I wanted to ask you something. After playing Swedish bagpipes for some time, my wife has bought me a half-set of Uilleann Pipes. I’ve always love the sound, but never decided to learn to play them. The thing is that I’ve been looking on the internet and lots of websites say that it’s very difficult to play them, but they don’t explain why.
As first sight, it doesn’t seem very difficult but I’m sure it is. What I wanted to ask is if someone could give me an explanation of why is it so hard to learn to play them.
They are not extremely difficult overall although the devil is in the detail. Keeping them going well can be a bit of an issue at times. That said and done, a well set up set of pipes does not present more difficulties than most other instruments.
they’re no harder/easier than any other instrument - sometimes making out that they are uniquely challenging adds to the mystique of piping - pipers are usually held up in their development because of playing an unreliable instrument not because the instrument is objectively any more difficult than another one that is less troublesome to keep in working order
most other bagpipes require one, maybe two difrent levels of air pressure.
the UP chatner alone requires differing pressures for each tessitura; add drones & regs & youre talking multiple layers , almost, of different pressures.
the required co ordination, involving bellows, bag, regs, plus a chanter with a unique fingering method, is considerable.
the fact that double reeds are particularly subsceptable to slight changes in temperature & humidity requires additonal knowledge about how to optimize the instrument ,INTERNALLY, for performance in varying conditions. It’s kind of like tuning a small pipe-organ every time one plays.
lastly, few other musicians quite grasp what we go through to coax the UP into singing “just so”.
plus there all these other, surly,( & even surlier), pipers to deal with
my 2 cents is that it’s tough to learn in isolation, but it’s kinda cool that there aren’t all that many pipers all over the place…it’s not an overly exposed instrument…it’s just right…anyone can learn it, in the right setting.
I think it is because they are so extremely different from any other instrument.
they are comparably difficult to tune
you can´t influence the loudness when playing - it is either on or off (no quiet hiding “in the background of a session”)
unlike other bagpipes they have a range of 2 octaves (which can be a nightmare for the reed [and therefore for the piper])
they allow for the shortest (and easyest) staccato I ever heard (which makes a rich demanding [and pleasing] palette of uilleann pipes - typical ornamentations possible)
Tuning is done by setting the chanter-reed a bit further in or out.
(and thats only the chanter - BUT the drones have tuning slides). The bridle is for opening or closing the reed a bit and thus adopting it to changing humidity conditions - a little drawback of bellows-blown bagpipes.
I meant comparably difficult in view of instruments with pegs or tuning slides.
You get the 2nd 8ve by raising the pressure a little. It is a bit difficult to get a good reed going. After a while you´ll have a go at making your own. You´ll find out then why .
Oh, sorry. It was a way of saying (in response to irishpiper’s envy) that your wife may have bought them for you, but I’m guessing she hasn’t lived with you playing them yet. Just a lame joke from someone who’s struggled with the pipes myself.
Yes, but pretty much only within the general confines of their intended pitch. You know, fine-tuning a bit sharper or flatter as needed to be spot-on with the chanter.
If it were in F major, you would most likely be hearing a C set. However, the music you linked to is in a minor F key, so that would likely mean a Bb set, but the drones would be in Bb (what I hear in F doesn’t sound like pipe drones at all, but that doesn’t mean much as you can always shut off your drones and let something else carry the weight instead); or an E set, but I’ve never heard of one if it exists. And its drones would properly be in E, then. Eb sets are not unknown, but they’re not at all common. To tell the truth, I think that the instrument in the recording is not a real bellows-bag-and-wood set of uilleann pipes, but an electronic analog of some sort. It just doesn’t sound right enough to be the real thing.
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