What classifies each style? Which do you prefer? What are the benefits of each? Who are some great pipers for each style?
-i am asking this because i find it hard to really pin it down. I get confused sometimes when i hear a piper and I think he is playing in one style and then some one says he is playing in the other. I would like to start moving towards one style. Can anyone help me out? or refer me to another discussion about it. Thanks
Dan
Why? Most if not all of the great pipers used techniques from both “styles”. If you’re thinking of your own development, the pigeonholing may just get in your way. IMO better to “style” yourself after the playing of particular pipers than get stuck in categories or classifications. After all, the business about “tight vs open” is really only useful for discussing/comparing, not so useful for playing… 
I think one of the potentially confusing issues is that there are two interrelated aspects of playing that are sometimes referred to when people talk about “open” or “tight”; fingering, and articulation. Maybe three, if you include phrasing. One aspect (articulation) has to do with chanter closure; clearly, chanter closure is more practical when using the “minimum fingers lifted/on-the-knee” fingering, and so that fingering is sometimes called “closed” or “tight” fingering. However, one can indeed play legato/fluid phrases using that fingering, so the two things (legato/stacatto and open/closed fingering) are not one and the same. Frequent use of chanter closures, or even closing the chanter between every note, is in various contexts called stacatto or tight playing. (Even the greatest exponents of tight piping don’t do this between every note, for instance above G in the second octave.)
“Open” fingering can also be used to add distinction and variety of tone color to notes, especially long notes; in that respect the various “open” (i.e. minimum-holes-closed) and off-the-knee fingerings can be thought of as “alternate” fingerings to the standard (usually closed/minimum-holes-open) fingering chart. Likewise chanter closures are really powerful and Johnny Doran, often cited as the greatest master of open playing, used them to great effect… so as I said, don’t get caught up in “this technique is open, that one is closed”, etc. Learn them all and let your ears and preferences be your guide.
Personally I think that if you don’t have a clear idea of what “open” and “closed” techniques mean to you, it’s too early to choose between them. 
Bill
Thanks alot. I guess i am not to concerned with forcing myself into one style. I really just wanted to know the more technical reasons for the both styles. You mentioned Jonny Doran, who would be some other pipers for the open style? Thanks again, i won’t try and pigeonhole myself.
Paddy Keenan and Davy Spillane would, in my opinion, be exponents of the open style and would probably be more accessible than Johnny Doran who, to the best of my knowledge, only made one commercially available recording.
I always thought, and I’m probably quite wrong, that originally the ‘tighter’ style of playing stemmed from the aristocratic pipers with their very expensive narrow sets - the Coynes and Harringtons etc - the ones Geoff Woof said used to cost a year’s wages to buy. Being a largely aristocratic instrument the style of piping was also refined and ‘tight’ compared to the looser and freer style of the roaming travellers and the show pipers of the music halls with their less expensive, wide bored sets - kind of like the dancing a wild jig around the open fire compared to the aristacratic ballroom waltz. Probably a load of cobblers but that’s what I imagined. The size of the tone holes also seems to influence the tightness too.
Interesting. I just wrote a brief novel about style on thesession.org, though it was more focused on Irish music in general than piping in particular.
Fiddle and flute styles seem to be primarily based on geographical region. There is Sligo style and Clare style and Donegal style and so on. I am hardly an expert on these things (and don’t know near as much as I would like), but I agree with ausdag that uilleann piping styles historically seem more related to socioeconomic class than to geography.
Edit:What I meant and I guessed typed in a not-very-clear-or-PC way is that Travellers are, unfortunately, one of the most marginalized and disadvantaged groups in Irish society, and given Europe’s treatment of this group of people in general, probably have historically been so for at least the last 200 years. I’ve read that they are descendents of people evicted from their land during the Potato Famine, but also that they might have been forced off their land by Oliver Cromwell’s military campaign in Ireland. There is also some evidence suggesting their presence in Ireland since the Middle-ages. The point there is that you can’t place a date on when exactly Travellers appeared in Ireland. Being as much of their history in general is unrecorded (which is why there is so much speculation about their origins), I presume a lot of their music history is unrecorded as well. While we do know that Traveller families like the Dorans, Fureys, and Keenans were instrumental in keeping the piping tradition alive at the beginning of the 20th Century when it seemed to be on its last legs, I am not sure there is a whole lot of information around about the history of it in this community, especially pre-Famine history. If there is (I can’t find it), I would love to see it. …edited for content… .
“Open” style piping has been associated with them, at any rate. “closed” style appears to be associated with the “gentlemen pipers,” guys like Captain O’Farrell, who were probably pretty well off (someone should seriously research this and write a paper on it - there’s my next project). As others have said, any decent piper uses elements of both, so it’s all a gradient rather one thing or another. I hypothesize that during the 1700s, 1800s, and early 1900s (basically, pre-recordings), these differences were maintained by the lack of association between socioeconomic classes. If I was in a Travelling family and learning pipes, I’d learn to play like the people around me and wouldn’t have much of an opportunity to play in a different style.
