Pipe down with all that bellowing!
January 6, 2018 2:47 PM Subscribe
A Fine Set of Pipes: "A few years ago, [Nate] Banton reckons, he couldn’t have made a living making them. But the niche market for pipes has opened to allow the smaller, softer cousins of the famous highland pipes to reemerge. In the early 1980s, the folk music resurgence slowly revived the smallpipes and border pipes, which were adapted to be the right size and volume to play in pubs. Today, they have joined the larger highland bagpipes to infuse the pub performances and parades that pipers use to keep Scottish music alive." Step into the world of smallpipes and border pipes (similar to but not to be confused with the Uilleann pipes) below the fold...
Smallpipes
National Geographic: Chris Pinchbeck makes and plays Scottish small-pipes.
Man of Constant Sorrow/British Field March - Tim Cummings
Scottish smallpipes in A blackwood - Alexander Anistratov
The High Drive on D smallpipes - Alexander Anistratov
Voice and Scottish smallpipes - Judy Barker
Pasacorredoires de Ponteareas e Vilalba - Gary West
Masons Apron - Gary West
Northumbrian Smallpipes - Andy May
Border pipes
Border pipes in A "Mrs Hamilton of Pitcaithlands"- Alexander Anistratov and Vitaly Safronov
Fin Moore
Five Drone Border Pipes - Will Woodson
Banton Black Locust Contrabass Border pipes
Fin Moore and Andrea Beaton
Ben Miller, Will Woodson, and Andrea Beaton
Ben Miller and Will Woodson
And finally...
In which the Scottish smallpipes, Northumbrian smallpipes, border pipes and Uilleann pipes come together with some fiddle
Sandy Boys - Jerry O'Sullivan & Tim Cummings (stick around for the Uilleann drone emergency at 2:40)
Squeeze the Bag 2011 Finale - Maggie Sansone, Jerry O'Sullivan, Ian Lawther, Tim Cummings, Chris Norman, Bob Mitchell
Smallpipes
National Geographic: Chris Pinchbeck makes and plays Scottish small-pipes.
Man of Constant Sorrow/British Field March - Tim Cummings
Scottish smallpipes in A blackwood - Alexander Anistratov
The High Drive on D smallpipes - Alexander Anistratov
Voice and Scottish smallpipes - Judy Barker
Pasacorredoires de Ponteareas e Vilalba - Gary West
Masons Apron - Gary West
Northumbrian Smallpipes - Andy May
Border pipes
Border pipes in A "Mrs Hamilton of Pitcaithlands"- Alexander Anistratov and Vitaly Safronov
Fin Moore
Five Drone Border Pipes - Will Woodson
Banton Black Locust Contrabass Border pipes
Fin Moore and Andrea Beaton
Ben Miller, Will Woodson, and Andrea Beaton
Ben Miller and Will Woodson
And finally...
In which the Scottish smallpipes, Northumbrian smallpipes, border pipes and Uilleann pipes come together with some fiddle
Sandy Boys - Jerry O'Sullivan & Tim Cummings (stick around for the Uilleann drone emergency at 2:40)
Squeeze the Bag 2011 Finale - Maggie Sansone, Jerry O'Sullivan, Ian Lawther, Tim Cummings, Chris Norman, Bob Mitchell
No imminent storm here but oddly there is a similar rabbit-hole.
posted by Lyme Drop at 3:31 PM on January 6, 2018
posted by Lyme Drop at 3:31 PM on January 6, 2018
something something pipes something something banjo joke
I used to play in a band that took Irish trad tunes and disassembled them and put them back together as big fat American rock tunes, it was super fascinating. We played with various sorts of pipers on and off, primarily Uillean and highland. After a while I began to percieve that many things about the voice of rock lead electric guitar - Hendrix, Dick Dale - are related to aspects of voicing heard in pipes. Dale's heritage is Lebanese, which led me to fall through the Ibero-Celt rabbit hole, the same sort of thing that led Spider Murphy to found the Afro-Celt Sound System.
Pipes are where it's at, and where it's from, is what I'm saying.
The pipes and the banjo are disparaged for similar reasons - as among the oldest instruments, they are associated (with some cutouts for the pipes) with marginal and impoverished populations. Both instruments can take the joke I placeholdered above - they were here before me and I fully assume they will be here until humanity is extinct.
posted by mwhybark at 4:42 PM on January 6, 2018 [8 favorites]
I used to play in a band that took Irish trad tunes and disassembled them and put them back together as big fat American rock tunes, it was super fascinating. We played with various sorts of pipers on and off, primarily Uillean and highland. After a while I began to percieve that many things about the voice of rock lead electric guitar - Hendrix, Dick Dale - are related to aspects of voicing heard in pipes. Dale's heritage is Lebanese, which led me to fall through the Ibero-Celt rabbit hole, the same sort of thing that led Spider Murphy to found the Afro-Celt Sound System.
Pipes are where it's at, and where it's from, is what I'm saying.
