Poll: Cheers or Tears

[slowair]

For some years, I was playing in sessions and a band or two, so I’m use to hearing applause from an appreciative crowd.

I took a couple years off and last year started playing again. Now that I’ve found others in a new area and have formed a nice little group of regulars at a weekly session, I feel I’m getting back in step even though enduring arthritis in my fingers

A couple weeks ago, two members started tinkering with different tunes for our vocalist to join in. Not finding the right song, our mandolin player jokingly started Danny Boy. The woman tried a few notes and laughed it off, but I took up the tune and played it all the way through on whistle…alone.

When I was done, the whole group seemed stunned and the vocalist was wiping tears from her eyes.

This kind of thing has happened once before when I was flying kites indoors competitively. At an international event in ’97, one of the judges, a huge guy, told me I brought tears to eyes.

I must admit, it is quite the compliment, but still feels strange. It’s as though some can recognize me through a mask.

[fearfaoin]

This kind of thing has happened once before when I was flying kites indoors competitively.
At an international event in ’97, one of the judges, a huge guy, told me I brought tears to eyes.

You're telling me that you can fly kites indoors? And that you can cause people to cry without hitting them in the eye with the kite? You're putting me on.

Also, nice job with the tear-jerker. Must be some fine whistlin'.

[McElmurry]

I voted tears but if you can get someone to tap their toe, clap along, or get up and dance I think you are onto something.

Maybe I associate cheers with the punk Celtic crowd, not that bag rock isn't fun when well executed.

[mutepointe]

Happy tears are cheers, so the scale tips to cheers.

[pancelticpiper]

I voted "tears" mainly because that's what I usually get.

I've piped at funerals now for over 35 years, hundreds of them, sometimes three or four a week.

The family usually wants you to play at the end of the service (be it in a chapel or at the grave).

Inevitably, people who have been able to maintain their composure up to that point lose it the moment the pipes start. I know it's going to happen! That roomful of apparently calm and detached people will suddenly change into a room of openly expressed grief.

I hate that moment. I hate doing it. But it's my job! I've been paid to do it. I can only hope that it's cathartic and in the end will be helpful in some way.

On the side of cheerful response, one of the best I've ever got is when I was hired to play the Highland pipes at a certain Jewish wedding. The family instructed me to phone the Rabbi in advance and discuss what I was going to play. When the Rabbi asked me what I intended to play, he was pleasantly surprised when I told him "Israeli folk tunes". I explained that I had played flute in an International Folk Dance band for many years which had a fairly large repertoire of Israeli folk dances, the tunes being for the most part lovely Israeli folk songs.

It was an outdoor wedding on a lovely green on high cliffs overlooking the Pacific Ocean. I was to play 20 minutes of preservice music. I set up the music stand, opened up my IFD band-book, and began sightreading the tunes. I was quite amazed how nicely they sounded on the pipes, as if they were composed for that instrument. It was extremely gratifying to see an old man, sitting in the front row, tapping his foot, and with a smile on his face. I knew I was doing something right!

Afterwards the Rabbi came up and said "that sounded great! I've never heard Hebrew music on the bagpipes before."

"Neither have I, so glad you liked it" I responded. I explained that I was playing those flute arrangements on the pipes for the first time. (Of course I had played them on the flute hundreds of times and had the exact tempo and "feel" of each tune deeply ingrained.)

One of the strongest responses I've got was neither tearful nor cheerful but rather a bit disturbing. I piped at a Church service and afterwards, in the church hall, an old fellow came up and told me

"When you started playing I wanted to run out and chop off the head of an Englishman!"

[Byll]

In concerts, we always try to intersperse jigs, reels, folk tunes, and humorous songs, with more serious fare, which can be very moving to audience members, depending on their life experiences and mood. Two years ago, we were playing at a Celtic festival in Pennsylvania, and in the audience, 4th row - was a very large biker, sitting in an end seat, center aisle. He was alone.

In the second half of our performance, I had programmed Dougie MacLean's Caledonia. It was sung by one of our female lead singers, with 3 part vocal backup, fiddle, both low and high D whistles, and guitar. During the song, I saw the biker weeping unabashedly. We elicit this reaction now and again with many songs, but this time was special. He was affected by the music, and was man enough to show it. I respect that. I vote tears.

Best.
Byll

[Celticexile]

At the age of three and a half (the half was very important then) my father took me to a male voice choir rehearsal where he and my grandfather were both members. On arrival at the chapel where the choir practised they settled me in an aisle seat towards the rear, along with a soft drink, packet of crisps and strict instructions to be quiet.
The first piece they rehearsed was Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves from Nabucco. Even as they started, the hairs at the back of my neck stood up, but when they unleashed the full dynamic range of 130 male voices the tears streamed down my cheeks. As soon as they'd finished, my father worriedly rushed over to ask what was wrong. Still tingling, all I could sob out in reply was "It was beautiful, Dad!".
Over 50 years later, the memory still stirs that tingle and the experience forged a lifelong link between emotion and music.

My vote goes for tears!

[Cayden]

I think to bring folks to tears you muat really move their hearts, reach down and touch their souls. My vote is for the tears.

Cayden

[cboody]

I'd vote tears, but I also remember the old story of the man sitting in the audience with tears streaming down his face as the person on stage sang "My Old Kentucky Home." The woman next to him leaned over and sympathetically asked "Are you from Kentucky?" "No," the man replied, "I'm a musician."