These past few days, I have read and re-read Peter’s post on standardization and have been blown away by the level of thought that everyone has put into their responses - not to mention the years of experience behind all of them.
So if I might ask another frightening question: Where does everyone see the modern uilleann piping tradition going?
It is obvious to me that piping will never be what it was one or two hundred years ago. Technology has seen to that; some would say ofr the better others worse. I personally don’t think the pipes are seen as predominantly a solo instrument anymore either, and I believe that current purchasing trends reflect this thinking. How many of us own a D set…and how many a B or Bb?
Personally, I prefer to play with others, as that is the way that I both learn new tunes the fastest, but also I enjoy the expression that comes when your friends are playing a tune and that magic happens that can only come from each musician playing off each other. I never experience this when I’m at home practicing, or just playing to play.
So for me, I see the pipes as a social instrument, and while I don’t ever expect to see the “Mormon Tabernacle Uilleann Pipe Choir” (I do live in Utah so I can say this! ) I do think that the pipes are much more widely received as a group instrument rather than solo. Peter, I want to thank you for starting the thread - seriously mind opening.
Ummm…back to the future? Seriously, like any other instrument once confined, it’ll find a mind of it’s own now and take it’s own path. It’s limit is only confined to it’s players. I think it’ll stay with Irish, it’s too hard for most others to play, but who knows.
It sounds best with the traditional tunes that were probably written on it. But I like playing fiddle tunes on the pipes too. And I do enjoy the occasional bluesy stray away child.
Brian, I’m almost afraid to respond, seeing how others react to my totally innocent postings in other threads . Actually, I am running into UPs almost everywhere in that overbearing commercial mass-media crush. I am hearing them playing in non-traditional spacey new age stuff used as background music. I hear them used in incidental music for radio and tv spots. I am sure that 95% of the people who hear all this stuff have no idea what instrument they are listening to, nor necessarily care, but the folks who program mass market background music know very well how great UPs sound, regardless of the style of music, and use it to attract viewers/customers.
I believe it is this factor alone that guarantees UPs will be around for a long time, that excellent sound, and for those who care enough about what they listen to to pursue that sound, the whole world of UPs is waiting there for them, lurking in dark corners, hiding in closets, ready to suck their brains out … oops, sorry, got carried away. But seriously, while ensemble playing does tend to swallow up the sound of the UPs to a large extent, it does provide a platform to play the odd UP solo number, and that gives an opportunity for people to hear an instrument they are probably unfamiliar with. Those who like it, like it a lot.
You see something similar when newbies buy their first set of pipes. In spite of all wise counsel to the contrary, everyone wants to buy a half-set (I’m guilty of this, too). Everyone who wants to play UPs wants to hold the beehive in their laps. That’s just too good a feeling to believe UPs will pass away. As long as pipers, and organizations like NPU, preserve the past and make it available to enquiring minds, there will always be some few who will carry the tradition forward.
This stuff, the instrument and its music, is just too good to fade away!
God help us who have both! I think it’s a shame that “Concert Pitch” isin’t more like what we now call C, actually.
I’m glad that piping has its stick-in-the-muds, traditionalists, purists, snobs, whatever you want to call them. By a strange coincidence they happen to be the modern pipers I like to listen to most: JOBM, Sean MacKiernan, and the like. That Laban feller’s good, too! Or Denis Brooks, to name someone whose music’s a good deal louder. Or Paddy Keenan, if you want an exception to the rule. Your old time pipers had spirit, gusto, verve, charm in their music. This is something you want to get away from? That is to be avoided?
All the band etc. music is here to stay; truthfully, I don’t find it very interesting in the first place. In case you care what I think about these matters. I can’t really think of any youthful puristy types, though. Maybe we’re a dying breed?
The last resurgence of the pipes in its 200+ year history has been since 1968 when the founder members of NPU rededicated themselves to helping the playing of traditional Irish pipes.
The members, as a group, have done a terrible job in establishing a ‘club house’ (Essex Quay, Henrietta St) but a great job in setting up a clearinghouse for information, allowing individual members to thrive in solo performance, assist in the manufacture and dissemination of information related to pipemaking, etc. One of the only consistent venues (when their weekly/monthly concert format is going) where one can hear solo/duet music on its own without bouzouki accompaniment (and someone waxing eloquent on how it fits into traditional Irish music), etc in Henrietta St.
Many things about Irish piping defies today’s venues. For instance, I have never heard a ‘miked’ performance on stage capture the experience of hearing a set of pipes in a close room with nice acoustics. The experience of hearing pipes they way they were played 200 years is not possible through stereo speakers and amplification. Not to say that off the stage is bad but it is different.
Touring solo music, notwithstanding the pipes, is difficult to find. I went to Washington to hear O’Flynn and Heaney a few years back. Great chance to hear a solo set of pipes (he played the Ennis Coyne set) in a nice concert hall. Rare, rare stuff.
Again I will have to disagree with DJM, whether or not the pipes are here to stay has nothing to do with the fact that their sound is used to sell Brennan’s sliced pan. On the contrary, I don’t think that whole area is of any consequence at all, there, the pipes are just a commodity, a novelty sound and they will Be dropped from it as soon as the novelty wears off.
If you look at grassroots level, I don’t think there’s much to worry about, there’s always people moaning about these youngsters who play too fast and neglect the old settings and bla bla but hasn’t it been like that forever? In reality I think there’s a sort of circular movement, one generation steps away from what the players of the one before them were doing, finding ‘new’ approaches [which usually only means different, if you look back you’ll find there isn’t all that much really new] and then the next one starts looking back at the older music again, learning from that and so it moves. You can see it at the moment, there’s a certain re-appreciation of the Rowsome style, which was definitely out when I was learning On the other hand there’s a whole group of players doing the trendy thing sounding like McGoldrick and Keenan etc, there’s the Flynn influence like Brian Mac etc but at the same time you have people like Emmet Gill doing their own bit taking from old recordings and coming up with lovely stuff. Where it will go, who’s to tell, it will find it’s own way.
) I do think that the pipes are much more widely received as a group instrument rather than solo. Peter, I want to thank you for starting the thread - seriously mind opening.
. Actually, I am running into UPs almost everywhere in that overbearing commercial mass-media crush. I am hearing them playing in non-traditional spacey new age stuff used as background music. I hear them used in incidental music for radio and tv spots. I am sure that 95% of the people who hear all this stuff have no idea what instrument they are listening to, nor necessarily care, but the folks who program mass market background music know very well how great UPs sound, regardless of the style of music, and use it to attract viewers/customers.