Where to go from here?

[Antaine]

Okay...so the effort begun in the 70s to revive the UP has been to a large degree successful. But what should be the overall goal of an instrument revival? To simply survive better? To mainstream the traditional role? To create new roles? To participate not only in its traditional role, but in the already established mainstream as well?

Each of these poses benefits as well as problems...
To simply survive better? this is to do what it already does but more of it. While it changes its role the least, it runs the risk of being limiting.

To mainstream the traditional role? This has already somewhat happened. This ensures survivability, but produces things like Enya and Riverdance (which I don't think is necessarily a bad thing, but does create some problems)

To create new roles? Such as movie soundtracks etc. This also has to some degree happened (the theme song to Crossing Jordan jumps to mind)

To participate not only in its traditional role, but in the already established mainstream as well? UP in an orchestra!? I don't think in my lifetime, but overall, why the hell not? A Spanish folk instrument made it there (classical guitar) and you even see the saxophone pop up every once in awhile. Does a folk instrument have to stay that way? Should it? Can it do both (eg. guitar, latin flute, violin/fiddle et cetera)

[djm]

UP in an orchestra has been done a while ago - Liam O'Flynn playing The Brendan Voyage.

djm

[NicoMoreno]

UP in an orchestra has been done a LOT,
as well as in religious music,
pop music,
semi-rock music (like alternative and so forth),
and so on and so forth...

I think there is no chance of it dying anytime soon...

[Antaine]

cannon has been used in an orchestra as well...I meant that while they will never be as common as the violin, could (or should) they become the classical guitar of the double reed section.

[tok]

The uilleann pipes are a very versitile instrument , and though we love the background as honored and built apon , it seems worthwhile to extend that into the future , as best we can , to continue to enjoy the sound of the pipes ,,well played , and well heard . No Use making the pipes different for indifferent ears . Remember , this is the net telling the WORLD here ..
tok.
to quote a new age sage , he once said ,, a a bee stings , and make honey .

[The Sporting Pitchfork]

Where to go from here?

Well, I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm going to head down to the school cafeteria for a bite of lunch. I'm frigging staaaaaarving. Hmm...macaroni salad on the menu today...mmmm.

I don't know about that poll, but if someone wants to see me play a larger role in the uilleann pipes revival, they can buy me full sets in B, C, and D, thank you very much.

[jqpublick]

Where to go from here?

Uhm....up?

Across the street?

Into the wild blue?

Out for a pint?

Okay. So, maybe this is one of those "what will the future be, daddy?" questions. Not that those are bad questions, just frustrating (and potenially embarassing) ones.

I'd like to see UPs and UPers regarded at the same level as nuclear physicists and John Raunston Saul/Noam Chomsky-ish philosophers..... wait.... physicists practice doing things so obscure that other, normal people are frightened by them, and philosophers are universally regarded as freaks and entertainment devices to be trotted out for the pundits to nod sagely at. Maybe we're not so different, then.

But music is music, isn't it, and we do it because we love music, the struggle for the perfect representation of feelings and ideas that can't be expressed in words, and the pure, visceral joy we get out of making noises so unutterrably wierd and beautiful that listeners either get up and dance or shed tears because of what a collection of dead cows, sticks and bits of dried grasses can be made to do under fingers that yearn to express the ineffable.

Or we just like to be freaks. I know I do.

Mark

[Antaine]

mmmm...macaroni salad and a pint...well...maybe not at the same time...

I suppose this wasn't really inspired by a desire for validation and reassurance that the UP wouldn't die out (I don't think they will...at least not in mine or my children's lifetimes), but more by the comments about new age "crap"...

"crap" music like that does two things, 1) it stirs up interest in the instrument giving name recognition and providing more demand for pipmakers and opportunities for pipers alike but 2) it does so with an "altered" "artificial" "inauthentic" brand of music.

