Irish Piper's Blog

Yes! you CAN become a great piper

2006-04-03T12:49:00.000-06:00

I've written before about one of my greatest fears being that while I desperately want to become a great piper, I may not have the 'god-given' talent to become one.I am a perfectionist. Whenever I take up something, like scientific research, computer programming, water skiing, playing the whistle - anything - I want to be perfect at it. I want the final result to be the absolute best.Of course

Where have I been?

2005-06-21T14:10:00.000-06:00

When I started this blog, the one thing I promised myself was that I would never, ever create on of those rambling blogs you find everywhere. You know, the blogs that are essentially a window into people's pretty mundane lives: here's what I did today, what I ate for breakfast and who I wish would sleep with me. To me, these blogs arenot very interesting unless you know who these people are.

One Year Anniversary

2005-02-10T17:49:00.000-07:00

Well, February marks the first full year of my squeezing the pipes. I wish I could say the time flew by but it hasn't - learning to play the pipes requires hard work and commitment. I've really had to want to play the pipes. I can't tell you how many times I've thought about stopping this and picking up the flute instead. Problem is, I don't want to play the flute, I want to play the pipes.

The Beginning is the Hardest Part

2005-01-10T21:58:00.000-07:00

Just to show you what I fanatic I am about Irish Music, I'm making my 10 year old son take fiddle lessons from a player in the area. Now, before you go calling me a pushy Dad, my son did actually tell me he was interested in learning - in fact, it was his idea initially. I just encouraged the hell out of it. We made a deal - give it his best for one full year and after that, if he wanted to quit,

Travelling with my pipes

2005-01-06T22:44:00.000-07:00

You know that syndrome you get when they amputate a limb, the one where people who've had a leg or arm amputated report that it still feels like they have it? Well, I feel like that about my uilleann pipes. Whenever I take 'em off, it still feels like I've got a bellows straped around my belly. Because of this, I tend to go into withdrawal if I don't take them with me when I travel. So, when I

Man, Have I Been Practicing

2004-12-18T23:34:00.000-07:00

There are times when all I want to do is practice. This is one of those times. Usually, I practice anywhere from 10 minutes to 1 hour a day depending on what else I've got going on. Lately, though, I've been possesed by my pipes. I've been puttin in around two hours each night squeezin' the bag. I've finished my first reed using the Brian Howard reed cane and things have been sounding great.

Sean Ryan Session in Galway

2004-12-03T13:40:00.000-07:00

A good friend of mine living in Dublin emailed me this: I was up in Galway 2 weeks ago at a wedding and I got to go to Sean Ryan's session in the Crane Bar. He play's there every Sunday and the music was absolutely beautiful. There was some lovely piping at it too and a great 5 string banjo player from the US. The session was going for six hours before I had to leave for Dublin - it probably

Can Desire Overcome Lack of Talent?

2004-11-29T13:54:00.000-07:00

It is one of life’s great tragedies that we should desperately want to do something but lack the skills necessary to become any good at it. Have you ever asked yourself: What if I can’t learn to play the pipes? What if I don’t have what it takes to become a great piper? My wife has an interesting answer to this; she says that a person would never want to do something so badly if they didn’t

Learn the Irish Whistle

2004-11-14T01:18:00.000-07:00

Why you need to learn the Irish Whistle Irish music is, quite literally, a living entity. It is much larger than any one person or group of people. It is a tradition kept alive by countless musicians and dancers throughout history, not just of Ireland, but from the world over. There are elements of it that speak to just about everyone, regardless of their nationality or background. Just as it

Good Introductory Irish Music

2004-11-11T09:25:00.000-07:00

"Hey Tony, I just stumbled onto your blog and you ramble on a lot about this thing called traditional Irish music. I'm not sure if I like Irish music. Is it Riverdance? What should I listen to in order to find out if I like this stuff?" Welcome newcomer, your questions are very enlightened and from them I can tell you are intelligent indeed. Your kind is most welcome in this world. Exploring

