Where has the year gone?
I appreciate this is a niche area, but as today is International Bagpipe Day it’s time to celebrate the instrument that’s loved and loathed equally.
Here is Luigi Lai who I saw many years ago and it was one of those what did I see and hear moments. The launeddas are played using the mouth as the ‘bag’.
Enjoy.
……”equally”?….
To you 70 : 30 you decide which way.
Jings, crivvens and help ma boab, I didn’t know such a day existed
I shall listen to nothing else for the rest of the day.
I give you Treacherous Orchestra – two pipers for the price of one, and a plethora of other fabulous instruments as well.
And should prefer solo pipes, the genius of Gordon Duncan
And finally the excellent Peatbog Faeries
I thought the launeddas were played with the bawbag?
By, not with….
Two for the ileachs :
Strange coincidence: I always seem to get something in my eye when this is played
Jazz bagpipe player Rufus Harley recorded several albums for Atlantic during the late 1960s. Here’s his take on Eight Miles High.
What the hell? I can’t even bear to click that. It doesn’t seem as if such a thing should exist.
Rufus Harley played on Sweaters on Laurie Anderson’s debut album. I asked for it to be played in the local record shop, as the bagpipes started at the beginning of the track, customers riffling through the album racks looked up at the speakers wondering what the noise was. I bought it.
Jazz bagpipes sounds like some kind of frightful euphemism.
Free Jazz bagpipes is just wanton escalation.
That is remarkable, @Mike_H.
I’d never heard of Paul Dunmall and he is an extraordinary chap.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Dunmall
As well as playing tenor and alto sax, he is also a master of the Northumbrian small pipes.
On your clip he is playing Iranian bagpipes! Not an instrument one hears every day.
Here’s Saeid Shanbehzedah giving his all on that very instrument. It’s bagpipes, Jim, But not as we know them
One of the YTube comments explains that is bandari from southern Iran. It’s midnight and things are getting a bit wobbly.
Here is
Those Iranian pipes remind me that the provenance of some pipes is so apparent, they are practically indecent. Mike Billington has a good range at his disposal, with Hungarian a speciality.
A good vet could get it back on its feet etc. etc.
How about jolly foreign bagpipes? Fabrizio De Andrè’s Creuza de Mä is Italy’s best ever album, says I and David Byrne both. The opening title track begins with a brief excerpt taken from another recording: “Aria per Gaida Sola”, the gaida being the Thracian bagpipe, Thrace being somewhere around the Northern Greece, Bulgaria, Turkey sort of zip code.
Just before anyone else gets there first:
I actually do love Mull of Kintyre. First Macca song I loved actually, well before I had even heard of a band called The Beatles.
But, and this is a shameful admission given my Scottishness, I don’t actually like the Highland bagpipes. They sound good on Mull of Kintyre and the funeral scene in The Wrath of Khan, are good for big rousing marches I suppose (and yes, we had a piper at my wedding, it’s just the done thing) but on the whole they make a dreadful racket.
Funnily enough other countries seem to do pipes better. Irish (uilliean) pipes for example, are absolutely gorgeous. The guitar/pipes duet between Mike Oldfield and Paddy Moloney on Ommadawn is something I have posted on these pages before, but I’ll never tire of it:
He only plays it live in selected places. I have had the good fortune to hear it a few times in Toronto, wasn’t too much of a surprise first time when I bumped into the full pipe band warming up before they came on. Very stirring moment when they hit the stage later
Oh I didn’t know that. He did it with a full pipe band when I saw him in Glasgow in 1990… I can’t actually remember if he played it when I saw him again in Glasgow in 2013/14 (whenever it was)?
Scotland and Canada (Ontario) may be the only places he plays it
2010? yes
https://www.setlist.fm/setlist/paul-mccartney/2010/hampden-park-glasgow-scotland-3d415b3.html
2018? No (but you got Wonderful Christmas Time 😉 )
https://www.setlist.fm/setlist/paul-mccartney/2018/the-sse-hydro-glasgow-scotland-33949c2d.html
Yeh 2010 at Hampden was the one. Wow, I didn’t even know he played in 2018 or I might have gone!
Thunderstruck
Here’s an early 13th century instrumental tune from the troubadour era:
It’s A Long Way To The Sops If You Want A Sausage Roll
Definition of a Gentleman:
Someone who knows how to play the bagpipes, but chooses no to
Mrs F was born in the Cairngorms. We were at the 2019 Ballater Highland Games, where the massed pipes and drums of seven clans came together to honour the Chieftain’s 100th birthday. He was a lovely old boy, and died last year at 102.
I can only describe the sound as a roar, like being lifted out of my seat. If you’d been set for a battle, and that noise came over the hill, you’d turn and run. And, like all things in modern life, it’s on the Tube:
Superb! I feel homesick…
So do I! And I’m two generations removed from true Scots (my paternal gramps was from the Lothian).
