I was only joking above, and I think your posts, Rory, are invariably some of the brightest spots of the entire Worldwide Interweb. 
PS I don’t care what everyone else thinks - I think you’re all right. 
There were one or two in this old sesh.org thread
I suppose the inglorious trifecta would be to throw anal into it “and then you have the whole lot.” 
I think you mean the hole lot.
i think that some of the tunes that pop up again and again do so because they represent the acme of piping ability - tunes like the ace and deuce of piping and colonel fraser - it’s an opportunity for a piper to have a shot at the title, to see if theirs can stand up against the classic versions of ennis, doran and the other greats - anyone agree?
just looked up johnny doran on google - there’s an irish actor with the same name - looks (to me) remarkably similar to blackie o connell
“i think that some of the tunes that pop up again and again do so because they represent the acme of piping ability - tunes like the ace and deuce of piping and colonel fraser - it’s an opportunity for a piper to have a shot at the title, to see if theirs can stand up against the classic versions of ennis, doran and the other greats - anyone agree?”
Yes, I agree. A lot of the new tunes are rubbish anyway. The older traditional piping repertoire is still fascinating.
I don’t know about the ‘acme of piping ability’ but maybe tunes remain on the repertoire because they are good tunes. New tunes haven’t gone through ‘the process’ of selection and modification yet but I am sure the good ones will be played for another while yet while the rest of them will fall by the wayside.
I used to go out visit Martin Rochford in Bodyke. Many would have considered him a storehouse of old tunes. And in a way he was but at some point I came to realise that a large portion of his favourite tunes, his party pieces as it were, were relatively recent compositions by Ed Reavey, Larry Redican, Paddy Fahey (and other East Galway musicians like Tommy Coen), Seán Ryan, Junior Crehan, Bobby Casey etc etc. They were all good tunes though.
And Martin would chase you up if he heard you play a tune he liked that he didn’t have. He’d be on to you until you’d have written it down for him. There are many stories of other musicians going to great lengths to get their hands on tunes they wanted, Willie Clancy was notorious for chasing tunes that took his fancy for example.
So, the obvious way to get a new, ‘fresh’ if you like, repertoire is going about it like the old guys did: chase up the good tunes wherever you find them and cherish them.
+10 Mr. Gumby
case in point: That O’Keefe reel via Jack the Lighthouse. Heard it one time through, loved it, it disappeared, chased it. It’s now spreading slowly through New England. Thanks.
Recently I made a list of all my tunes, dance tunes that is, right around a thousand. I’ve added about 100 since then (ones I forgot to add originally, new ones from people I’m playing with/off records) and need to add the airs etc to that. Having a list helps to keep tunes from getting rusty, and will put a stop to your spending yet another evening playing the Colliers, Kesh, Bluehill.
RORYBELLOWS: “Wouldn’t it be good if a piper brought out an album of tunes that are not on any other pipers album.”
Well, as usual, I’m probably going to piss most of you off once again (unintentionally) and say it seems to me that; it’s NOT how many tunes one has, how doggedly one chases down a tune, which obscure corner one mines for material, nor yet how intimately one knows a tunes pedigree; that is the important thing.
What it is for me, is whether or not what a piper is doing has become a CLICHÉ. Kitsch.
Doing an old chestnut for its intrinsic value, as Uillmann & Lorenzo point out, is a worthwhile, yet very dangerous, cheap thrill. As an informed listener, instructed student, and performer, Im FAR more interested in 'what differentiates “Piper A” from “Piper B”, and I dont feel that this individuality (so highly prized among aficionados of the classic recordings of source pipers) can be accentuated and organically grow in the future, by everyones own take on Rakish Paddy. It takes considerable courage from a seasoned pro to truly ‘shed new light’ on a chestnut tune, & even more yarbles & skill to break the “if-its-not-pure-trad-its-crp” mold & try to set a foresighted trend.
Connecting with an audience or bunch of fellow musicians by dragging out a “common-practice” standard, or waxing poetic on authenticity is one thing. Recording and releasing yet another “I can play this too, but faster & in tune, with regs!” album is something else entirely. The younger pipers, especially, have GOT to stand on their own legs and ADD to the genre in a productive, innovative, contemporary, yet faithful manner: or we will be begin cloning ourselves & fall far behind the daring out-of-the-box piping I;ve heard going on recently in the non-competitive highland world. hm. chew on them apples !! 
Apart from the fact that there’s probably alot more time involved in searching out new tunes it also takes another sort of talent to be able to put flesh on the bones of a tune and know how to get the best out of it with regard to Uilleann pipes.
I may be putting my foot in it here but my two favorite jigs on the first LiamO’Flynn album are snug in the blanket and my former wife (are these “new” tunes) Liam displays great pipeing and makes them sound like they were written for the pipes. I dont think all “great” pipers would necessarily have that talent .
RORY
PS I know the jigs are in O’Neill’s , by “new” I mean they weren’t being played in general before Liam put them on his album.
I mean they weren’t being played in general before Liam put them on his album.
Not that it matters a lot but in my recollection they were doing the rounds long before LOF1 was released. And I don’t think he did do much in the way of altering them compared to existing versions, like those in O’Neill’s (as far as I remember, it’s been a while and the same dodgy recollection makes me think O’Neill took the tune from O’Farrell so it WAS a version written for the pipes) or the Early & McCormack cylinder, in the case of the second one.
[edited typo]
The people you seek are out there, Rory. They just are not putting out CDs (perhaps for fear of withering criticism from the “that’s not pure-drop-enough” crowd) nor playing the tunes you are seeking in, say, a session setting (for polite reasons).
Not sure how to light the fire under these folk to get some tracks laid down…
I am not sure people should be coaxed into recording Tommy. Anybody with the urge can do a CD, those who don’t, don’t.
Anyhow, there are loads of tunes about, being played, stuck in books or non commercial tapes etc etc. There is a tendency for CDs to contain a mix of tunes people have learned early on, in other words ones that have been carried around a bit that get included as a way of doffing the hat to the source of them and also because they’re the ones you can feel most confident with. Another class are the popular tunes of the day, which often means tunes that have appeared from somewhere and have been kicked around during informal music for a few years until suddenly they seem to appear out of nowhere on a whole bunch of CDs.
It’s a bit the nature of the thing, tunes need to have been lived in for a bit before they get recorded and sometimes tunes that have recently been lifted from the internet or other sources just don’t sound lived in, kicked around yet and that may be a reason why changes in the repertoire move slowly.
Mind you, sometimes you find tunes you can move straight into, the one Bensdad referred to above was one of those, as far as I was concerned anyway.
tunes you can move straight into
Like a furnished flat. Lovely turn of phrase there
Just thought of a better title for this topic:
“Thinking outside The Bucks.”
I suppose I am relatively still new to Uilleann piping (practicing now for only basically 3 years) however I am not new to making music. In my experience ( regardless of what instrument) I like playing music that I enjoy just in general - whether traditional or “new”. As a musician I think in the end you play what is important to you and to why you play.
As one example, I enjoy slow aires/laments - it is one of reasons I fell in love with the Uilleann pipes in the first place. Listening to Brian McNamara at the Orlando Tionol only hammered this into me more. Well, besides listening to, and collecting traditional tunes (to play when I get better) - I am also taking contemporary music - and using Noteflight -transposing them to play on the Uilleann pipes, including regulator chords. It is a great process taking a song from pop culture and arranging it for the pipes. Maybe this is something worth doing if you find you are wanting/looking for something new to play.