Like I'm Gonna Play Lucy Campbell's Reel

2004-11-09T23:51:00.000-07:00

Remember the plateaus I was telling you about? Well, I've reached another one. The police have stopped coming by my house everytime I practice to investigate reports of animal cruelty (apparently my neighbors thought I was torturing a moose in my basement), and I've taken that as an indication that I'm getting better. So, I've begun some of the harder tunes. Ahh, another plateau. Long ago, Paddy

Brian Howard Ready-Tie Reed Cane for Uilleann Pipes

2004-11-08T20:56:00.000-07:00

I got my reed cane from Brian Howard this weekend and am quite excited to get started on a reed. I'm going to use my own staples and see how that goes. The cane was very promptly shipped and arrived in great condition. I took pictures and measured the cane and am presenting those here. To keep download times small, the large images are only 640x480 but I think that's enough to see what they're

So You Want to Start an Irish Music Session?

2004-11-05T15:32:00.000-07:00

Usually defined as an informal gathering of musicians for the purpose of playing traditional Irish music. Here are some guidelines for the type of people you'll need to assemble. The Leader. Defined by the fact that he can drink the most Guinness in the shortest amount of time. He also possesses the uncanny ability to play better the drunker he gets. The Rhythm Nazi. Usually the flute player,

My First Reed

2004-11-04T22:00:00.000-07:00

My First Reed Originally uploaded by Rock Lobster. Here's a picture of my first reed (the first one that actually plays anyway). I still have work to do on the bridle (like make a new one) but I wanted to post this. I wrapped the binding with more teflon tape just to make sure there were no leaks. It crowed right away, I was so proud of the little guy. The lower octave sounds real good except

Reedmaking for dyslexic spider monkeys

2004-11-01T16:29:00.000-07:00

As hard as I try, making a good reed has eluded me, until now! I finally managed to get a decent sounding reed made, after only 7 attempts. I've heard that many people can only expect to get one decent reed out of about ten tries. This improves to about 2 for every five if you're an accomplished reedmaker. This tells me it's all about the numbers, if you keep at it, you're bound to get a good one

Bridle (not bridal) troubles

2004-10-28T17:51:00.000-06:00

Remember this reed problem I was having? It turns out that the reed I'm playing is very sensitive (maybe all reeds are) to the adjustments in the bridle. I found that when I play, the bridle often falls toward the binding making the reed sound like s**t. If I squeezed on the bridle to keep in it place, then it would mess up the shape and I would get a pretty bad sound from that. It took me a

Riverdances with wolves

2004-10-24T23:43:00.000-06:00

I know this is a bit off topic but this is my blog and I can do what I want. I plan to periodically post some stuff about Irish traditional music in addition to piping updates. After all, bloggers are notoriouosly opinionated and are driven to give said opinions whether anyone wants to hear them or not. Today's opinion is about Riverdance. Being an Irish musician (that's a musician that plays

'Scuse me while I kiss this guy...

2004-10-22T11:36:00.000-06:00

Time for some pandering. I figure if I suck up to more advanced players, then maybe they'll read my blog and post some comments, making it more valuable to beginners. This week's recipient of my sucking-up goes to Pat Sky (don't count on this every week, I may get too tired). He's an experienced piper who often posts on the Uilleann Pipe Forum at Chiff and Fipple. He just made this post

Adding the Drones

2004-10-21T17:57:00.000-06:00

Even though I'm a beginner and even though my playing sometimes sounds like a constipated moose, I like to jump ahead sometimes to see what I'm in for. This means I do crans, rolls, yelps, etc, all the time at really strange parts in a tune just to hear what they sound like and to see if I can do them. Imagine my surprise when I put the drones in. What's is like? Well, all I can tell you is they

Plateaus

2004-10-20T14:30:00.000-06:00

When I was learning the whistle (I guess I still am learning it), and now the pipes, I found I would reach a certain level of playing and then not progress much for a while. I call each of those levels 'plateaus'. I know that's nothing new, especially for anyone who's been playing for a while. I think it's important, though, for beginners to know that there's gonna be times when no matter how

Neat piper's site

2004-10-19T21:14:00.000-06:00

I've been reading this guy's posts on Chiff and Fipple, name's David Goldsworthy, seems like a nice guy with good info. Go to his uilleann pipe site here.

