My repertoire of slow airs is pitifully small.
Any suggestions for airs which are not too difficult to play and which are not already recorded 240,000,000 by other pipers (read: No ‘Ned of the Hill’ please)?
In fact, I’d like to find slow airs played on other instruments which might sound nice on UPs.
How many is ‘pitifully small’ ?
I’d say the range of 6 to 12 slow airs is enough to round out most pipers’ repertoires.
Unless you’re planning a lot of gigs at retirement homes, anyway.
As for sessions, ‘once a night’s enough’ when it comes to slow airs, IMO.
I agree, no one wants to spend the whole evening listening to slow airs, but one or two a night are nice. They’re also handy if asked to play at a funeral.
At a regular session, playing the same one or two is a bit boring. I’ve only got 2 which I play in public on the pipes. One is Cape Clear and the other is called Charlie’s Lament, composed by a friend. I’d like to have a repertoire of about 6 or 7 which I could vary.
Some of the airs I’ve heard on the fiddle are lovely. Unfortunately those that I really like are in D but drop down to C, so on the pipes, they lose something (bottom C usually!)
“Women of Ireland” is a pretty good one, as is “Carrickfergus”.
I already play Mna na hEirinn on the whistle but I’ve never tried it on the pipes. I’ll give it a go this evening. I think the second part would go well with the drones.
Thanks for the suggestion.
I love slow airs! Right now I’m trying to get my head around “Green Fields of Amerikay (or Canada, depending)”. Great tune, that one.
The reason a lot of pipers don’t play slow air’s ‘is’ a slow air certainly lets others pipers hear how good a set of pipes are, hitting and holding notes in the upper octave, you certainly hear the set at its true self, lots of sets sound good when playing jigs and Reels, buts playing an air can totally
break the image one might have about an other pipers set, even when
they look highly crafted and finished, I’ve seen plenty of lovely looking sets,but thats all they’ll ever be, basically pretty looking shite. 
Might give “The Wild Geese” a try. It’s really nice, especially with regs. The one Joseph sent me, “Lord Lovat’s Lament” is also really nice.
-Mike
I’d recommend getting tapes of Sean-Nós singing and listen to the songs. Most of the great airs which are played on the pipes are available on good singing albums. I’d think this is the best way to choose the air you want to play and would also give you a better understanding of the melodie rather than learning it from piping cds.
Absolutely, and very good point made here.
The single-best way to gain insight into the tune is to know how it’s sung, and what the tune means.
I could listen to slow airs all night, but maybe I’m weird.
The single-best way to gain insight into the tune is to know how it’s sung, and what the tune means.
I understand that there is always a lot of talk that one cannot play a slow air unless they understand the words of the songs. There is a lot of truth to this, however, considering that most of the pipers involved in this forum are American based, it would be hard to come to terms with Irish from the 18th Century. However, I believe that if the general story behind the song is understood then one will recognise the emotions a good singer will include in the various parts of the song. However, I think it is important to remember that these songs when written were put to airs that already existed, therefore there are first and formost pieces of music when played on a instrument. However by listening to the song, sung by a good singer > it will give you a better grasp of the ornamentation and phrasing of the tune.
Still getting used to the workings of the forum The quate is my point. The other should be the quote!!!
How did you manage that!?? That’s like accidently leaving the washing in the machine and hanging the soap out to dry 
Cheers,
DavidG
I started playing Wildwood Flower which while not an Irish tune, is a great traditional tune that can be played as an air. It’s been recorded by several people but the first recording of it was by the Carter Family. One of my favorite versions is by Trans Am. But that’s a different world all together. Someone who can actually play the regs would have a great time with the tune. I can post the sheet music for it if anyone is interested.
I, as well, could listen to slow airs/songs all night. Especially on the pipes.
(Provided they are more or less traditional songs.. I don’t like listening to drinking songs all the time)
I’ve recently gotten interested in flat sets, and someone suggested to me that flat chanters are far superior to concert chanters when playing slow airs.
Well this is probably not applicable and I am just a beginner on the whistle, but on Cape Breton Island (Gaelic fiddle playing) they often start out with a slow air, then move into a faster set of variations on that slow air, and then move into some other fast things that go well with the slow air. So you can get a lot of lovely slow airs in one evening. I know it is a different tradition. But I myself get sort of tired of non-stop playing as fast as possible. I know the audience does start livening up when the fast things come, but maybe it is the contrast that makes it so exciting. Maybe you could think in terms of groups of tunes that include a full range of expression.
This is actually something I don’t know anything about and would appreciate if anyone has some comments. What is the Irish tradition as far as groups of tunes go? Is it different than the Scottish tradition? It seems on some recordings I hear sets of tunes, on others I don’t. What makes tunes go together? When that weird exciting thing happens when someone switches seamlessly into something new, what are they actually doing? Does the key change? Does the length of the basic beat change?
Same in rish music - play a slow air, then play something fast and cheery to liven things up again, especially if the air was a bit morose. Groups of tunes were used to for dancing - if a set dance, then the type of tunes and the total of number of bars would be very specific, if just céilí dancing, the tunes would all be of a type (reels or jigs, etc.), but as many or few tunes as could be tolerated. Nowadays, the music is played more for listeners than dancers, so players feel more free to mix the types of tunes within a set, but this is hardly traditional. Which tunes make up a set is up to your tastes and abilities.
djm
… what David said.