Mrs F left Scotland for France at 6 months old, went back to Aberdeen for 4 years of university, and has been south of the border since. But the Cairngoms still feel like home.
Every day is Bagpipe day chez moi. Have some :
Mods, is there any way we can hide this thread from KFD? 🤭
My dear friend, Moosey!
How kind of you to invite me to join the fun.
I’m delighted to introduce you to the gorgeous Hanna-Liis Lao who plays the Estonian bagpipes, the torupill.
Now there’s a floorfiller for you!
Off to Galicia in Northern Spain for Susana Seivane playing the gaita (Iberian bagpipess) accompanied by Milladoiro.
Run for the hills!
My Dad loved the bagpipes, Pipe Bands, Jim Reeves, Johnny Cash and James Last records were oft heard Chez Beezerparents in the days when I had No Say In The Matter.
I have a soft spot for them too, in smallish doses.
Not so a subsequent Irish housemate of mine some years later. ‘They look and sound like some bastard squeezing the dung out of a cat’
Strong imagery. 8 out of 10.
It can only be Seamus Ennis:
And there’s only one Finbar Furey:
We all need an Indian Pipe band in our lives.
My great-grandfather, Pipe- Major James Sutherland, wrote this. His first language was Gaelic; he wore a kilt every day of his life, as far as my mum remembered; and he liked a dram. Sometimes stereotypes can be true.
Played finely here by someone in America, but as it was written in Cairo, that doesn’t make it any less authentic.
That’s a fine tune. I’ve been marching up and down the kitchen…the cats don’t know what’s going on…
I’m glad you liked it. For all of the sometimes justified mockery of the pipes, nothing beats them for the two extreme opposites of marching and mourning.
Justified mockery!? Anyone mocking the pipes…I’ll have to ask them to step outside!!
Both of my aunties were drummers in a pipe band – one was a side drummer and one was a tenor drummer. I personally find the pipes very stimulating…
Fraser Fifield in positively Bongo Fury-esque style.
Those launeddas keep popping up in my YouTube recommendations and with good reason – they’re fabulous.
Any road up, you just know that, at this point in the conversation, I am going to take you to Brittany.
That’s some send off. Go alter your Last Will and Testament right now.
This thread is just bursting at the seams with wonderful pieces of music.
But I have to say a word of thanks for this @thecheshirecat. Erwan Ropers must have been a remarkable chap.
Here’s a doc about him.”A figurehead of Brittany. A figurehead of Breton music.”
Now, let’s focus on those pipes specific to Brittany, the bat-friendly biniou, in its usual partnership with the bombarde. Get those feet tapping!
Jose Angel Hevia Velasco, known internationally as Hevia, is a piper from Asturias in the north of Spain, who has been enormously successful.
As well developing the electric bagpipes (!), he has spent considerable time in Latin America and incorporated latin rhythms into his music.
Sabroso!
I was coming here to post some Hevia. I saw him at the CFF years ago, and Mrs F is (very) distantly related, or so my MIL claimed.
Although my MIL claimed to be second-cousin of almost everyone in Galicia.
Coming back to the UK, here’s Kathryn Tickell playing the Northumbrian Small Pipes with her band.
Well done @Hubert_ Rawlinson. What a cracking thread this turned out to be. I don’t doubt there is much more to be said,
In the meantime, here’s a piping playlist, featuring many of the pipers we’ve
mentioned.
“I don’t doubt there is much more to be said” . . .
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2005/feb/02/guardianobituaries.artsobituaries
When I was a nipper, if someone said bagpiper, I would get a mental picture of a gnarled, bekilted Scottish geezer with a bushy, red beard standing on the ramparts of an ancient castle playing Donald where’s you troosers?
My perspective has broadened.
Punky, green-haired Christina Pate is from Orense in Galicia but has lived in New York for over a decade.
“Pato’s instrument is the gaita, a Galician bagpipe, and her roots lie in traditional Galician music — though she also boasts graduate degrees in classical piano, music theory and electronic composition.”
She has also been a member of Yo Yo Ma’s Silk Road Ensemble.
The gaita are the same Galecian pipes that Hevia (see above) plays.
Quite right @fentonsteve. The gaita is popular throughout Northern Spain namely Galicia, Asturias and parts of Cantabria and (I’ve just learnt) in Northern Portugal.
Portúgal’s Got (Bagpipe) Talent!
This Bagpipe Society article is superb .
http://www.bagpipesociety.org.uk/articles/2017/chanter/summer/iberian-overview/
Bagpipes have been played in Mallorca since the 13th century!
What weird, wee, droopy beastie this Mallorcan gaita is!