Too nervous to play with others

2004-10-19T20:31:00.000-06:00

I'm not talking about the pipes, but about the whistle. I've been playing the whistle for almost two years and while I not the best player the world has ever seen, I'm not the worst either. In order to get better on the whistle, both Paddy and I feel that I need to just get over it and start playing. Problem is, whenever I take out my whistle in a group and start to play, I get short of breath

What's in my pipe case?

2004-10-18T16:45:00.000-06:00

Funny you should ask. After making that last post it occured to me that it might be helpful to those just starting out to share what I keep handy in my pipe case. In addition to the bag, bellows, poppin' rag, chanter and drones, I keep the following: A shoulder strap that I use to wrap around the bag and over my shoulder to keep the bag right underneath my armpit. Teflon tape Black sewing

How Changing Seasons Affect My Pipes

2004-10-18T15:33:00.000-06:00

Well, the leaves are turning here in Colorado, the nights are getting colder and this means things are a-changing wi' me pipes. The wood is beginning to contract which means pieces are starting to become loose fitting. Among them, the chanter is rotating freely where the blackwood finger hole part fits into the brass tube that connects to the bag (this is what you pull apart to get at the reed).

Matt Molloy at his best

2004-10-17T02:00:00.000-06:00

I know this is a blog about piping, but I know good music when I hear it and this is CD has some of the best flute playing I have ever heard. Especially track 6, The Mason's Apron. Matt Molloy shows why he's the best 6 hole flute player on the planet. He sounds absolutely incredible. It sounds as if he's playing two flutes. An Irish Evening: Live At The Grand Opera House, Belfast I don't

More on beginning pipers

2004-10-15T12:36:00.000-06:00

I liked this so much I want to post a complete quote from the Chiff and Fipple forum post mentioned last time. This comes from Patrick Sky, an excellent piper and a source of lots of information to uilleann pipers: I would like to thank everyone for their posts addressing beginning pipers. Judging from the answers it seems that there is a divide between those that can already play fairly well and

Beginning pipers - use common sense in sessions

2004-10-14T23:00:00.000-06:00

Beginning pipers must read this Chiff and Fipple forum thread. Read my post about being the loudest player. Beginning pipers need to use common sense when it comes to playing in sessions. Myself, I wouldn't consider playing in one for at least another year, but I'm pretty self conscious about my playing. Other people may want to dive right in. Just use common sense in deciding how and when

Reedmaking links

2004-10-14T12:13:00.000-06:00

Here are some good sources of reedmaking tools and information: Celtic Fire Good source of tools used in making reeds: gouges, wax, thread, knives etc. Seth Gallager's reed making info Pretty decent tutorial on how to make a reed. Na Píobairí Uilleann has a better one but you need to be a member to download it. I highly recommend becoming a member and supporting this organization. I can't

More Guinness = Better Piper

2004-10-12T21:33:00.000-06:00

I love listening to the pipes (even bad pipering) but I've just realized that if I ever get the guts up enough to play mine in a session, I'm gonna be the loudest one there. This means I better have my s**t together or I'll be making a big fool of myself. If I'm out of tune, or if I have the rhythm wrong, everyone's gonna notice. Christ, there's a comforting thought. At least when I play the

Reed seems better now

2004-10-12T21:26:00.000-06:00

I think I figured out the problem from last time. It turns out that when I was doing all of that adjusting I remember that I squeezed the bridle tighter against the reed because it was slipping down toward the binding as I played. This squeeze turned out to put lop-sided pressure on one side of the reed, making it sound harsh and made it difficult to play. Once I carefully undid what I did the

Reed becoming unstable?

