I have said it before, the whole ‘based on’ sales pitch is only of interest if the pipemaker copying the older design actually manages to copy playing characteristics of the original. Unfortunately 90 percent of pipemakers copy measurements but seem unable to capture that original sound. It’s fine if you copy the dimensions of a Rowsome or Coyne but if your result doesn’t sound like the original you should know you don’t quite have the essence down.
I think that’s the whole point, pipemaking has come a long way in the past twenty years or so, it’s just not quite there yet. Rather than pushing for new designs I think the majority of pipemakers is still struggling to find what makes the thing actually work, a lot of knowledge has been accumulated, I suppose it’s all there but I don’t think anybody [some are close enough though]really has it all yet. As a result some pipemakers make nice drones, some nice regulators and some a nice chanter it’s fairly rare though find someone who really has it all tackled. To come back to my earlier point, it is extremely important that information should come together and is shared, then and only then can pipemaking reach standards of the old pipemakers and once there, maybe someone can come up with an idea to surpass them.
I am also not completely done with DJM’s ‘Teachers, What teachers’ in relation to standards, let’s just be clear about hte fact I learned my piping as an isolated piper so I am aware of the problems involved. I also think there’s such a variety in playingstyles, it’s very hard to standardise any beginner’s approach. You have your NPU videos now and your on-line tutorials, would think they’d go a long way [further and easier so than the Armagh pipe’s club tutor I worked from at the time while at the same time piecing things together from the Clancy book]. You will have to listen carefully to good playing and be very critical listening to your own, and see a techer every now and again for a push in the right direction. It’s always work but that’s the way it is and no amount of standardisation will change that.
Gay McKeon also expressed concern in an NPU editorial (can’t remember if it’s the same one Peter referenced or not) over the loss or diminution of individualised piping style due to the pressures/popularity of ensemble playing, what he calls the “whistle approach” to piping–so while he may be in favor of a more regimented approach to the teaching of the instrument, I don’t see him wanting to hear all pipers playing like him and Nollaig MacCarthaigh.
This discussion has reminded me of the first bit of George Steiner’s book “Presences”, in which he posits a society that recognises that the only really meaningful act of artistic criticism is reinterpretation, to the extent that there would be no professional critics or commentators, only fellow artists “commenting” via their own work. While this is a little too extreme a vision to stand a chance of becoming real, the point is worthwhile. To me, the real hazard to individual style in music is a by-product of improved communications technologies, that being the homogenization of musical influence. This is, of course, especially evident in America, but it seems that almost everywhere I go, recorded music is pumped into every environment and it usually falls into a very narrow spectrum. It’s usually urbanised music, by which I mean that it mimics the sounds of machines, not nature, and heavily favours dense weaves of sound over very bassy rythyms. This music is like television in that you don’t have to seek it out to feel its influence in your life and I feel that it is compressing the musical imaginations of young people in particular ways that contribute to what Gay was talking about. I asked Daithi Sproule about it during a talk he gave here recently and he confirmed that he heard this decrease in solo performances and streamlining of styles happening as well.
I don’t think any teacher or tutorial method could do away with or even really damage musical individuality–look at all the pupils of Leo Rowsome, who ostensibly had a teaching format he stuck to. Their styles are all over the map. It’s because they were hearing such different things in the rest of their musical lives that their personalities were expressed so differently in their music. For myself, I think it’s bad for musicians to hear too much music, especially recorded music, and most especially the kind of recorded music that is used as a sensory anaesthetic by merchants. That stuff gets in your brain even if you know it’s shite and it comes out somehow. I think the best thing you can do for a young musician is introduce them to old people, get them used to being patient enough to hear long stories, and get them out for walks in the woods and fields. That’s where real music comes from, not the CD player.
Pipemakers have always operated under a ‘continuous improvement’ program. There is always an incredible gap between early sets and later sets of any maker.
One would hope that a pipemaker would standardize their design and manufacture and, thereafter, all pipers would enjoy the fruits of the early R&D curve when a consistently ‘excellent’ instrument is turned out. Too bad that’s not the case. So, sets end up being all over the map by the pipemaker’s hand and don’t forget the desire by others to modify an instrument. I have heard of just about every single maker’s instrument (living and dead) being tampered/modified to potentially reach a better state.
LemonS, sorry, but I disagree. We can’t assume that everyone who hears uilleann pipes will like them, or that everyone who hears a particular style of uilleann pipe playing will like it.
One of the reasons that “canned” music remains so popular, and that it can so easily dominate most of what is widely played, is that there is something in it that appeals to the broader audience. Individual sounds and styles can easily tend toward what is unacceptable to the majority of listeners.
