interested in responding, especially anyone who plays or started with playing the highland pipes before UP:
Highland pipe music and technique is very rigid and standardized. Music written for uilleann pipes doesn’t seem to have embellishments included in the notation. When I go to find recordings of the tunes, I find several variations. When you go to learn a new tune, what makes you decide how to embellish the tune? When to throw in a triplet and when a simple gracenote will do?
GHB has a long litany of embellishments: from simple gracenotes, to doublings and taorluaths or crunluaths that include more than 5 gracenotes between theme notes. I found Mr D’Arcy’s page of UP techniques: is there a complete listing of the embellishments? (These pipes seem to be a more evolved version of the GHB and provide enough challenges without too many types of embellishments!)
I found the new fingering less difficult to learn than I thought and I don’t find myself playing uilleann fingerings on my GHB. Getting into the second octave is something challenging for me. Should I start with only tunes that stay mostly in the lower octave?
I find the ring finger of my right hand somewhat strained at the knuckle: is that normal for beginners? Or am I just gripping the chanter too hard.
My chanter has keys, but I see many don’t have keys on their chanters. It seems as though I can make some of the notes that the keys produce with fingering variations. Am I just not hearing it right? Are keys half-steps that can only be produced using a key or optional ways of making notes? I suspect it will be a while before I use them.
Lacking a local tutor, I’m learning from vol 2 of a video put out by NPU (vol 1 is no longer in “print”). I seem to be able to play everything they’re teaching. What do you suppose I’m missing from vol 1? I play highland smallpipes as well, so the bellows thing was not hard for me.
We are a bit hard on men who wear dresses on this board (except me, of course). Did you read the FAQs? There have been several recent threads on what’s available re. books, videos, etc. as tutors.
For a list of embellishments see the books The Piping of Patsy Tuohey, The Dance Music of Willie Clancy, The Master’s Touch - all availble from NPU.
UPs are wide open as far as what you play and how you play it, but get your hands on recordings of old time players so you know where modern UPiping is coming from: Willie Clancy, Séamus Ennis, Leo Rowsome, Tommy Reck, etc.
Play what you can. See Heather Clarke’s book.
You are holding the chanter too hard. Avoid the deathgrip. Fingers should be slightly curled and relaxed, not rigid like GHB.
You will want the Cnat key for second octave. Most other notes can be cross fingered, but extra keys help in all those hornpipes that go for a lot of accidentals.
There are several accomplished bi-curious pipers on the board who can maybe help you out a bit. Here are some of my opinions on the matter…
This is one of the great things about UPs–the ornamentation is much simpler. Tune books will have some ornaments written in (such as rolls, crans, the occasional tight triplet, etc.) but how to ornament the tune is very much up to the individual player. I learn most of my tunes by ear. What I do is when I hear a tune that I like, I listen to it incessantly–hit repeat on the CD player, get someone at a session to play it a bunch, etc. When I’ve got the tune thoroughly stuck in my head and I notice myself humming it when I’m doing the dishes, driving, and so on, I just pick up my chanter and start wading through it. When you’re first starting off, it can be helpful to try and copy the way a certain piper plays it, but after a while, that gets kinda boring and you just start to throw in things on your own.
GHB has a long litany of embellishments: from simple gracenotes, to doublings and taorluaths or crunluaths that include more than 5 gracenotes between theme notes. I found Mr D’Arcy’s page of UP techniques: is there a complete listing of the embellishments? (These pipes seem to be a more evolved version of the GHB and provide enough challenges without too many types of embellishments!)
No crunluath amachs here. The Heather Clarke “New Approach To Uilleann Piping” tutor and “The Master’s Touch” tutor by Seamus Ennis both cover standard UP ornamentation pretty thoroughly. For an accomplished Highland piper, rolls and crans should be no trouble. The trick is getting used to tight fingering…remember that just because it’s called tight doesn’t mean you should actually tighten your grip on the chanter.
I found the new fingering less difficult to learn than I thought and I don’t find myself playing uilleann fingerings on my GHB. Getting into the second octave is something challenging for me. Should I start with only tunes that stay mostly in the lower octave?[/qoute]
Maybe not a bad idea when you first begin, but don’t be afraid of the second octave. Remember that the bag does most of the work and you should not flap madly at the bellows. If you are really, really having a consistently hard time jumping and/or holding the octave, you might want to check the bridle on the reed and move it down a tiny bit.
I find the ring finger of my right hand somewhat strained at the knuckle: is that normal for beginners? Or am I just gripping the chanter too hard.
Probably just gripping a bit too hard?