2004-10-11T10:52:00.000-06:00

Here's what happens: as I'm playing I notice a bit of a rattle on the back D and the note is almost impossible to keep consistent. When I change the pressure on the bag, the note swings wildly from a C# to D, sometimes it just squawks like mad. It turns out that I can make the back D more stable by adjusting the bridle a bit but when I do that, the reed wants to jump to the high octave and

Great tip for keeping reeds sounding good in a dry climate

2004-10-09T22:49:00.000-06:00

I tried something this past week that Paddy recommended to keep my reed sounding consistently good. Previously, whenever I sat down to play, it was always a sort of a crap shoot as to whether the reed would sound good or not. Sometimes, it would sound good, sometimes I'd have to play for about 10 minutes and then it would sound good, and sometimes it would never sound very good. Now, I know I'm a

Some practice sessions are better than others

2004-10-08T21:51:00.000-06:00

Well, I just finished one of my better practice sessions with the pipes. It was one of those sessions that rejuvinate me and make me want to stick with it. There are times when I go down to practice my bagpipes (beat the dogs) only to get discouraged because I can't seem to hit any note right, cover any hole properly or play anything the way it's supposed to be played. Tonight wasn't one of

Great source of uilleann pipe reed cane

2004-10-07T22:03:00.000-06:00

Great news. I just found out from reading the newsletter from Na Píobairí Uilleann that reed cane can be purchased in various stages of completion. I'll be posting on reed making later but I wanted to mention this resource now. I'm very excited about it if this is a good product because it can save a lot of time. I plan to order some soon and try it out on my chanter. The cane is sold by Howard

It's hard to play the uilleann pipes slow

2004-10-07T00:14:00.000-06:00

A couple of posts ago, I quoted a famous piper, Willie Clancy, who said that it was best for beginning pipers to play slowly because that's more in line with what their fingers could do at this stage of their abilities. Well, since he knows WAY more than I do about the subject, I try very hard to slow down my playing. The problem is, that's easier said than done. There's a lot more to playing

Adding some resource links

2004-10-06T16:51:00.000-06:00

In an earlier post, I promised to start listing resources. Towards that effort, I've just added a little navbar on the left hand side of this blog called Useful Sites and Resources. I decided that doing it this way would be more convenient since it would always be handy when you're reading this blog. This is where I'll put sites I've found that I think are important to learning Irish music and

Learning the whistle helps you learn Irish Music

2004-10-05T12:20:00.000-06:00

I'm not sure where exactly I read it, maybe in Grey Larson's The Essential Guide to Irish Flute and Tin Whistle book or maybe in a webpage somewhere but someone made an excellent point that when you're learning an instrument for the first time to play Irish music, you're really trying to learn two things at once. Not only are you trying to learn to play an instrument but you're also learning

The nature of uilleann pipes

2004-10-02T14:59:00.000-06:00

As you've seen from my profile, I live in Colorado. The climate here is about as opposite as you can get from the climate in Ireland. Of all the instruments that I know about (and admittedly, I don't know all that much) the reeds in the irish pipes are the most affected by the climate in which they are played. This means that if you're going to become a piper, you need to become intimately

Starting to learn the uilleann pipes

2004-10-01T16:26:00.000-06:00

As I mentioned in my last post, I wasn't sure I wanted to learn to play the uilleann pipes. Everything I had read and everything Paddy and others told me was putting a damper on my desires to say the least. Listening to the pipes, though, really had an impact. As I've said, there's no sound quite as unique as the uilleann pipes and I was really drawn to it. Since Paddy was an excellent flute

Hello and welcome

2004-09-30T14:38:00.000-06:00

This is my first post to the blog. My name is Tony Darnell and I've just begun to learn to play the uilleann pipes. I started back in February when my Irish whistle teacher, Paddy Ward, sold me his set of pipes that he had made a couple of years prior. Paddy is an excellent flute and whistle player as well as a good piper. He makes his living by teaching students to play the flute and whistle and