I’ve been tooting away on my pipes for three years now, and have slowly (very slowly) progressing, and feel that the time is coming when I can subject other people to them.
However, I am anxious to conform to sterotype and not let the side down. I was wondering what sort of behaviour I should adopt?
I’m automatically assuming that the piper is the gentleman (or lady) in any group of musicians and should treat all others with undisguised contempt. Additionally, I read that pipers don’t normally unstrap their bellows, and this impedes their normally generous nature, making it too difficult to rach into one’s pockets to get money to buy drinks.
Now both of these behaviours I can easily conform to. Is there anything else, you think important to continue to promote the appropriate image of pipers?
not giving any indication which tune you’re going to go into when you’ve started your first - getting the second parts of tunes mixed up which completely throws everyone else - tuning up loudly when others are trying to play - contemptously refusing to join in with a tune that you didn’t start
Stick your tongue out continually at the whistler and flautist. This infuriates them only because they can’t do it while playing.
When you have the pipes disconected, find a way to discretely squeeze the bellows to make farty noises every time the fiddler tunes up or bends over to put something in his/her case.
Marc
These are all polite things to do regardless of your instrument.
Let me add a few more:
If you’re playing with any free reed instruments like accordions and concertinas, make sure your chanter is at A=440Hz and that the two octaves are (reasonably) in tune.
If you’ve got a loud, strident reed, be ready to accept that some people really don’t like aggressive-sounding uilleann pipes-and some will tell you exactly where to go with that chanter and what to do with it when you get there. No matter how much you’d like to gobsmack an idiot like this, it’s not worth spending a night in the cooler.
Don’t be upset if you sit down with a bunch of fiddlers who suddenly pick up the tempo and start playing nothing but reels in A major, G minor, or other keys that generally don’t work well on the pipes. Your initial reaction may be to consider this behavior snotty and detestable, but it’s their session. Find a few allies and start your own house session instead-the beer will be cheaper.
Flute players can be great to work with, they face many of the same limitations and have a lot of tunes in common with pipers.
Back in the 80’s I saw Micky Z.(“Vultures in the Evening”) in a session along with some uilleann pipers, in Seattle. Micky started a reel with his flute, he was really zipping along, alone for a while, on a new tune hardly any of us knew. Pretty soon Denis Brooks joined in with him on the pipes, and Denis kept speeding it up, finally Micky started taking long deep breaths, missing a few measures at a time, and finally, realizing he couldn’t keep up, he put his flute in the case and left. Denis lighted up his pipe with some premium Cuban Tobacco, and smiled. We all laughed.
Mike, a now famous box player in Portland, OR. use to try to join in with Irish jam sessions, up in Seattle, before anyone had ever heard of him. Whenever the group would see him coming, they’d all stop playing, and act like they were just tuning up (they actually tuned up about 1/4 of a step). Poor Mike couldn’t tune his accordian so he’d politely just stand around and smile. A few years later, I saw him performing with some of the former Bothy Band members, and Night Noise! I saw some of those same people buying tickets to his concert, -a little sweet revenge!
