They definitely attract strange people. People who never follow advice from others, for instance (sometimes it’s okay to do this, really!!!). People who, as beginners, refuse to take anything on the authority of more experienced players because it sounds too much like hard work. People who love the use of the pipes in soundtracks and broadway productions but won’t listen to irish trad, thinking it stodgy, rustic, and boring. People who will spend thousands of dollars, pounds, or euros for an instrument they never practice. Fanatics. Curmudgeons. Geeks. Alcoholics. Misanthropes. Handy types who can’t play their way out of a paper bag but love to tinker with reeds.
Oh yes, and people who live for the sake of being contrary to anyone with any real hard-fought, hard-won observations to make on the dichotomies between real music and commercial swill made for the wool-eared masses, between art and rubbish, between dedication and dilettantism…shall I go on?
All right, Chadd, good one. The previous statement was a bit over the top.
I just find myself a bit mystified by how some people bother to go through the drama, hassle, and expense of buying pipes but don’t do their homework afterward. Anyway, this is supposed to be a thread about top 10 reasons to like the pipes, so I’ll add a couple:
so you get those, too, Alan?