As much as I hate to admit it, I believe most people’s tastes have become too sophisticated for them to be satisfied with solo piping to any great extent, regardless of personal style. The homogenization you blame on modern communications media really has more to do with the majority of listeners sifting through what is available to find what is acceptable to them. I don’t think anything really gets lost, but the less acceptable or less accessable normally gets pushed out to the fringes, and UPs are definitely a fringe instrument. Hiding popular music from young people as you suggest will only result in a backlash (yep, I grew up in the 60s). I know that’s not what people want to hear, but let’s face it, guitarists are not shitting themselves worrying about UPs taking over the music market.
The best thing that NPU and others concerned with promoting UPs and the various styles can do is make the music available. How many UP recordings are not available to UP enthusiasts, let alone to the public. I don’t believe any historic recordings should be allowed to disappear. I believe that as many UP styles should be represented as possible, so that listeners can find what they like. If the majority of UP players should gravitate towards certain styles, then just as with popular “canned” music, I think this reveals something that is common in the tastes of the widest audience. This is not something to be smothered, but studied for better understanding.
Let’s not forget that the ITM dance music we play today, and the styles we play it in, still exists because of its popularity, not because of some notion of purity or individual style.
Just to make a point that I see in regards to solo playing:
I don’t see it.
I mean, if anyone of us were to spend $10,000 on a new car (yeah, well dream, and stick with me here for a sec.) that required constant care and cleaning, would we never drive it and just keep it in the garage under it’s prtective tarp?
I for one love the pipes for two main reasons: First, I love their sound. Second, I love playing with others. While the pipes were perhaps once a “solo” instrument, it was because of the difficulty of travel two hundred and even a hundred years ago, as well as the fact that many forms of Irish culture, including music and language were looked down upon for centuries. It wasn’t exactly popular to get together and have big sessions or ceili’s without fear of serious punishment - as I’ve been told anyway.
Today’s world os of course much different. The pipes are no longer a solo instrument, nor do I feel that they should be thought of as such. They are a beautiful creation in their own right, but I don’t know of anyone who could just sit and listen to one instrument their whole life and not go a little batty. The pipes are so much fun when playing with others - especially other pipers (for me) and this is where that elusive standardization comes in…not to mention the other musicians in a session…
The pipes are to me a solo instrument, they may work in a duet or even trio situation anything more than that is a waste [and I mean duet/trio situation with other instrumetns, two pipes are really slightly above the maximum already]. For the simple reason that everything that makes piping special and worthwhile gets lost in the crowd.
I only have a flat set, when I go out to play with others I take the whistle. I do play with concertinaplayer Kitty Hayes as we happen to go very well together, sometimes the things you share in your approach work out well and the differences complement eachother and create textures adn layers that make your duet more than just the sum of it’s parts. Possibly only then it’s really fun to play with others.
Rather than tastes becoming too ‘sophisticated’ I actually think people’s tastebuds are so dulled they can’t listen to the finer points of a solo performance, used as they are to ‘the wall of sound’. And I mean that beyond piping, it’s much ‘easier’ to listen to the Four seaons by the Venice Soloists than it is listening to Pablo Casals playing Bach’s sonates for cello.
As Peter remarked, this just isin’t true. There were pipers who recorded then who played in a more simplistic manner, but when contrasted to the pipers who had a total command of the instrument who also recorded then, you realize it probably just indicates that the simpler players happened to be in the right place at the right time to get a recording contract.
Pat Mitchell’s article included the piper Matt Kiernan as an example of what he was getting at - the only ornament Matt used was the A-C-A triplet, so is he a piper? I’ve heard some stuff of Matt and liked it, too, simply for his rhythm, timing, things like that; and the fact that he sounds unmistakably like himself. “It’s Matt Kiernan!” sez I. Not a flash player at all. Most of you would yawn, I imagine; but I’m in the Pat Mitchell camp all the way myself.
One of the greatest things about the pipes - the Irish pipes - is how a player’s personality will shine through their playing, exactly how I’m not sure. The pipe/reedmaker’s intents show up, too. Name another instrument where you can identify who is playing just by how they start the instrument up. Perhaps the electric guitar, another very random instrument in its design and technique. BB King? Jimi Hendrix? Chet Atkins? Sonny Sharrock? Quite a map.
