I use this to describe a certain rhythmic mindset found among players. it has t odo with moving through a tune in a straight line. Not all pipers play this way though abd some fluteplayers, fiddlers concertinaplayers etc are using this approach too. Most of the time i don’t think it does the music justice. I prefer the curved road through a tune, playing with the rhythms of it.
I.E., it don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing.
Pipers these days seem to often have sunk to the lowest common denominator of popular taste - unswinging open piping to go along with all that flute or box playing, perhaps. Or guitar strumming. Don’t want to rock the boat after all.
Lots of characterless musicians these days as well. Perhaps people are just blander now?
Speak for yourself there Kosmo! 
Patrick.
Maybe they’re just in tune and flawless in their execution.
I’ve a new CD where the playing fits the bill in both categories - and I can’t remember thing one about the music otherwise. Some achievement!
Granted it will probably win you a trophy or two.
Get into the blander blender Pat.
It is the excuse often heard for bland playing. It’s wrong ofcourse. Throughout history there have been pipers who played flawlessly, who were in tune and who had great lift to their music. Dinny Delaney, mici Cumba spring to mind, the young Ennis was flawless, Clancy when he was in practice and had a good set of pipes, examples enough of people who were ‘inside’ the music playing to give it lift make it shine.
The aesthetic has changed though, I am not sure people are blander, maybe they are. You hear a lot of pipers using all of Ennis or clancy’s ornamentation without having any of their music.
Last sunday night I was playing the usual session, plodding along on the tinwhsitle it was good but thoroughly uninspiring. During a break I took out the pipes and played for twenty minutes with two older local concertinaplayers, Kitty Hayes and Jim McCaw whose music is rooted in the housedances of the 1940s. The three of us locked in, and off it went. Lift off.Can’t beat that.
ON a trip to Ireland, I bought a small book called “Irish Traditional Music” by Ciaran Carson, which is a series of entertaining and opinionated essays on the instruments and development of the music. In the section entitled “Recent Developments” he characterizes the playing of two musicians together as a “conversation”. I thought this was a wonderfully descriptive term, and I’m reminded of it whenever I see the photo of Peter L. and Kitty Hayes on http://www.uilleannobsession.com/extras_peterlaban.html
Mr Carson also describes the rise of ceili bands and the creation by Sean O’Riada of tune arrangements that led to the groups of the 70s. Oddly, he doesn’t mention the advent of pub sessions, with gangs of musicians merging their music into a blizzard of notes. I wonder what effect these conditions have had in which musicians aren’t “talking” to each other, but are reciting and or yelling (to extend the metaphor).
I’ve often found the best way to enjoy the tune is to “talk” it over with one other musician.
To me it’s like, ahem, chamber music. Or rock and roll, or jazz. You get past about 5 or 6 people and it all turns into mayonaise. With a huge lineup in a pub going like that it’s like playing in a cafeteria if you ask me.
These drab pipers, I wish ‘em luck. Maybe they’ll blossom, begin to put their mark on the music, which is all I’m talking about. The best pipers, you can tell who they are even by the way the instrument starts up sometimes. Listen to the Pipers’ Rock, or the Drones and Chanters CDs. Some of these pipers I’m not even necessarily a fan of, but they do sound like themselves, and it’s an instrument that can have a tremendous amount of personality, more so than almost any other, really - the electric guitar is another. BB King, Hendrix, Les Paul, Sonny Sharrock, Tommy Iommi.
Lift (instead of drive?) is another thing you don’t hear much out of pipers anymore, I think perhaps because none of the role models for pipers specialized in it, unlike with other instruments, the fiddle for instance - your Burke, your Gavin, Peoples - very swinging musicians I’d say - but O’Flynn and Keenan (the big modern role models in the 70’s) are much more straight-ahead. You could compare this to the standard modern repetoire - Sean Reid’s Favorite, Garret Barry’s Jig, all those tunes. If you ask a piper to play something chances are you’ll hear one of those, even though there’s a mountain of other music we could be playing that works great on the pipes.
You mention Sonny sharrock… he is/was the madest guitarist I ever heard. Saw him once at Noth Sea Jazz Festival with “Last Exit”. It was sonic warfare! 
I’m not sure I have a point to make here, but just some observations that the discussion brought to mind:
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I’m firmly on the side of preferring expression and feeling in the music as opposed to raw technique. I really like the fiddle playing of Martin Hayes for this reason. So why does he take such flak for actually slowing down and putting expression into the music? Isn’t this the perfect juxtaposition to the “hell bent for leather” sessioneering style? Or is the flak for some other reason than what I stated? Is the answer that we want someone not to play in the session style, but we don’t want someone to be too individualistic? Who would you say is the most “lyrical” piper, a la Martin Hayes, that you’ve ever heard? The closest I can think of is Kevin Rowsome.
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I heard alot about Paddy Keenan before I actually bought one of his albums. Based on the hearsay, I was kind of expecting to hear very technical music played at a blistering pace. I was very surprised when I got “Poirt and Phiobaire” to hear what I consider to be some very lyrical, musical playing. Even the reel tracks were not at what I consider to be an extremely fast pace. When I think of the kind of “linear” playing that Peter describes, I think of either of the Lunasa pipers or Sean Potts on his recent solo album. So why does Keenan seem to catch the flak when Potts doesn’t? I think it may have something to do with the fact that Potts is firmly in the tight/Ennis camp while Keenan is supposedly in the open/Traveler camp. In other words, the criticism is something of a value judgement not on the players themselves, but on the styles they supposedly represent. Which is very ironic to my mind, as I find Keenan to be the more lyrical/musical player and Potts to be the linear technician. What do you think?
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One piper I think really bridges the gap between the two extremes is Mick O’Brien. I don’t have any of his albums. I’ve only heard him on live recordings on “The Late Session.” But from what I heard, while he can really turn it on when he wants to, he chooses carefully when to do it and when to ease off. What I’m trying to say is, that he seems to keep the musical expression foremost, even though he’s got the technical chops behind it.
Okay, enough rambling. Talk amongst yourselves… 
lum
Kevin Burke, on his learn-the-fiddle video, describes some little glide he does as “smoochy.”
Keenan gets dumped on for making semi/quasi-commercial sounding records I suppose. He’s an out and out genius, never mind the records if you like.
K. R :“Keenan gets dumped on for making semi/quasi-commercial sounding records…”
Sadly, it is often (but not always) the case with musical genius, their worth isn’t truly recognized while they’re still living…but I think Keenan’s worth is well appreciated…all ‘dumpers’ aside.
I only have the one Keenan album I mentioned. Which of his albums are considered his “commercial” releases?
I have yet to figure that one out also.