Hello,
I don’t know what I’ve got myself into (well actually I didn’t, someone else put me forward!) but I’ve been asked to do a talk for something called Nerdnite (http://www.nerdnite.com/). As it’s the on 19th of October and International Uilleann Piping day is the 20th it only makes sense to do it on uilleann pipes, particularly as hardly anyone here seems to know what they are! Almost everyone I’ve met here also thinks all pipes are either bizarre european medieval reenactment stuff, that no one plays other than to try to be medieval or the Great Pipes (which almost everyone also thinks are solely scottish!).
However, having only played (well made tortured duck noises) for 7-8 months I am probably the least qualified, but sure what can you do!
I want to do them justice and I thought there’s a wealth of experience, knowledge here!
The talk is 20 mins and meant to be light hearted and funny but with a core of really interesting material. Should be easy enough with various innuendo jokes (the talk is for graduate students) and the amazing history of the pipes. I hope to cover the instrument, a little of styles/techniques and the history and origins.
The recently posted link to http://www.itma.ie/digitallibrary/gallery/pipers/ is great and one of the main reasons I agreed to do it, as some of those photos are amazing. Otherwise I’ve been looking through the NPU site for material (history and photos etc).
So does anyone have any thoughts or experience on giving talks about Uilleann pipes to a large diverse group of people, many of whom have never listened to Irish music anyway?
Photos, funny or serious (or funnily serious, seriously funny etc) would also be welcome! I haven’t been able to find any good surly grimacing piper photos.
Any thoughts generally would be great.
Cheers,
Ardern