For anyone with 15 minutes to spare here’s John McSherry and myself chatting to Marie-Louise on BBC Radiio Ulster earlier this evening on the matter of uilleann piping and books thereon.
John plays two fabulous pieces of music (with fellow piping supremo Francis McIlduff) and gives a demonstration, and snippets of Liam O’Flynn and SĂ©amus Ennis are played.
Nice, but I thought 15 minutes was a bit stingy.
Life, with its many ups and downs, has prevented me from reading the book quite as often as I would have liked, so I’m not quite finished yet (but enjoying it very much).
Actually, just before I logged in and found this I was doing a bit of shopping at my online music purveyor, and inspired by a sudden interest in all things piping I bought an album by a Swedish chap playing Swedish folk music on bagpipes…I blame you entirely! 🙂
It’s certainly not as complex an instrument as the uilleann pipes, but I like all types of bagpipes and I was curious about their use in Swedish music. Here he is with a fiddler, playing at a folk festival:
Apparently he got interested in the bagpipes when he developed an allergy to resin and had to stop playing the violin!
I’ve never seen Swedish bagpipes before. Looks like they bear some relation to the Bulgarian variety…
Glad you’re persevering with the book! Is there some kind of national medal available to you for reading colossal books on arcane instrumentation from remote places based in a non-first language? I would hope so…
Here’s a lady from Bulgaria (with an ill advised clattery backing track):
The Wiki page for Swedish bagpipes is really interesting (although it leaves out a lot of text in the English version). Apparently it was virtually extinct and only rescued in the very last minute, and one of the guys who rescued it was the father of that chap in the clip I posted…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swedish_bagpipes
EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEVEN more pontificating pipers here, for those who may not have suffered enough. We were the English language light relief in Lynette Fay’s excellent Irish language show. A terrific live tune from John McSherry & Francis McIlduff at the end of the 210 minute slot. We’re on at 46.00, but check in earlier to hear Lyn’s beautiful command of the language:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06cc7zz