The pipes and the banjo are disparaged for similar reasons - as among the oldest instruments, they are associated (with some cutouts for the pipes) with marginal and impoverished populations. Both instruments can take the joke I placeholdered above - they were here before me and I fully assume they will be here until humanity is extinct.
posted by mwhybark at 4:42 PM on January 6, 2018 [8 favorites]
(mando_con, i was one of two mandolin-slingers in the band.)
posted by mwhybark at 4:44 PM on January 6, 2018
posted by mwhybark at 4:44 PM on January 6, 2018
That's quite a lineup on stage for the Squeeze the Bag finale.
posted by srt19170 at 6:07 PM on January 6, 2018
posted by srt19170 at 6:07 PM on January 6, 2018
I am sad that this is not about smoking pipes because I love them and used to be heavily down with the pipe. Which is not to say that this isn't a fine bit of FPP.
posted by Splunge at 6:13 PM on January 6, 2018
posted by Splunge at 6:13 PM on January 6, 2018
Since I'm here, one of my favorite pipe performances Mikie Smyth -- Downfall of Paris on the uillean pipes. Brilliant playing on the regulators.
posted by srt19170 at 6:15 PM on January 6, 2018
posted by srt19170 at 6:15 PM on January 6, 2018
the Ibero-Celt rabbit hole
Yeah! Gary West talks a bit about that in his introduction too.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 6:26 PM on January 6, 2018 [1 favorite]
Yeah! Gary West talks a bit about that in his introduction too.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 6:26 PM on January 6, 2018 [1 favorite]
a memory from those days, not involving smallpipes
St. Patrick's in an urban center is a day in the US where a band that knows twenty to sixty minutes of Irish tunes, which are often also Scottish tunes, can be booked for as many gigs as you can get to from about 8am to closing. If your band is good and knows the bookers and the clubs you can get relatively good rates the later you can play.
Here in Seattle, on that day, there are multiple highland pipes bands that walk around, bumping into various bars and squalling forth with this and that old fave. My impression is that the largest one is a combined police and firefighter pipe band, but that's both an old impression and weakly founded.
At any rate, we were playing one of these later-night St Paddy's gigs when a big pipe band showed up and started playing. We didn't even know, at first, because we were in the front of hall and playing. Eventually we figured out what was going on and stood down to let the pipers skirl and march.
As they approached the stage, one of us realized we knew the tune they were playing. It was The Gallowglass, a baseline tune for pipers and one which we, as a band, knew cold.
So we joined in, and played with and against the men in kilts. It was pandemonium. They were psyched that we could meet them, the drunk kids in the audience had no idea what had just happened, and we played those boys right back out the door.
Later, I learned that the tune and the term originated in Ireland specifically with reference to Scots warriors that came over to Ireland to fight in the various wars that led to the loss of Irish independence. That night, we met and welcomed them, and sent them out again! Not that any of us in the band or piping had any idea about the mumming we'd just done. It was still pretty fucking amazing.
posted by mwhybark at 1:30 AM on January 7, 2018 [5 favorites]
St. Patrick's in an urban center is a day in the US where a band that knows twenty to sixty minutes of Irish tunes, which are often also Scottish tunes, can be booked for as many gigs as you can get to from about 8am to closing. If your band is good and knows the bookers and the clubs you can get relatively good rates the later you can play.
Here in Seattle, on that day, there are multiple highland pipes bands that walk around, bumping into various bars and squalling forth with this and that old fave. My impression is that the largest one is a combined police and firefighter pipe band, but that's both an old impression and weakly founded.
At any rate, we were playing one of these later-night St Paddy's gigs when a big pipe band showed up and started playing. We didn't even know, at first, because we were in the front of hall and playing. Eventually we figured out what was going on and stood down to let the pipers skirl and march.
As they approached the stage, one of us realized we knew the tune they were playing. It was The Gallowglass, a baseline tune for pipers and one which we, as a band, knew cold.
So we joined in, and played with and against the men in kilts. It was pandemonium. They were psyched that we could meet them, the drunk kids in the audience had no idea what had just happened, and we played those boys right back out the door.
Later, I learned that the tune and the term originated in Ireland specifically with reference to Scots warriors that came over to Ireland to fight in the various wars that led to the loss of Irish independence. That night, we met and welcomed them, and sent them out again! Not that any of us in the band or piping had any idea about the mumming we'd just done. It was still pretty fucking amazing.
posted by mwhybark at 1:30 AM on January 7, 2018 [5 favorites]
er, not smallpipes, these were just highland sets. a typo of memory, let's say.
posted by mwhybark at 1:45 AM on January 7, 2018
posted by mwhybark at 1:45 AM on January 7, 2018
I love things-that-make-noise in general, and had a brief flirtation with the Northumbrian pipes a couple of years back, but came to the conclusion after a few months that I'd do well to stick with guitars.
The sheer number of things that could (and did!) go wrong, the ability to play out of tune with myself, and the fact that once the bag was inflated it was going to make a noise unless I stopped it, sent me partway to a musical breakdown. Good for getting all the pets out of the house, though.
It is up there with the pedal steel and theorbo in my list of "lovely sound, but not for me" instruments.
posted by 43rdAnd9th at 2:15 AM on January 9, 2018
The sheer number of things that could (and did!) go wrong, the ability to play out of tune with myself, and the fact that once the bag was inflated it was going to make a noise unless I stopped it, sent me partway to a musical breakdown. Good for getting all the pets out of the house, though.
It is up there with the pedal steel and theorbo in my list of "lovely sound, but not for me" instruments.
posted by 43rdAnd9th at 2:15 AM on January 9, 2018
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posted by ninazer0 at 3:11 PM on January 6, 2018 [1 favorite]