Irish vs. Scottish

Well, today we were at our regular session, which is a new location because the old burned down in January.
It runs from 3 to 6pm and the owner of the pub has been known to throw in a free beer now and then.

In comes a crowd of pipers and drummers fresh from one of the snake Saturday parades around town and they start making noises like they are going to fire up.

And then they do, right in the middle of one of our sets. Now mind they were close to the bar and we were one room away, but the racket was deafening.

We put our instruments down and listened for awhile, and they were good, no doubt. They had the crowd clapping and well engaged. They played about 4 tunes and then quit, so we fired back up and played some more.

Then after about 30 minutes the pipers and drummers come into our room and unleash a blow that had to go at least 90 decibels right behind where I was sitting. One of our guitar players put fingers in both ears. My wife and her parents were there listening and they got up and left.

They played a couple of tunes and then stopped again, so we came right back with a couple of sets of reels.

We’ve got some people that can’t be there at 3 and come in around 4-4:30. So about 5:15 one of the pipers ups and ask if they can play again because some of their people have to leave. So we told him………………..

Now what would you have done?

I think it’s a tough call only because it’s "the season." People seem to love the bagpipes, especially in March, and so many great sessions and/or gigs get interrupted because the pipers have come in.

Bagpipes are an outdoor instrument. Played indoors in a small space, they are a *health hazard*. And that’s just *one* piper. A whole crowd of pipers and drummers in a pub doesn’t bear thinking about.

The Great Highland Bagpipes are a great instrument, capable of producing great music. But anyone who plays them, however expertly or inexpertly, has a responsibility to know where and when they are appropriate.

18-19 in favour if the Irish I’d say.

It’s an occupational hazard in Scotland during festivals. Nothing you can do. Too bad if someone loses their 15 mins playing time but it’s no big deal in the grand scheme of things

We had a similar invasion of kilt wearers with war pipes and bass drums interrupt our session not too long ago. But it was a post-event party for firefighters who just had climbed the stairs of Seattle’s tallest building (in full gear, with air tanks) to raise money for charity.

That being the case, we packed up and left them to it, with no hard feelings of course.

So about 5:15 one of the pipers ups and ask if they can play again because some of their people have to leave. So we told him………………..


"Why not leave with them and beat the rush?"

So about 5:15 one of the pipers ups and ask if they can play again because some of their people have to leave. So we told him………………..

"Put the war pipes away and join us with your small pipes.."

I’d never heard of snake Saturday. Is it like Groundhog Day, or something? Maybe this is how St. Patrick chased the snakes out of Ireland.

http://www.borderpipes.co.uk/sessionpipes.htm

"18-19 in favour if the Irish I’d say." - you just had to rub it in eh Bren! 🙁

But seriously, I’d go with Neil Barr on this one. We have two very talented Uilleann Pipers who come to our weekly session & one of them also plays Scottish Border Pipes & boys a dear, you want to hear those two guys playing duelling Uilleann & Border Pipes tunes in A - deadly, deadly music! Absolutely wonderful stuff!

Let’s be frank, ( OK Frank? ) There are pipes designed for indoors & those designed for outdoors. In Scotland they’ve already abolished the health hazard that was smoking in Pubs - now it’s time to move on to ban unhealthy music & the Big Pipes should be top of the list, followed by recorded music ( keep music live I say ) followed by all Country & Western music …… etc etc

Hey, anyone here like to volunteer to step up & tell this guy that he should play somewhere else?:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hC4fdAzQWhU

play video

INDOOR PIPES:

Smallpipes - Gary West
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVngcNVChvY

play video

Northumbrian Pipes - Chris Ormston
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYA_fKuBTaw&mode=related&search=

play video

Walsh Shuttlepipes -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gDa5bWwGo-c

play video

Cock Up Your Beaver
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-P9dkM5Lyo

play video

Gayda Solo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0OAi35fmgvs&mode=related&search=

play video

Weilblicher Orgasmus
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4zGHAip4mU

play video

& just to show how effective these pipes are in a session:

Mucky Duck Session 12-13-06 Smallpipes #1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDYcaQq5JXE

play video

Clear Lake Coffee House Session 12-21-06 #3
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPoRTofTH2Y&mode=related&search=

play video

N.B. Interesting first comment there …… Great SONG?!?!?!? 😉

OUTDOOR PIPES:

Gaita Competition, Galician Set
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWRIQ49puEw

play video

Bombarde biniou suite en-dro
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDwfBx2MzYc

play video

Gordon Duncan, 2005
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sE2mcvUI844&mode=related&search=

play video

I would say that the title of this thread

"Irish vs. Scottish"

is very misleading.

The complaint is about *loud* instruments surely. As Bren observes, it’s an occupational hazard at Scottish festivals and the like. It’s not uncommon for a piper to play a set of tunes in the midle of a session up here. They usually only last for about ten minutes. As long as he/she isn’t rude about it or deliberately hijacks the session, it’s no big deal. also, the punters seem to love it.

It’s not any different than someone doing a "solo performance" 😉 in a session…only louder.

My own experience of this type of situation is that the pipers will generally play for 15-20 minutes, then go to drink some free whisky from the bar - pipers seem to run on whisky🙂. After that, mostly they’ll try to find another bar to play in, where they’ll get some more free drink. And so on…. So for the most part, it’s not really a big problem.

llig, I like the look of the session pipes you put the link in for - I wonder how they compare volume-wise with borders pipes?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eich-GOlCQY

play video

More from Ross Ainslie (one of the pipers that played that clip with Gordon Duncan)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DImLYvVcYJs

play video

Ross’ "partner in crime" Jarlath Henderson - watch out for their album due out in the not too distant future.

Ah … the gentle art of Piping gets down deep & dirty with that performance from Ross!

Their CD will certainly be well worth checking out! Thanks for those links No Cause …….. as you might have noticed, I love a good link! 😉

Q. What’s the difference between the Great Highland and Northumbrian bagpipes?

A. The GHB burns longer [but the Northumbrian burns hotter]

The Great Highland Bagpipes work best in the open, as a weapon of war.
The Northumbrian Smallpipes often don’t work at all.
We had to use English concertinas to annex Teesdale in the 70s.

Ron, Nigel’s Session Pipes are quieter than a lot of border pipes I’ve heard, but not all. I’d say they are about the volume of a fiddle (but fiddles vary also). The main difference with them as compared to the GHB is (apart from being in A440HZ not Bb) is the reed plays with much less pressure and much drier, due to Nigel’s patented moisture removing widget thing. This means not only do you not deafen everyone in the pub, but you can play all night if you want. They’re brilliant.

The problem though, is with the psyche of the average GHB player. They want to deafen you. They don’t want to play with you.

One thing I forgot to add: we tried to play with them on a couple of tunes, they were tuned somewhere between Bb and F so it sounded like cr@p.

The rest of the story is: right after the piper asks if we can stop so they can play, he walks off, so we start up again. He comes back with 15 minutes left of our session and asks AGAIN if they can play. One of our fiddlers told him that we would be quitting in 15 minutes and could he wait that long? He said his people were leaving, and somebody from our group launches into another tune and everybody joins in and runs us right up to 6 o’clock.

I can tell you, I wasn’t going to sit through another set of pipes and drums in my ear so it was either them or us.

Were we right or wrong in the way it was handled?

right

Surely a visitor has to adapt to the existing session, not the other way round! - you were right!

llig, I look forward to encountering a set in a session some day.

But in fairness 2 de piper. He did ask ya.. N if he had wanted 2 be a dick about it all he’d have had 2 do was strike up n play n dat wud’v been de end of u bein heard..