Greater standardization in piping and musical approaches across the board.
If you believe that standardised lessons will ONLY produce standardised playing you must not have much faith in the talent of pipers.
I think that standardised lessons are just a solid base on which a talented piper can use as a starting block to his piping career,
and the less talented as a stable guide to give direction where needed,
RORY
Standardizing learning will negate regional influences which goes against the very grain of tradition, which is inherently regional.
I renew my opposition, may it please the House.
Come on PJ, make your mind up !
RORY
Hear, hear!
… um, er, I wasn’t talking about Piping Traditions, but Traditions in general (?) …
Sorry, but I think this is hogwash as relates to UPiping. There are no regional styles of UPiping that I’ve ever heard about, and the existence of regional styles regarding other instruments is a very controversial subject.
At best, the most people can claim is the style of an individual teacher’s influence in a particular area. For UPs, you can talk about an Ennis style, or a Rowsome style, etc. but there’s precious little else to base this style business on for UPs.
As has been pointed out by others here, the history of UPs is one of individual style and performance. Once someone has learned the basics, whether from standardized instruction or from gleaning things on their own, the only thing you can learn about UPiping style is that everyone has their own style. No standardized method of instruction will ever be able to find a compromise between Clancy’s style and Doran’s style. You’d have to bury all past UP recordings to hide the significance of personal style on any student.
I doubt very much that standardized teaching can do anything more than insure that everyone gets a proper start at UPiping.
djm
Well, I’m sorry but I just couldn’t disagree more … 
I’m a leading proponent of the Quebec style of uilleann piping, a proud tradition that has existed since the earliest years of the 21st century.
You will know this style as it is notable by:
- absence of ornamentation or variation,
- limited repertoire,
- varying tempo,
- occasional visits to the 4th octave balanced with unintentional brushing against the bass reg G key,
- lazy left hand,
- loose right hand, making sure to leave at least one fingerhold half covered at all times,
- sinking back D.
There used to be regional styles[*] of uilleann/union piping, almost certainly. In the 19th century there seem to have been Munster and Leinster styles and of course later, if not then, styles associated with the travelling pipers. In the early 20th century there’s a clearly discernible “american style” of piping even though there’s considerable variation among its proponents.
Of course as always, not everyone from a region practices the “regional style”. And some people through brillance, inspiration, naivete, or wilfulness, will break rank no matter who they learn from.
But…
I tend to agree that “standardized, graded lessons” run a high risk of producing “standardized, graded” piping. I think we’re at risk with regard to the “genetic diversity” of piping already, if you don’t mind that analogy…
[*] or if you prefer, regional influences - which in some cases may be largely due to the influence of a single charismatic musician and/or teacher.
How does one establish standardized lessons for music that is, by its nature, not standardized, and one of whose great plusses (in my opinion) is the fact that it is not? I recall Tommy Keane coming in to our seminar with 28 (I think it was) ways to approach and execute a G roll on the pipes. Well pleased with himself he was. How many of those would be in the standards, and which ones?
I don’t see the reason to adopt processes of other traditions that have their own strengths and weaknesses, with standardization falling on both sides at different times. Piping has always been a mentor/student learning relationship and the idiosyncrasies of the mentor are not bad, but good in my opinion. I also don’t see too much wrong with the way things are currently going with good young pipers.
DJM speaks wisdom BTW. 
now:
it’s all about Content vs. application:
(content’ s easy, application;s hard…)
Even if 28 different ways to roll were all catalouged, introduced and LEARNED in 56 sucessively more difficult tunes,
It would still be up to the individual artist to apply them convincingly in a tune’s context.
What Im saying is that YES: let’s make sure learners get clean gracenotes, tight triplets, locked drones and reg motion each in their own time, (what’s wrong with that, really?)
and: NO- after getting this down, all that can be done is to arm the learner with knowledge and taste to apply each element for their own satisfaction. Seems there’s a middle road, hmm?
