Seriously, for somebody like me coming from the Highland pipes the best thing about the uilleann pipes is the greater musical capability.
We Highland pipers get asked all the time to play tunes that just don’t work the Highland chanter. I don’t know what other Highland pipers do when asked, but what I do is tell the client that yes I can play their request, but on a different sort of bagpipe.
Tune requests cause me to bring both types to many of the gigs I do.
I do warn clients, when they request tunes that only fit on the uilleann pipes, that the sound and sight isn’t what they have in mind. I tell them the difference is that when you come marching into the room playing the Highland pipes in full Highland Dress the public reaction is “Yay! Here’s the bagpiper!” but when you sit in the corner playing the uilleann pipes the public reaction is “What is that thing?”
The vast majority of the time when I play uilleann pipes at a gig it’s because of tune requests. The clients would prefer that the tunes could be played on the big pipes. Rare is the call where the client is specifically asking for uilleann pipes (“YOO-lee-un” pipes actually).
There are times when the greatly lower volume of the uilleann pipes is a good thing, many other times when it’s a bad thing, at gigs.
Also of course the uilleann pipes opens up a vast Irish traditional repertoire, little of which can be correctly played on the big pipes.
This weekend I saw the Willis Clan at an Irish festival in Pittsburgh. They said the best thing about playing at Irish festivals is that they don’t have to explain what uillean pipes are.
Thank you all for the replies, both the humorous ones, such as what I started out with, and the honest and thought-provoking ones.
Between band and everything else, I find the hardest thing is keeping uilleann fingering on the uilleann chanter, and the highland fingering (and grace notes) on the highland chanter.
For whatever reason that never bothered me. At one point I was regularly playing Highland pipes, uilleann pipes, Bulgarian Gaida, Spanish Gaita, Northumbrian smallpipes, Irish flute, Boehm flute, Bulgarian Kaval, and Bolivian Kena, each of which has a different fingering system, and never has the fingering of one instrument intruded on another.
On the other hand, there’s something that many people have no problem with that my brain can’t handle, and that is playing bellows-blown Scottish pipes. One would think that someone who plays both uilleann pipes and Highland pipes could pick up a set of bellows-blown Scottish pipes and take to them like a duck to water. But alas, for whatever reason Scottish fingering is connected to mouth-blowing in my brain, uilleann fingering with bellows-blowing. It was a rude awakening, after decades of playing Highland pipes and uilleann pipes, for somebody out at some festival to let me try their bellows-blown Scottish Smallpipes. I strapped them on, blew up the bag, put my fingers on the chanter… and couldn’t play a note.
So, all of the Scottish Smallpipes and Scottish “Border” pipes I’ve had have been mouth-blown.
They do get dusty inside though! I’ve had dust built up in reeds to the point where I’ve had to un-tie the reg reeds, clean them thoroughly, and re-tie them. It’s so strange for a Highland piper.
Actually the smell is one of the best things about good sheepskin bags, on Highland pipes. (Bulgarian pipes too.)