Of course, with the advent of recordings and access thereto, style came to transcend socioeconomics. I think this is good, even if it has the potential to homogenize the music (which it’s not - listen to “A Piper’s Rock,” for instance. Lots of different styles, and all the pipers on it would have grown up with easy access to recordings). You can learn from any recorded musician you want. One piper friend of mine (you know who you are ) really wants to play like Tommy Reck, so he’s working very hard on that sort of style. I like more open playing myself with bits of staccato for fun, and tend to drift in that direction, but haven’t any strong opinion one way or another yet and mess around with both. And I think it is terrific that technology gives us the opportunity to do that.
Thanks alot. That was very informative.
I don’t know where you get the idea of wider bored sets being less expensive. Sets by the Taylors, who seem to have been the first of the wide bore makers, were the most expensive in the world in their day - costing much more than a year’s wages, their price has been compared to a three bedroom house in Philadelphia at the time. I don’t think there were ever inexpensive pipes available, except perhaps occasionally secondhand. The music hall pipers’ livelihoods depended on the instrument, so they at least potentially had the motivation as well as the means to purchase them.
So, yeah, I think there are some cobblers in that there load somewherez.
However, the idea that the open style may be more suited to drawing a crowd in a noisy setting probably has some merit, and could account in part for its association with travelling pipers.
Bill
… edited for content…
You’ll make a lot of friends saying stuff like that…maybe I’d suggest plastic surgery before you head in to the Cobblestone for a tune on a sunday in Dublin
uilleann piping styles historically seem more related to socioeconomic class than to geography
.
I can’t agree with that either. Yes, the itinerant pipers, mostly, did play in a legatto style. Listening to Felix Doran and his ilk will show that. It is fair to say that Johnny Dorans style was so unique, it would almost be unfair to include that as a travellers style.
The traditional staccatto style of uilleann piping was associated with Connaught pipers for a while, Denis Delaney and the Galway set. Most of those lads were blind and, for the most part, a lot less well off than the traveling pipers.
The “open” style is associated with the Travellers, who were (and are) the lowest of the low in Irish society, whereas “closed” style appears to be associated with the “gentlemen pipers,”
An histoical point.
The group that you refer to as ‘gentlemen pipers’, assuming that I’m refering to the same category that O’Neill set out in his IMM, were extinct by the time the ‘travelling’ pipers were around.
guys like Captain O’Farrell
Do you mean Captain Kelly or O’Farrell of the tutor and tune books fame?
Either way the ascendency set that O’Neill refered to as ‘gentlemen pipers’ were wealthy young men who took a bit of an interest in the local folk music, bought a set of pipes and and wrote the odd tune for the local landlord.
This wealthy class fell foul of the economic recession that went with along the Irish famine and this famine spelt out the demise of the ‘gentleman piper’.
It wasn’t until after that spell that Irish historians saw the emergence of this itinerant community when small farmers, and their famillies were turfed out from their land.
And, it was probably another 20 years before a ‘travelling pipes’ style even began to emerge.
I am hardly an expert on these things
hmmmmmm…
Being a largely aristocratic instrument the style of piping was also refined and ‘tight’ compared to the looser and freer style of the roaming travellers and the show pipers of the music halls with their less expensive, wide bored sets - kind of like the dancing a wild jig around the open fire compared to the aristacratic ballroom waltz.
There were a few aristocrats who played the pipes but for the most part it was the humble villager that kept the thing going.
What we must remember is that if a local Landlord wanted a piper in residence, he probably got a member of the household to learn the pipes. In encourageing this, THE LANDLORD PAID FOR THE INSTRUMENT!!!
The same thing happened with harpists too, in a earlier time.
These pipers were broke and there was no such thing as an itinerant piper untill at least 1860.
Yours roaming
tommy
The most “tight” piper I ever heard (not live but only from tapes) was Andy Conroy
http://www.mustrad.org.uk/news14.htm
(scroll down about half)
and he mostly played a concert pitch Leo Rowsome chanter.
BTW, when still alive friends of mine visited him and he said he was working on “octoplets” at the moment.
His most strinking words (about): “The main drawback of a chanter is that it has holes”.
Cheers,
Hans
It is the truth. 
WTF?!? 
I noticed before you mentioned the above you said you weren’t a expert on it. I don’t think Finbar Furey would thank you for that comment.
Did a search on the forum earlier for Clancy and Doran Styles and found a really good discussion. It’s pretty deep and 8 pages long. I’ll just paste the link here if anyone’s interested.
Thanks Bill. I shall hereforth lay those thoughts to rest
The “tightest” piper I ever heard of was Seamus Meehan. not sure if I have spelt his name correctly. he was so tight he would have made a ducks arse seem generous 
Now that’s my type of landlord!! Wish my landlord would be so kind.
Your meaning was clear to me in the original, but it is good that you have clarified it.
I’m sorry Cynth! It didn’t seem clear to me and I’m glad it was edited!!!
I’ve a bit of Seamus on tape, he was Andy Conroy’s understudy and could play all the poppity bits. He’s also a piano accordionist, of all things, he’s on one of those NPU set dancing tapes.