My chanter has keys, but I see many don’t have keys on their chanters. It seems as though I can make some of the notes that the keys produce with fingering variations. Am I just not hearing it right? Are keys half-steps that can only be produced using a key or optional ways of making notes? I suspect it will be a while before I use them.
Chanters typically have 0-4 keys. The only key you really need is the c natural key which is used specifically for getting the c natural in the second octave. The other keys are F natural, G sharp, and B flat. Most tunes do not use these notes at all but there are a decent handful of tunes with F naturals and if you do any playing in the key of A, having a G sharp key helps a lot…Half-holing the F natural isn’t too hard and can actually be preferable in some tunes, but it can be nice to have a key and hit it on the nose sometimes…
Lacking a local tutor, I’m learning from vol 2 of a video put out by NPU (vol 1 is no longer in “print”). I seem to be able to play everything they’re teaching. What do you suppose I’m missing from vol 1? > > I play highland smallpipes as well, so the bellows thing was not hard for me.
Just going like opposite way,.. several years with Up’s,now also GHB and smallpipes in the “same boat”. So different is that “GHB-world” indeed, I understand now quite well your transition difficulties between Up’s and GHB’s, but keep on going with that " 2-octave machine", no more birls!
Stay tuned,
Mikko
I see that you’re in Queensbury, NY. You’re about two and a half hours driving time from Montreal. We’ve recently formed a club for uilleann pipers. The website is :
We meet every 6 or 8 weeks. Our next meeting is scheduled for April 16th in Quebec city. If you’re interested in attending, you very welcome. See the following thread:
Having been looking into this sort of thing for a while (being a definite bi myself) I would say that GHB players bring a lot of skills and generally get on pretty well with UPs. I think the biggest problem we have is learnig to play Irish music, as opposed to Irish tunes in a Scottish style. To cure that, you have to listen to a lot of what is apparently called ‘the pure drop’ stuff - Ennis, Clancy, et al. I think the players that get into it through bands like Lunasa and people like Simon McKerral are rather disconnected from the ‘heart’ of Irish piping. But then Scottish folk music is changing so fast that I can hardly keep up with what some people are doing now. Not that that’s any bad thing.
Since starting UP’s, I have been listening almost constantly to Séamus Ennis recordings - I have a long drive to work, so it passes the time. There are definitely interesting stylistic differences bt Scottish and Irish folk music.
There seems to me a certain freedom in Irish tunes for UP that is not found for GHB music. Some of this may be due to the fact that so much GHB music needs to be played in band, so rigidity and standardization is necessary. Some, however, may not be: piobaireachd, for example, I find very rigid. Lovers of this music may claim the player has room to interpret, but a crunluath amach is a crunluath amach and it only goes in the place the music says. I am not a fan of piobaireachd at all.
This second octave thing is challenging: sometimes I get it with ease, sometimes I am frustrated by some strange mid-way noise. i increase pressure,a nd the reed stops. I know it’s a question of practice. Popping drives me crazy right now. Most times I get it, but sometimes not.
My hands actually tire: probably because I am gripping chanter harder as I’m learning. I’ll still grip my GHB chanter too hard if it’s a challenging new tune.
I’m studying from the NPU videos. I’m on vol 2 and finishing the “Plains of Boyle” and “Down the Back Lane”. I’m working on a number of tunes by ear (which seems much more welcome on UPs than GHBs), but they lack embellishments that would truly make them sound “UP-ish”.
A lot of the rigidity is because of the regimental influence and pipe band movement. The rigidity of piobaireachd comes from competition and the Piobaireachd Society. William Donaldson and Allan MacDonald have done some great work in pulling those veils off of the tradition. Have a look at Williams Donaldson’s articles on Piper and Drummer. You’ll see that piobaireachd is a bit more diverse and unfettered than it would seem.
That being said the rigidity of GHB playing will likely linger for years to come. But even through pipe bands in the last 20-30 years there has been much more room for interpretation.
But those of us more open-minded must concede the greater range of the UP and the greater freedom of personal expression. As much as I love the GHB, it will always fall just a bit short of that.
I would go a step further and say that, IMO, it is worthwhile to listen to these guys in the context of the musical tradition they were playing within, particularly solo performers on other instruments of the period. Although house and crossroads dances, then ceilis, then sessions, then group arrangements have kept the communication lines open between musicians, the solo performer reigns supreme with respect to nuance of phrasing and rhythm. I believe it is hard to fully appreciate Ennis and Clancy and their contribution to the piping tradition without being tuned in to these aspects of the music generally.
I play highland smallpipes as well, so the bellows thing was not hard for me.
except of course, the habit of keeping the air flow constant.