I’m working through the Clarke tutor. In the first few lessons I am having to close off all holes to create a staccato, or closed fingering sound. How important is this? And how often do you close off all holes when you’re playing reels etc. as you become more proficient? I tried the same lessons, but just cut each repeating note instead, which seemed a lot more “normal”, and easier. The lesson I’m referring to is the tune “Dawning of the Day”.
If a tutor tells you you should do something at the start do you think there might be a reason? If you don’t, stop using a tutor.
It’s essential to learn non legato playing, it’s the foundation of good piping.
Echo that of Peter.there are no short cuts.
I am surprised,that,given ye are yerself a TEACHER,that ye should be posing this question in the 1st place. 
ye will also find that the heading of the thread is a bit misleading as a lot of ornamentation is in the form of staccato playing hence the need to master it.Now then aff ye go and do your staccato homework 
Slán Go Foill
Uilliam
I’m thinking you need to do an extra essay on this, young piper! 
good musicianship, for that matter
I see you come from the sax and the flute. Closing the chanter does feel very counter intuitive at first after an instrument that you can articulate with your tongue - even simple phrases become harder to finger. But it is essential to play staccato, articulate phrases, and it can be necessary to move cleanly between the octaves at times.
Once you get that hang of it it becomes second nature, but the Uilleann Pipes are not an instrument you can pick up ovenight, even if you are an experienced woodwind player.
ok! I’m going off to “woodshed”. I will close the fingers as told. As far as me being a teacher (third graders, non pipers yet) we are the worst students, I guess we succumb to being like our own students. I am however, buying a class set of Meg whistles to teach with. I gave them a choice, plastic recorder or whistle, they voted whistle!I would also like to rename the subject “How important is learning closed fingering in the first year of piping” Brian
I actually think there are parallels between articulation (separation between notes) in Irish traditional flute playing and on the pipes, in that traditional flute players often articulate notes by stopping them. It’s just that with the pipes you have to do it all with your fingers, whereas on the flute you use glottal stops or tonguing. When you listen to Irish flute players you realize that there’s a range of styles from open and flowing to tight and articulated, just as there is with the pipes, with most good players using a mix of legato and staccato in their playing.
Totally “open” legato playing on the uilleann pipes, the flute, or the whistle tends to be boring mush; I’ve never heard anyone pull it off successfully. There’s plenty of staccato in the playing of so-called “open-style” pipers such as Johnny Doran, Paddy Keenan, etc. and if you listen carefully to Matt Molloy and Paddy Carty, who are normally considered “flowing” flute players, you’ll hear a fair amount of staccato breath articulation peppering their music as well.
What did Brian say???
Slán Go Foill
Uilliam
Uilliam,
I will summarize what I said:
1- I teach 3rd grade
2- teachers are often not very good students, very impatient
3- I am going to teach my class the whistle
4- I wish I could rename my original subject to be: “How important is learning closed fingering”
5- I will do what the tutor says
Howdy ‘Neighboor’!
… 6- And his name is Brian. 
Thanks Joseph I think Brien missed my little joke
Uilliam
STACCATO BIT…
I think one of THE main elements of the uilleann pipes chanter [different from most other instruments] is that it can be stopped between notes.
To deny or ignore this possibilty would “leave out” a large part of the musical and percussive possibilities which the instrument possesses.
Flute and fiddle players can mimic this effect stylistically [listen to Séan Keane playing] but they can’t really do it the way that a good piper can.
Now if a player can go off and stop the chanter at speed between notes so it sounds like he’s plucking a bantam chicken, well and good…but it only takes a bit of control for any of us to start to get “pipey” pippety pip stuff happening in otherwise legato playing.
TEACHER BIT…
One great thing for any teacher to do is to learn something completely new and alien. We can all easily forget the frustrations, challenges and feelings that you get when you are floundering around with something unfamiliar and unlearnt. So your adult piping hurdles will make you a better teacher…of anything!!
Boyd
I know I did… 
Hear, hear. 
I’ll admit it, I missed all the jokes.
Signing off, the humorless teacher
Who came up with the idea that Johnny Doran and Paddy keenan sound at all alike? Also, who decided to call Johnny a “legatto” player, when he’s more stacatto than most players, when he wants to be? I know theres the “open piping” concept, but really! Paddy and Johnny are about as similar to my ears as Davy Spillane and RL O’meally! Or maybe I’m just deaf, which is not only possible, most mostly true.
Seamus Ennis I remember in his liner notes for Paddy’s first solo LP, he said something like “from the first notes, I thought it was Doran playing.”
I agree that their styles are very different, although Paddy uses (or used to use) quite a bit more staccato in his playing than many of his would-be imitators realize. To my ears there’s more of Doran in Willie Clancy’s playing than in Paddy Keenan’s, but whatever.
Brian, get some CDs of various pipers, solo playing is best as you can hear what’s going on that way. There are “open” and “close” types of playing: how much the player uses silence to shape the phrasing of a tune, which is what these fellows are yammering about. The “open” players don’t use it as much as the “close” ones. Paddy Keenan is a famous “open” player, Liam O’Flynn is more of a “close” player and equally famous, in fact they’re probably the two most influential pipers of these days. Get a CD called Drones and Chanters Vol. 2, a sampler of some of the best-known modern pipers. Ronan Browne is more of an open piper, Robbie Hannon is a close piper. These are generalizations, of course. Whether you like the sound of the close piping will dictate how much practice you want to put into it. Either way you need to learn how to close the fingerholes, it’s essential for getting the chanter into the second octave for one thing.