One of my gripes about “a-popular-uillean-learner-method-with-its-own-CD-and-a-red-cover” out there now is that after going through all the sucessive, graded lessons, the learner is then faced with a selection of tunes that takes them 7-8 years, sometimes longer, to get it ‘under the fingers’…
Next, the learner is often then faced with a series of traveling experts (each phenomonal in their own right, of course) each with vastly different ideas of how you should play your uilleann pipes. Sometimes, the expert keeps their ‘cards close to the chest’ in order to force originality rather than imitation… Either way, How can a novice assimilate any real instruction this way? too many cooks…
I cant see how graded instruction in basic technique, using tunes from a common repertiore, will interfere with an individual piper’s ability to use this knowledge in a continuation of traditional genres.
(eeek! say it aint so, ChasR!) 
IF ANYTHING, would’nt it make it easier for instructors to disseminate diverse piping styles, if they have a room of students fully armed with the basics; to then deal with the subtilties of the art in detail?
.
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As much as I hate to agree with anyone, this is really where I think we should be heading.
Instead of an intermediate class that ranges from some blazingly fast young hot shot who only knows one or two ornaments to someone who can barely hold their chanter (and everything else in between), imagine an intermediate class where a competent (dare I say, maybe even “qualified to teach”) instructor could sit down and expose the class to a range of stylistic treatments of the same tune, knowing that everyone in the class had passed certain minimum requirements to be in that class in the first place.
Instead of all this hysterical extremist fear-mongering about absolute rigidity as if it is the only possible way to standardize UP instruction, think about the potential for spreading the knowledge beyond the ranks of a few lucky classes in Dublin only, so that everyone could at least get the basics down on an even footing.
djm
And who is gonna grade the graders may I ask?
Slán Go Foill
Uilliam
Canúintí Ceoil - 6/6/08 - on TG4. Interesting what they say about pipers and regional styles.
no need for grades OR graders IMO:
but rather to grade tunes into beginner, int, adv:
analogy: (suzuki violin class) ‘Twinkle twinkle little star’ comes before ‘JS Bach double concert for 2 violins’
in the same way as ‘Tobin;s Favourite’ comes before oh, say, ‘the Ace Deuce of Piping’ .
I’ve heard some pipers play so-called beginners’ tunes and make them sound amazing - completely redefining the tune for me. For instance:
- Paddy Keenan’s version of the Harvest Home
- Seamus Ennis playing Port an brathar (aka Gander in the pratie hole)
- David Power’s version of the Saddle the Pony
I’m not interested in grades, either. It’s not about getting good marks. It’s about getting instruction on ALL the basics, making sure that everyone gets a chance to get good instruction, that they then get an opportunity to be heard and receive corrections as required, until they are at least competent to play.
None of this is about styles of playing as far as I’m concerned, but about the ability to play the basics. The trouble that I have seen for both myself and others is that only certain aspects or elements get taught, none of it completely, and there is no opportunity for many to practise and then go back to review and get corrections on what was last taught.
Who should grade instructors, asks Uilliam. Some of the best instructors I have had from Ireland I found out later are school teachers, so they know how to teach professionally. Many others are not so fortunate or so capable. I would guess NPU should have some basic qualifications for who should represent them, but that would require them to have a curriculum, and that is really where I would like them to put priority: what topics should be taught, what elements of each topic should be taught, what are the measures for basic competency for each element, etc.
For example, I suck big time at playing off the knee. There is no written instruction anywhere that I have seen on playing off the knee other than fingering charts. At a recent tionól, Jimmy O’Brien-Moran was showing one student how a certain passage in the tune he was playing would sound better played off the knee. He demonstrated this. The student tried it and made some errors. This got Jimmy talking about crossover noise. Apparently GHB players are well aware of this error but as UPipers we would not. Jimmy showed techniques for avoiding crossover noise. But he didn’t want to go more in depth on playing off the knee as it would take more time than the allotted 1.5 hour class.
From this it was clear to me that there is all sorts of piping knowledge on this topic that could be taught but is not. From other tionól classes I have had similar impressions about other piping topics. The knowledge is out there but is not being distributed to the rest of us. That is what I am getting at - it’s not about teaching styles of playing, or grading anyone, or forcing anyone to play in any one single way, but to get the piping knowledge out to everyone, instead of just the lucky few.
djm