By the same token, I frankly never hear this sort of diversity out of Highland pipes (as an example). They can change their grips and throws all day long; even when they slur notes they still mostly sound like John Burgess, maybe with a few too many in him. An extreme statement, and I’ve listened to enough Highland pipers to appreciate some of the subtleties in their music. But the only drastically different Highland pipes I’ve ever heard were made out of pearwood, in A. The typical piper with typical pipes and reeds sounds…typical. It can be a nice sound to be sure, although not when they tune up to C…
Pulling this off with Irish piping could be done. But. WHY? I’ve heard recordings of Gay McKeon playing with his sons and it wasn’t exactly something I wanted to cue up repeatedly; and I really wouldn’t want to be in a room with an army of UPpers, frankly. They couldn’t even march away, unless they were on a flatbed truck…
I’ve also some old recordings of Leo Rowsome’s pupils playing (theoretically) in unision; feckin’ nasty on the E. Leo was into ensembles, and Gay was his student, so this is to be expected. But NPU was founded by Breandan Breathnach, who was against teaching groups because it would have rubbed out a lot of the individuality I spoke of above. For that matter, if uniformity of playing were enforced as stridently as in the GHB Gay McKeon wouldn’t play the way he does, which is quite quirky to my ears, not to mention too fast. Same for you, Peter! (The quirks; Peter’s got great tempo).
As for trying to enforce standardization in the pipemaking - consider - I tried on this forum to simply state what I disliked about a certain well known pipemaker - I won’t say who but he lives in Tubingen, Germany :roll: - and was roundly shithammered for simply stating an opinion, and not even fully at that. Good luck telling people what they should do when they’re barely ekeing out a living making these goddamn things.
Yes, absolutely. The “based on” sales pitch is, well, a sales pitch. When you buy a Rogge set “based on designs by Coyne”, it sounds like a set by Rogge, not Coyne. However, I think a lot of people are attracted to this not because they think they’ll get an instrument that sounds almost identical to a Coyne but because of a desire to own an instrument that has a rather “old” or “classic” look about it. There is a degree of antiquarianism (or perhaps “wanna-be antiquarianism”) among some uilleann pipers that doesn’t really seem to exist on the same level among many other modern musicians.
A few people have attempted to design uilleann pipes that don’t look entirely “traditional” in appearance, but not many. Maybe these designs are sound; maybe they’re crap. I’m in no position to say. But all I was trying at here is that hopefully in the future pipemakers will have the luxury of more time to just, well, tinker with things. We’ve gotten to where we are through largely a trial and error process and despite wonderous advances in technology, its likely that future innovations in pipemaking will still spring from ideas that are more or less trial and error.
I was once talking about all this with a pipemaker and he was saying “well, makers like [Leo] Rowsome made some great sets because he had more time to experiment. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t, but he had more time to innovate than say, myself.” Maybe. But also surprising since the fellow who said this has made regulators that I would consider to be rather innovative.
Anyway, I’m blethering.
As for standardization in piping…Naah, I’m too tired to get into this one right now.
djm, I think you misunderstood me (at least in part) and I hope I misunderstand you. I’m certainly aware that not everyone is into hearing piping, not sure what I said that made you think I was suggesting that. I agree with Peter that what has resulted in people having a harder time appreciating solo piping is not properly called sophistication. And no one really knows or will probably ever know if those whining brats blaring out of every speaker in every store are really popular, because no one is asked their opinion of it. Sure, their records sell well, but what else is on the radio to give people the chance to find out what crap it is? Those more docile members of the listening populus, unwilling to work to hear music (or to see music as worthy of work), “like” pop fluff not because they’ve considered the other options with care and decided that Justin Timberlake is the best music you can listen to, but because radio stations are paid big bucks to hammer his crap into soft heads. Even pop music has gone way downhill, at least if you go by what comes out of car windows.
djm, I think you misunderstood me (at least in part) and I hope I misunderstand you. I’m certainly aware that not everyone is into hearing piping, not sure what I said that made you think I was suggesting that. I agree with Peter that what has resulted in people having a harder time appreciating solo piping is not properly called sophistication. And no one really knows or will probably ever know if those whining brats blaring out of every speaker in every store are really popular, because no one is asked their opinion of it. Sure, their records sell well, but what else is on the radio to give people the chance to find out what crap it is? Those more docile members of the listening populus, unwilling to work to hear music (or to see music as worthy of work), “like” pop fluff not because they’ve considered the other options with care and decided that Justin Timberlake is the best music you can listen to, but because radio stations are paid big bucks to hammer his crap into soft heads. Even pop music has gone way downhill, at least if you go by what comes out of car windows.
I suppose this could drag on for a bit but for my part I think it’s time to wrap it up. Summarising I think we by and large agree standardisation for pipes and piping is not something we are likely to see or even want to see happening.