So then one has to ask if it does more harm than good. The pipes will never lose their traditional role within Irish music. But can it also exist parallel playing Mozart oboe concertos (or other pieces written for them in a similar vein in an orchestral setting), new age, country, hip-hop etc? The pipes themselves wouldn't need to change for that to happen, but the type of music that is most closely associated with them by those outside of the niche music (in this case, ITM). It has worked well for other instruments. The guitar, which I mentioned before, as a good example. What fan of Jimi Hendrix associates his instrument with its roots in Spain, 1600? Well, perhaps that's a bad example. Electric guitar has really become another animal. Perhaps use Simon and Garfunkel instead of Hendrix. I'd say it insured the absolute immortality of the guitar. I teach music and can tell you that children who have never even seen a piano up close, or cannot identify a trombone can describe, in intimate detail, a guitar - and have probably touched one at one point.

Guitar purists who might have tried to keep it in its traditional role of Spanish folk music would have relegated it to obscurity. A novelty at best. And yet the vast majority of the music made by the instrument today is as far from its original niche as...well...it's really, really far...

Just a side note...tomorrow and Friday I begin the reed family with double reeds. I don't play the bassoon or oboe so I'll give you one guess what instrument I'm bringing in to demonstrate for the little darlings (with a spare practice set for them to strap on and actually try....this is preK-8th grades)

[tok]

you cant teach the pig to sing ,, and expect it to stay at home . If 10 thousand dollars is the high price for the best sets now a days , then I personnally can relax now , and go out on a shopping spree and buy all the guitar music ever done . In the classical era , the top musicians were paid well for their compositions , AND ,, they catered to their hosts , or they would not have been paid . We enjoy this music now , and back then , some of it was scoffed at . All the instruments are still there , and the only thing that has changed is that there are a few more billion people on the planet to play them , both in the old form , and in there own liking . good luck Antaine,,

tok.

[Piobairi Uilleann Inis Fa]

Interestingly enough a tid-bit: I have noticed, especially more lately, great demand and inquiries for hiring uilleann pipers for weddings here in the New York City metro region. The word is out and familiarity is entering the mainstream....like it or not.

Neil

[Pat Cannady]

That can be a good thing for a piper looking for an easy gig now and then.

[Jim McGuire]

The most important thing is that the pie is expanding. We are not losing the essence of the past 200+ years but adding more outlets, more opportunity, more audience.

[Antaine]

but in doing so there are changes...not that that is necessarily a bad thing, but some seem to feel it is.

I pretty much do weddings/funerals/memorials exclusively. The people that hire me do so because they were looking for an uilleann piper specifically, but I still wind up losing 4 out of 5 calls with the following words, "Oh, you mean you don't wear a kilt and march in front of the building? Oh, no...that's what I wanted" despite providing photographs of the instrument, photographs of me PLAYING the instrument, and a discription of its history and how they're different from scottish pipes on the website through which they find me.
(and just as i typed that i got a call for a wedding...yay!)

[Jim McGuire]

I am not sure how the understandable confusion for the general populace on the difference between highland and Irish pipes has anything to do with it.

There are more outlets for Irish pipes: more traditional, more funky, more "let's see how it can jam with an African drummer", more jazz, more creative outlets than ever.

The basic design of the instrument has not changed. Most people playing the instrument play mostly jigs, reels, hornpipes, etc. More people want to acquire instruments and more people want to learn the instrument.

More people are making their living at the music, including pipes.

[brendan lewis]

Forget about the mainstream - it can look after itself. There's too much in the tradition to risk dilution by the fickle and superficial demands of the commercial world. As people have commented in other posts if they want a UP type sound they can easily sample something. Sorry about all you piperers hanging around the studio doors waiting for the crumbs - no handouts today and I hope you're ashamed of yourselves. And what about the more intense aspects eg vision poems, airs and the preservation and furtherance of Irish. None of that is promoted through a coupling with the mainstream. Who would sacrafice the roots for a few bland fruits - idiots, get with the strength - the power is in your hands placed there with the direct intention of those past masters who struggled through the lean times to keep the instrument alive and ... (cut/cut -- who let that fool in! .. sounds of scuffling, thud thud wail...