He was here in AZ on October 8th. Here are some pictures from the show:
Hello: Saw the fine pictures. Do you know whos the maker of the chanter Paddy is playing.
Ole
Hello,
I’m not sure and I didn’t think to ask him. I’m not a piper myself (whistle player actually) but I do appreciate the hell out of them. I know his set is made by Dave Williams (RIP) but I’m pretty sure that’s not the chanter he was using that night.
I’ve heard that he still often plays his Leo Rowsome chanter when his reeds for the Williams chanter are on the fritz. He was in Phoenix, Arizona and having a lot of trouble with his reeds so I suppose he could’ve been using the Rowsome chanter.
That’s the most educated guess I can come up with. Perhaps one of our other pipers here could shed some more light on it?
The photos show his boxwood Koehler and Quinn chanter…
Looks like he still prefers that Naugahyde vinyl bag.
Whats that stuff on his head…under his hat?
Does anyone know who made his whistle (featured in one of the pics)? Its a spitting image of a whistle I had made by Ben Stewart of Victoria, Australia. Could also be a Grinter whistle. I know they share a lot of similarities.
Your guess is as good as mine. 
He did mention during the performance that it was a Grinter whistle.
I was there, I touched his bass drone! 
Nice pics Seánny…
What a piper… Man, that was one awesome experience. Then the lesson with him the next day… Once in a lifetime kind of thing I felt. Awesome. Just awesome.
-E
Many years ago at the London pipers club I was a spectator at a LiamO’Flynn “masterclass”. He sat with his pipes on his lap with about six pipers around him,who were the teachers at the club at the time.He got each piper to play a tune and then commented on their playing. The comments were all something like “thats nice piping” or "what way do you think it could be better"and at the end he didn’t offer much in the way of instruction or advice.Even when the class was finished I thought he’d play a few tunes but he didn’t.Overall dissapointing. He did play a solo gig that night in a pub called the George Robesby so at least we got to hear him play.
What way does Paddy Keenan conduct his classes?
RORY
I got to play his whistle when he had breakfast at a friend’s house the morning after his Prescott gig. Nice guy, who was having a hell of a time with his pipes due to the dry conditions.
What way does Paddy Keenan conduct his classes?
RORY
Well, here’s how it broke down for me Three weeks ago. He did the concert with John Walsh the first night, and then the lessons the next day since he was still in town for about 8 hours before heading on down the road to the next show. Apparently you have to buy a lesson from Paddy prior to the concert. I didn’t know he was giving lessons, until a few of my local music comrades surprised me 2 weeks out that they had set me up a private lesson with him. (Sneaky fecks, I love 'em though!)
He and John stayed with one of our trad buddies for the night, and they have a nice big house with a basement, so Paddy, one other piper/friend of mine and myself all headed down. Lesson went on for an hour since he’s a busy man, and that hour couldn’t have gone any faster you know… I came prepared with many questions, since this was my first encounter with a piper of his ability. He showed some technique that just flat out blew my mind, and offered to slow a tune down or what ever we pleased. I just kept the questions coming and let the man talk, wrote some stuff down and that’s pretty much how it went. Lesson was over, we had lunch took some pics, and off he went.
I wouldn’t advise going to one of his lessons, with an attitude of “show me something” because he could show you everything. Come with particular questions pretaining to you and your playing or your pipes. Obviously I couldn’t learn it all in one hour, but I learned so much my head was overflowing with fresh information.
He’s such a soft-spoken guy, I never would have guessed, although mostly a serious fellow as we saw, his humour pops out when you least expect it. He had a way of making you feel equal, as though there was no pressure when he asked you to play a tune on your pipes or whatever, I had conversation with him just like any other person. Really cool person that Paddy.
Cheers,
It sure sounds like money well spent .
RORY
Indeed it was.
The lesson I had with him was a similar scenario to what Key_of_D describes, except that all the others who were supposed to come never showed up. There was the guy who was billeting PK, and me. He asked us what we wanted, and we suggested he teach what he would like to teach.
He said he was bored to tears just showing technique to young kids who could only conceive of playing blazingly fast. He showed us “interpretation” instead; how he would play the same tune differently at any time, depending on his mood and how he felt. Talking about it was one thing, but then showing us made all the difference. When he explained what he was doing in relation to what he was playing it kind of revealed a whole nuther layer to what was going on in his music.
I thought it was worth the $50.
djm
…that’s what he called" freefalling"…
Many years ago I went to a class given by one of the most famous Irish fiddlers, a name all of you know.
So there was the room full of expectant, eager learners, their fiddles on their laps.
After a while (he was late) the famous fiddler sort of staggered in and sat down at the front of the room.
He didn’t say a word.
After a period of uncomfortable silence, one of the fiddlers asked the master a question. It was a good question, quite specific, about a certain technique (how he did an open-string long roll on E). I’m not a fiddler and I knew exactly what was being asked.
The master, however, was completely puzzled and had no response.
So our brave student then named a specific tune (on a popular album) on which the master had used just this technique.
The master was still puzzled. He seemed to not recognise the name of the tune at all, or remember the album when it was cited.
So our persistent student then proceeded to play the tune in question for the master.
Then followed an absurd scene: the master struggling to learn the tune from the student, a tune the master had recorded on an album fairly recently!
This went nowhere and another period of uncomfortable silence ensued.
After a while the master said, “maybe we can play some tunes”.
Since the majority of the class was Scottish-style fiddlers, the group then blasted through a large number of Scottish tunes that the master didn’t know, he struggling to learn them on the fly.
And that was that.
Several years ago I went to a class given by a famous uilleann piper.
Once again you had a master surrounded by eager students.
The master didn’t play a single note, or had any of the students play a single note, but instead launched into an hour-long lecture about how people learning the pipes should not attempt to play too fast, or play tunes too difficult, or play with too much ornamentation.
(I guess that he was fed up with encountering these things and just had to get it all off his chest.)
More likely the lesson to be learned is that:
Just because you can do it doesn’t mean you can teach it.
I very much appreciate getting a class with someone who can actually teach. Ciaran O’Malley and Mick O’Brien both come to mind in this regard, and - Gosh, look at that! - they’re both teachers by profession.
djm
In that regard, I actually have on tape something that, unless you were to hear it, you would scarcely believe. It’s a class in which the teacher, a very fine player on a number of instruments, is attempting to describe a “triplet”.
It’s an amazing, rambling ten minutes or so.
To verbalise such a concept is quite beyond his powers.
A portion went something like this:
“Well, you know…it’s like when you have three notes…uhhhh… but they’re not three notes…uhhh…well they ARE three notes, but really two notes…but not really…uhhhh…”