I feel like it’s time to sell the pipes, as I am fed up with being unemployed and unable to get regs/play with people/be useful in any way, not going anywhere with it, and I could use the cash.
I also think putting a posting on here or thesession.org offering them for sale is way too much like commitment. Perhaps better to keep them and muddle on and continue to have more waffle than an IHOP.
It is a franken-half-set. Lovely Bill Haneman chanter, Peter Hunter drones.
Don’t do it !!
If playing them makes you happy, I’d say keep 'em. I’m unemployed too, thanks to the AmGen layoffs here in Seattle, and playing the flute is the only thing keeping me from madness right now. I’d sooner sell my A/V equipment (also near and dear to my heart) than lose my flute.
A lot of people I have known (myself included) have used a period of unemployment to make a lot of progress on an instrument - staying at home practicing doesn’t actually cost any money, when you find a job you will be wishing you had more time / more energy for playing and you’ll wish you had made more use of the time you had on your hands when you were unemployed.
We have played at the same venue, though you will not know it.
Don’t give up, your too good. Unemployed? Seize that as time to play! - and expand the skill base, tune list.
This is an opportunity to give time to developing your playing…and not feel guilty. AND to look out to find places to play with other like minded folk
Good luck
Pwrt
Have we? Where?
Just remember “It will be dark tonight until the morning when it wont”
I took up the pipes when I was unemployed. Figured I might as well see how miserable I could get. Am looking at the unemployment possibility again, alas, though I am liking the idea of some practice time. Hope I can hold it all together, and I really hope you don’t quit. It’s obvious from your posts over the years that you’re really good.
Horses and pipes … thank God we don’t fancy small aircraft! Maybe someone can loan you a couple of regulators they’re not using. That will definitely be a distraction. Hang in there!
Heaven knows, at times playing this instrument can seem less like a blessing than a curse. Like anything that’s complicated enough to be compelling, from time to time you have to ask yourself: will walking away do more for you than sticking with it? That is, have the negative parts of the experience gained more power than the positive parts?
Nobody can answer that for you. Being someone who (mostly) walked away from the French horn after 30 years of playing at a pretty high level, I’d be the last person to criticize you, if you do decide you need to move on. Neither history nor competence is, all by itself, a good enough reason to keep doing something that no longer nourishes you.
But having said all that, if you’ve got a half set that plays to your liking (Haneman/Hunter no less!), you’re in a much better spot than many people with regulators. And as Cathy said, there’s got to be someone out there with a couple of Hunter-compatible regs they’d be willing to loan you, or sell at a reasonable price.
(Sounds like a great opportunity for one of those Collectors I keep hearing about, to step up and redeem themself. 
)
Good luck, and I hope we don’t lose you!
–Mick
Thanks for the encouragement. I was pissed off at the whole music thing the other day: I was asked to play in the mountaineering club ceilidh, but my usual playing partner and fiddle player, my husband, has buggered his hand so he can’t play. I tried to drum up some other musicians, and a caller, and not a soul I asked could do it. Some for legit reasons, and others couldn’t even be bothered answering my text. And I’d seen that these same people are out playing gigs with other people, the cool people, as they happily post the pictures all over Facebook.
I hate the Irish music scene sometimes. There are definitely the “in” sort of people, and not. I am not.
Oh, yeah, and regulators, which wouldn’t get me a freakin’ ceilidh band, but would give me something else to do.
Your one of the “in” sort of people here.
RORY
Yeah, I feel you. Unfortunately people don’t stop being jerks just because they pick up an instrument. In some cases, the instrument incites said jerkiness. Funny how common a false sense of superiority is among musicians claiming to play the music of the common folk.
Meaning what? That common folk are in fact inferior, so a sense of superiority is therefore ironic? If you believe that, then you’re committing an even worse sin than the one you think you’re calling out.
Hence the word, “false.”
Including or omitting the word “false” does not change your implied contrast between common folk and, er, uncommon folk. It’s your entanglement of the notion of superiority itself, false or otherwise, with social level that’s the problem.
But whatever. Your observation that people don’t stop being themselves just because they pick up an instrument is true enough.
All I’m saying, MTGuru, is that I see Irish music as somewhat of an equalizer. In the places I’ve been at least, it doesn’t matter what background you’re from or how much you make, only what you have to offer musically. And yet some people have such a heightened opinion of themselves that they seem to ignore what I see as the humble nature of the music, instead acting as if they’re some sort of rock star. Obviously (at least I hope this is obvious) I see Irish music as being just as worthy of respect as classical or popular music. I’m involved with this music to have a few beers with friends and play great music rather than deal with people who think the world revolves around them. Sorry if this was unclear before.
I’m pretty sure all genres of music have their fair share of smug elitists. Be it ITM, Jazz, or Classical.
No music scene is perfect…
I know, I was mostly just riding you a bit. 
But ennischanter’s point is part of mine as well. I think you need to be careful when arguing from the trope that folk culture is somehow simpler or more humble than other cultural strata. People are people, and the line has always been fuzzier than romanticized notions of the “singing and dancing throng” would suggest.
Irish music may be an equalizer if you’re coming to it as a music hobbyist from outside the tradition. But if you’re a tradition bearer within the tradition and the culture … not necessarily. And conflicting expectations (“have a few beers with friends”) can lead to conflicting, er, conflicts.
I don’t know if this sort of thing is behind Dr. SilverSpear’s (the OP’s) frustrations. But her mention of “in people” suggests it may be at least a part of it at times.
Don’t let that stop the music.
Being not in is cool.
Oh, come on, the trad music scene is so stunningly political it’s not even funny. Except it would be very funny indeed if someone did a ‘This is Spinal Tap’ type film about it, but I digress…
Normally, I could not care less about the politics, but when I need a ceilidh band, I find not being firmly entrenched in said politics nor considered a sufficiently “cool” musician to be a disadvantage. In this case it is stopping the music. My ceilidh music, as I told them to get another band to play the ceilidh because I couldn’t put one together.