Another excellent Galician gaitero: Budino.
That Cheshire Cat has got me curious to know more about Erwan Ropers and the “bat-friendly biniou”.
This article mentions how Ropers had strong links with Scotland and received tuition from the now defunct Edinburgh City Police Pipe Band among others.
https://www.pipesdrums.com/article/erwan-ropers-1950-2015/#:~:text=Erwan%20Ropars%2C%20a%20major%20figure,soner%2C%20or%20pipe%2Dmajor
Biniou is the Breton word for bagpipe. Wiki explains..
“There are two bagpipes called binioù in Brittany: the traditional binioù kozh or biniou-bihan (kozh means “old” in Breton, bihan means “small”) and the binioù bras (bras means “big”), which was brought into Brittany from Scotland in the late 19th century. The oldest native bagpipe in Brittany is the veuze, from which the binioù kozh is thought to be derived.
.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binio%C3%B9_kozh
Here’s a little history lesson about the development of the bagpipes. You might need your French dictionary.
Thierry Bertrand is an instrument maker.
A little more about the areas of Brittany where veuze.is most common.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veuze
Now then, the biniou kozh is also known as the cornemuse bretonne, not to be confused with the cornemuse auvergnatte, aka the musette or cabrette.
I take my hat off to you, Cheshire. You certainly know a cornemuse from a cornetto.
This geezer, Mr Ethnopiper, can also certainly tell a biriani from a binioù.
https://ethnopiper.wordpress.com/iberian-bagpipe-gaita/
Excellent website.
What a find! A double album of Les Cornemues de Europe en Cournouaille.
Dudelsack, torupill, zampogna, moezelsak, uillean pipe.. they are all there!
Here’s a review. It all was recorded at a festival given in Quimper in Brittany in 1990
As the writer comments: best enjoyed in small helpings! But very useful as a research tool.
Don’t whimper! Here’s Quimper. The 2010 bagpipe festival.
Of course we need some English bagpipes, there were several regional variations.
I think @thecheshirecat may recognise some, I think it’s Jon Swayne from Blowzabella on the left.
It is indeed. I should think he made a fair few of the pipes on display there. I have probably danced to all six of those pipers, somewhere or another.
Chris Walshaw second from left; David Faulkner of the wonderful Eelgrinders second from the right. God, I love the stuff he’s done with Steve Turner.
Parade, pageant, pipe concert: this clip is pure Brittany. A gaggle of local folklore groups showing off their finest togs on a rather windy day. A chance for mums and dads to cheer on their kids or vice versa.
Everyone involved is an amateur and it’s an event for the local people and maybe some French tourists in contrast to the big tourist attractions that Mardi Gras in New Orleans or Carnival in Rio have become.
“St Pol de Léon. Le festival Kastell Paol 2011. Le défilé des confréries et
des groupes folkloriques : Les cercles Bleuniadur, St Evarzec, Le Croisty, Les enfants de Gannat, les bagadou Kevrenn Kastell, Cap Caval, Lorient et Lann Bihoué.”
One important word I’ve learnt is bagad – Breton pipe band. Every town in Brittany has at least one.
One bagad but the plural form is bagadoù. I’m surprised Black Lace have not written a song about them.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bagad
Another handy word is sonneur: a piper of one of the Breton pipes.
“Le sonneur (soner en breton, sonnou en gallo) est un musicien jouant de la bombarde, du biniou kozh ou autre type de cornemuse, ainsi que parfois aussi de la clarinette bretonne, la Treujenn-gaol (littéralement « tronc de choux ») et par extension de tout instrument de musique utilisé dans l’ancienne société traditionnelle.”
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonneur
Am I the only person here who wants to hear a Breton clarinet? Don’t answer that!
‘Don’t answer that’? That’s a red rag to a Cheshire cat, that is!
Here’s another lovely fellah, to whom I have danced countless times, the late Yves Leblanc.
He even taught me one of the songs in my Breton repertoire.
Yves sounds like he was a lovely bloke, Cheshire.
https://socalfolkdance.org/master_teachers/leblanc_y.htm
Here he is in action in Budapest of all places. Love the way he walks around the dancefloor with his squeezebox.
Look at that! A merch table with CDs and bottles of wine. A sight you would not see in Scandinavia. The other musicians are Hungarians.
Especially for KFD some sackpippa from Sweden.
Thanks for the säckpipa, Hubert. I don’t think I’ve ever seen one played live.
It goes together nicely with a nyckelharpa.
This may be a niche thread, but it is very enjoyable.
I just remembered that a Cumbrian pal of mine mentioned visiting the Bagpipe Museum in Asturias.
https://en.asturias.com/el-museo-de-la-gaita/
And here’s a taste of the local music. Live on St Peter’s day: Banda de Gaitas Villa de Xixon.