Pipes are not really an instrument to play together, I always see images of five or six [although I have seen as many as twelve or even more at it] concert pitch sets roaring at tionols and wonder if they caused me to stop going to tionols at all at some point in time. Kevin mentioned a few examples of this sort of carry on, I know exactly which recordings he means, the one that really stands out in my mind is a recording sold by Peter Kennedy, during a concert Felix Doran is joined on stage by five or six other pipers, Pat McNulty, Leo Rowsome, one of the Brophys I think and a few more whose names escape me now. It has great lift and you can hear the sense of fun but godallmighty what a racket.
I believe the demand for standardisation is by and large one that comes from the outside, from those new to the instrument and the music. You see it all over forums like this one, people looking for a handle on [an example from the ITM board next door] say, bowing in Clare fiddling. I am rather fond of Clare fiddling and immediately I see images of Cleary’s kitchen durign the early 80s with Bobby Casey, Joe Ryan, Breandan McGlinchey, Eamonn McGivney, John Joe Tuttle, John Kelly sr and jr, Michael Downes, Vincent Griffin and all the others, John McEvoy, Catherine McEvoy playing the flute. And in my minds eye I see all bows moving in different directions and at different speeds, I hear different ornamentations complementing eachother but at the same time I hear a coherent, close, lightly bouncing, great music full of texture. Maybe it is the music and the ear for what is appropriate in it that unifies it all and not a standardised technique.
Pat Mitchell when working on the Ennis book discovered that Ennis’ music is full of underlying textures, a layer below melody and rhythm, ornamentation variation etc. Pat maintains there’s something there and it may well be according to him that that sub-conscious layer is actually what makes Ennis’ music forever new and interesting. Again you can wonder if standardised teaching would erase that element from the music, leaving it duller than it was before.
The music has become more sophisticated it was said, I don’t think so, again I think the call for ensemble playing and big sessions is one that comes from the outside. Those not used to the music want bands; a unified and often hyped sound that appeals to things the listener is accustomed to. I once asked a piper whose CD you all have why he had all these other people playing on the CD. ‘I don’t like it either but people [actually he said ‘these yanks’] won’t buy the CD if I play the pipes on my own’.
Another example of how scary solo piping can be to a novice is the story of how Geoff Wooff’s mother during the early seventies went on a holiday in Ireland. On her return she brought Geoff Ennis’ Wandering Minstrel. At the time Geoff played the English concertina and he recognised as one he played himself ‘The Boys of Bluehill’ so he put that track on. I remember him telling me he could not cope with it at all and put the lp away for another five years before he could even begin to appreciate what Ennis was up to. He eventually got it though, it just took some time. Maybe we do need those 21 years afterall.
So, while I don’t think we got any closer to a solution, it was fun talking about it.
Hi Guys, May I say that modern Classical music out sells, pop, and the
so call modern bands of to day, where 90 per cent of it is pure SH-T, hear is my reason.
technology, Drum machines and programmed key boards which a goat
could play, that is why you get the repetitive Sh-T you hear like rap,
Techno, House music, and modern pop music, its all style over content, pretty boys & girls with no talent,the bands ain’t much better 90 per cent of them have not mastered there instruments, the guitarists just strum,no electric solo’s any more, the bands all sound the same no individuality
there all like sheep were one go’s the rest go,its aimed at the under 21’s, bring back PinkFloyd,Genisis,Queen,DeepPurple,Free,TheEagles,Fleetwood Mac,the Sex Pistols, bands with some back bone!, I’m sick and tired of hearing old cover versions of song destroyed by talentness prittie’s,and crap pop Idol programs, it’s come down now, that we have young people running the music & television who’m haven’t got a bit of talent along with any imagination but with plenty of mouth and probobly a degree, they seem to forget about “Experience” never mind the Degree’s, the pop
industry is near collapse no ones buying this garbage anymore.
2 Whether pipers like it or not RiverDance has done a lot to bring the
Uilleann Pipes to notice, the Concert D set is the future, you can play with
other musicians which means nights out and socialising, the flat sets from
the earlier days really are for home or unless a piper plays a few solo’s
while out at a gig, pipes like any other instrument become boring after a
time of repetitive playing in the same key, but with other musicians there
is a lot more scope, the future pipe maker has to experiment with the design of chanter to get it right if he intends to have a future as a maker, if and when he gets it right he should get the rewards of his hard
work, I don’t believe he should hand it over for other makers to gain,
pipers don’t want to think that the big makers have the right designs either as some will find out in the future, I think makers should specialise in one or two keys at the most, more chance to get the designs better, rather than making pipes in five or six keys which are average, all the best .
Stew, you make me laugh. You sound exactly like my Granny did when the Beatles first came out, and like my parents did when Frank Zappa, Pink Floyd or Led Zeppelin filled the air. God knows where you get the idea that classical outsells anything. Classical hangs on by the skin of its teeth, largely through public funding.
