Oh, Captain Beefheart, Tom Waits, Ima Sumac, the guy from Napalm Death.
wish my chanter WAS Enya
Liam :roll:
So who do YOU vote for?
Tony, I won’t even pretend that human singers have anything to do with how UPs sound. But if you’re asking what female vocalists I like, my vote would be Joni Mitchell or Jane Siberry.
djm
djm. what’s the real issue then?
UP’s have been compared to the human voice countless times, so that’s not an issue, right?
“…The uillean pipes are so like the human voice that they take on a human spritual quality, expressing the joy, the love, and the sadness of life…”
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B000000E5W/102-8183763-4218527?v=glance
“…You have a big compass with the uilleann pipes (two octaves) so the range of the chanter covers the range of the human voice adequately…”
http://www.uilleann-pipes.com/aboutjimdaily.shtml
“…FIONA RITCHIE: When I hear an Irish sean nos singer and the ornamentation around the notes, I wonder if the singer is trying to evoke the sound of the pipes, or if the pipes are trying to echo the sound of the human voice. Is it that these things have just evolved together in the music of Ireland?..”
http://www.npr.org/programs/thistle/features/oflynn_int2.html
“…Under the hands of a master piper such as Davy Spillane, the Uilleann Pipes become extraordinarily expressive, sounding almost like a human voice in a passionate outcry of pure emotion…”
http://music.pauljames.de/eire.html
re. UPs compared to the human voice - Here’s a new concept: “hyperbole”. Another might be “literary license”.
There is no doubt that there is a very close relationship to the types of ornamentation used in Irish piping and sean nós singing. But what on earth does that have to do with Shania Twain or Bryan Adams? Neither regularly employs any vocal ornamentation that remotely compares to sean nós singing. Nor does either sing any material or in a style that one would want to try to reproduce on UPs. (This is, after all, a UP board.)
I will modify my previous statement to say that the singing mentioned on this thread has nothing to do with ITM played on UPs. How’s that?
djm
I once heard a flute player compare her instrument to the human chords, saying there’s nothing closer. And someone once compared Charlotte Church’s voice with a violin saying you can’t tell when one stops and the other starts.
There may be a few players who can make the UPs sound human enough, but for the most part…well, as in my case, it’s a family of ducks that come when they hear the call, and the humans scatter to the far corners of the earth…as if fleeing from an unheard of foreign invader, and the neighbor calls me up to see if a coyote is after the rabbit again.
EDIT NOTE: …at least when I make my own reeds, otherwise if I play this AB reed people come running as if some newborn savior has been born…
Flutes? Violins? What’s that got to do with UPs?
Okay, okay. I’ll go with Kevin and vote for Capt. Beefheart (“I’m a little pimp with my hair gassed back. Pair of khaki pants and my shoes shined black.”)
Wow, really sounds great on UPs! What a valuable thread this is! 
djm
Folks…there comes a time when one must seriously consider what he or she is doing “on line” and decide if he or she might become a better person by simply playing the pipes instead. The question topic of this thread surely makes the point that I echo based on conversation with the honorable David M. Quinn.
Now, try to say something good Lewis. 
If the rest are anything like myself, they’re busy doing things even more constructive than playing the pipes in order to “become a better person.” For example, I planted my lawn this morning, went down and rented a roller, watered the huge area, came in occasionally to visit with a few C&Fers online–much like yourself, read my mail, check out some auctions, eat, get a drink, sit down at the computer, and go back out to work…
It reminds me a little of a couple commissioners I have an a regional board that I chair, when someone strays off topic slightly, yet still has an indirect connection to the question on the table, one of these self-appointed Sargent at Arms interupts the conversation yelling “Point of Order!” So, I’m forced to get out the Rules of Order and show him again that there is no such rule against bringing up related points of interest. The attorney smiles, and we get back to whatever we were doing.
Can you imagine being at a Tional, or a good session, etc., and some controller says, "now lets not be visiting…we’re here on serious business, now let’s get on with it! Boring! I’ve learned a lot by reading all the slightly Off Topic posts. In fact, there’s one you might enjoy over on the whistle forum called something like, “Has Anyone Ever Been Acused of Nit-picking?”
BTW, I know Quinn doesn’t need more business, but I’d be careful about name dropping, it might turn some of these interneters off who might be looking for good people to make their pipes, or reading C&F while waiting for their order to arrive.
(are we ready to vote on this one, or would you like more discussion at this world-wide round table?)
Hey DJM:
A brief, ill-considered justification for this thread, as seen through a quasi-physio-anthropo-historico-logical perspective. (Warning, I’m being kinda flippant here.)
What’s the oldest instrument there is? C’mon, you know it. The Human Voice! First thing we made noises with.
So.
What, therefore, do all instruments attempt, in some manner or other, to emulate?
The Human Voice!
Ergo. (cogito kinda summish)
We humans first heard things we kinda liked, then we imitated them, then we sang together and then one day Throg noticed that the bone he was chewing on made a kinda whistle-y sound and changed tones when he put his finger on one of the bite-holes. (He became president, and remains there to this day.) Thus, instruments.
Then some drunk insane fellah (aka ‘yer man there’) decided that, although strangling ducks was a lotta fun, and they sounded really cool when you did five or six in serial (or parallel), perhaps there was a way to keep the sound going…
You got it, Uilleann Pipes! OR The human voice, filtered through strangled ducks, liquor, the Irish Mindset, physical anthropology and a couple thousand feet of peat. (I think.)
Mark (there’s no emoticon for ‘ain’t I the prick’?)
Well, it is a question that invited ridicule.
And, I wasn’t name dropping…just giving credit for the idea or notion where credit is due.
Now…off to play the pipes!!!
I think a Joey Ramone chanter would sound kinda dead.
Royce
It wasn’t Throg. It was Overton. Throg was apprenticed to Overton but left the shop with all the bone whistle plans after about a year and started his own whistle shop.
Throg is a thieving, back-stabbing patent-jumper.
Royce
I had a friend once tell me, just after I played a selection from a Liam O’Flynn CD , “Ya know, if a calf could sing, that is what it would sound like”
He is a cattle rancher and meant it as a compliment…My reply “kewl”, and i meant that!!
Mike
JQP, you’re right. I was venting out of turn, when I should have just kept my big stupid mouth shut. 
My appologies to all and sundry.
djm
Hey, no probs. We triply initialled have to stick together. And CDN to boot.
Mrk
With a bit of Juju on my reeds, I will[/u] sound like Kurt Cobain. Just you wait and see…
Alan
Louis Armstrong would have made a nice B chanter.
Lots of tone, smooth with a bit of a growl.
B