Rather like Wales, it seems to rain a lot in Asturias.
I like those wooden balconies overlooking the street. I suspect they are typical for the area.
Of course Asturias isn’t the only place for the pipes.
https://museumsnorthumberland.org.uk/morpeth-chantry-bagpipe-museum/
Yes I’ve been.
I’d be on for that, Hubert! Live performances too!
The recent series of Great British Rail Journeys had Portillo visiting it. He ‘played’ the Northumbrian pipes be thankful it isn’t available on YouTube.
I was curious about whether there were any bagpipes in Latin America. That led me to this excellent interview with Galician piper Carlos Nuñez from the Miami Herald.
https://migrantmusic.net/carlos-nunez-on-bagpipes-rock-roots-and-the-chieftains/
“He once noted that the impact of the Galician presence in Mexico was such that some Mexican-American audiences thought “A Rianxeira,” an old Galician non-religious song to the Virgin of Guadalupe, was actually Mexican. (Nuñez ended up recording it under the name “Guadalupe” with Linda Ronstadt and Los Lobos). Or that in doing his research he found out that the bagpipe was the first European instrument heard in Brazil and its sound can still be heard in the music of Brazil’s northeast.
Conversely, Nuñez says that when he started playing he would talk with the old gaiteros (gaita players) of Vigo. “And they would tell you that … in the 1930s they had actually heard Mexican music and Cuban son played in gaitas. And that’s why the drumming in Vigo has a tumbao [a Cuban swing] It’s not like the Irish or Scots would play it. It’s the ida y vuelta, brought back by the immigrants.”
Here’s Carlos with modern Galician act, Baiuca.
And with singer Noa
Bagpipes and funk may seem like an unlikely mix, but Parliament’s The Silent Boatman is actually rather good:
Parliament on a bagpipe thread! Somewhat unexpected! Very good though!
George still remembers it.
https://www.sundaypost.com/fp/funk-legend-george-clinton-says-farewell-to-scotland-but-forgets-his-bagpipes/
Yesterday, I posted several fine clips of those Breton bagads in marching mode.
I was rather surprised to hear what they sound like when it’s competition time. Positively symphonic with very sophisticated arrangements.
Very impressive playing by Bagad Cap Caval.
They’ve toured internationally and visited Wales and the Isle of Man.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bagad_Cap_Caval
Now, here’s a bagad that is very Bilbo Baggins.
Of course, the Welsh pibgorn is not a bagpipe. Or is it?
and here’s one that was prepared earlier
I can’t believe we’ve come so far without mentioning Brighde Chambeuil, rising star of the small pipes.
Talking about her album The Reeling.
Here with Ross Ainslie from Treacherous Orchestra.
To my delight I’ve just discovered that there is a Piping Centre in Glasgow. that been going for 25 years.
https://www.scotsman.com/whats-on/arts-and-entertainment/piping-live-festival-to-put-glasgow-at-the-heart-of-scottish-piping-3329454
It seems to be doing a lot to encourage new compositions and new ideas.
Here’s one of the pipers mentioned in the article, Fraser Fifield.
Of course it was bound to happen.
https://www.indy100.com/viral/red-hot-chilli-pipers-tiktok?utm_content=Echobox&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Facebook#Echobox=1647288778
A lucky escape. That video clip is the very epicentre of twattishness in the universe.
Even bagpipes would bet better.
EVEN BAGPIPES.
During the days of the British Empire, pipe bands could probably be heard where the Union Jack was to be seen. And the legacy from those times lives on, not least in Pakistan.
https://tribune.com.pk/story/206624/bagpipes-make-corner-of-pakistan-forever-scotland
It’s a pipe band, Jim, but no quite as we know it.
Grab your dhol! It’s time for a Punjabi Piping Party.
This Guardian article is 12 years old but it has some interesting things to say about how the modern pipers are looking to the future.
“At last, they’re coming into their own as a real musical instrument, not just as the embodiment of shortbread-tin, tartan-clad kitsch – and long may it last.”
https://www.theguardian.com/music/tomserviceblog/2010/feb/24/bagpipes-shotts-pipe-band
Time to mention Niteworks from the Isle of Skye who combine pipes and fiddles with modern electronica. And a questioning political perspective on Scottish history.
Retropath02 is a big fan. Me too! But Retro is actually in the mosh pit for their gigs and probably has a T shirt or two.
Talking of moshing, here are The Sidh. An Italian dubstep-techno band with a prominent piper.
https://celtcast.com/the-sidh-another-way-to-fly-2018/
By way of complete contrast, I just stumbled across An Orkney Wedding with Sunrise By Sir Peter Maxwell Davies.
I’ve never seen a classical piece before in which the conductor is served a wee dram during the performance.