I like pretty girl groups. Sometimes I even listen to their music. I still enjoy the occasional new song on the radio, too.
By “sophisticated” I did not mean better, just more complex. I don’t think people approach listening to music the same as they may once have. Expectations are higher. Peter mentioned Phil Spectre’s “wall of sound”, which became a hit because a lot of people liked it, even though there was plenty of other choice at the time it came out. There is more choice today in music styles than ever, and all these styles are far more accessable than ever before. Can anyone here remember how rare it was to see any album from Ireland in the 70s, let alone a good one?
People are choosing what appeals to them, and their tastes change constantly. Its true that radio only plays what they are payed to play, but the recording industry pays even more bucks to keep up with those changes, the ones generated by the buying public. One DJ bragged that he could sell “God Save the Queen” if he played it over and over often enough. But the point he missed was that he could only do this if the rest of the music he played was appealing. I he only played national anthems, people would change the station.
As you point out, some people actually liked LiverPrance, and some people actually enjoy playing in, and listening to, ensembles. Even some pipers get bored of a constant fare of solo piping.
What has any of this got to do with standardization? The point is that there is no room for standardization in UPs or their manufacture. However, we should not ignore the needs of beginners, nor should we ignore changes of taste trends of our audiences.
And so we arrive back at the old dilemma, do we play music to please ourselves or to please the others.
Let’s just remind you, when I talk about music here I am talking about playing music, not about being a performer, that’s my perspective.
I ca nagree on the solo pipign though, I rarely listen to it and when I do I am very specific as to what I listen to. A lot is downright awful and a nother lot is extremely boring. It’s the pipers though and not the piping that are the cause of that.
Roger that sounded very much like Rochford. He also once mentioned a particular pipemaker saying ‘how can he be expected to make decent pipes if his only thought is where he will put his Mickey next’. He was a great man for those one liners, sharp as a razor.
Or probably lower from an enduring style perspective. It is quite obvious that many old players performed at a much more complex (ie. broader) level in terms of diversity of ornament, variation, range of tone, sense of their own identity etc.
Listen to the old recordings. Don’t be critical (just accept) but as an exercise in distinguishing the breadth of their componenets of style compare the playing of O’Flynn to Clancy, O’Brien to Ennis, Keenan to Doran, O’Mealy, Touhy, Mici ‘Cumbaw’ etc…, compare them all to modern players, the actual nuts and bolts of their styles. It’s an exercise in playing in itself.
I have listened to all of them at length, I can hear what the older musicians were doing through constant listening and listening out for components of their individuality… many older players had much broader and less self conscious modes of expression. Some of it It does not conform to modern popular music tastes, but then why should it have to? It is not of this time. Because of this there is material, technique, tone there that is lying dormant for those with a feel for the tradition and the instrument to explore. It has not been largely ignored because it is ‘bad’ but because it does not conform to the mainstream. Tomorrow’s mainstream may well be different (I for one very much hope that it is where piping is concerned).
It could well be argued (and it is by several reputable musicians and musicians organisations) that music is being devalued in the modern age by the process of peoples being bombarded by it from every angle: TV, Radio, elevators, shops etc… I would imagine that in the Ireland past where piping evolved people cherished music more as a commodity because it was much more scarce, there were no records, there were fewer players, less time to listen etc. This suggests to me that listeners past would relish the music more when they did get it, it was a special occasion. Such a listening audience would strike me as more sophisticated simply by being less tonally conditioned by the often bland, inhuman fodder that we are almost sub consciously force fed on a daily basis whether we like it or not.
The most open ear hears the best in my experience.
Harry, these are all excellent points. I did not mean to disparage the older players. I am, in fact, concerned that it is nearly impossible for us to get access to their recordings today (thanks very much to Pat D’Arcy for my first taste of a few of them recently). Why doesn’t NPU keep these recordings available to all pipers? I see that as a prime function for them.
As regards teaching, I would far rather have someone of greater experience guide my learning as to these special aspects you refer to, instead of worrying about standardization. As you accurately point out, I probably do not have an ear accustomed to finding the nuances you cherish in the older styles. That doesn’t mean I object to learning. I just need guidance (room there for a few jokes). Again, where’s NPU when it comes to pointing this stuff out? (I have also raised this point with NPU).
Once I have grasped what it is you are referring to, I will be better able to judge if it is something I would want to try to incorporate in my own playing. If people who listen to me agree that it is good to listen to, then you will have well made your point. If these aspects are unaccessable to listeners, I will have made mine.
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That’s fabulous! 