I’ve seen a number of pictures of pipers (both real and in pictures) that show the player standing, with some sort of ‘cane’ or ‘leg brace’ to elevate their right leg. The only picture I can find right now is this one:
It looks like its actually strapped to his leg (or is that a piper’s apron?)
Was this a fairly common thing to use out busking when no chair was around? What exactly is the ‘leg brace’? Are they still used now?
Somewhere in print there’s an account of a piper (perhaps just out of living memory) who crafted some type of shelf attached to the mainstock, where the chanter could rest, enabling him to play standing.
has anyone else has read this story?
I would guess they were home-made. It’s about the height of a walking cane with a perpendicular bit to sit on, and a peg about half way up protruding from the side for your foot. I doubt there was anything complicated in their manufacture.
It is not strapped to his leg. Yes, that’s just the apron.
It is debatable how many people in Ireland could ever afford a set of UPs, so it is even more suspect as to how many itinerant Upipers there were out busking (accounts seldom specify what type of pipes “the piper” played when mention of one was made).
Johnny Doran is noted to have put his foot up on his pipes case in order to play standing when busking at public events (1930s-40s).
djm
Is that not a pastoral set anyway?, so putting it on your leg would be superfluous.
David
I found this picture in my collection of pics taken from the net over the years. Not sure who it is, but the title of the picture says “McPeake”. I captured this many years ago. I thought that this might possibly be Johnny Doran but not sure.
All the best,
I found this one in my archive
somewhere in 2003 on my half set
All you need is a wheelchair.
I hope one of these years to get all the local pipers together in the St. Pat’s Day parade in wheelchairs rolling down the street wailing the Eagle’s Whistle.
We just have to hope for some nice weather or it’ll be a bunch of pipers in wheelchairs fiddling with reeds.
2 years ago, I was invited by the Ancient Order of Hibernians to march in the Montreal St Patrick’s Day Parade with my pipes. I suggested the wheelchair but for some reason they didn’t think it was appropriate 
.
If you got one of lots’ piper’s crutches and stuck it up yer butt you could kind of hop down the street like a pogo piper. 
djm
No,no, no. The real way to do this is to have The Gentlemen Pipers Marching Band: all dressed up in black suits and ties, and three-legged stools strapped to their arses. Can’t you just see them stoically marching down the parade route, pipes cradles in their arms and the stools all a-bob-bobbing?! Then the command is sounded to stop and sit, followed by the command to tune up. The whole parade just flows around them as they incessantly mess with their pipes for a few hours, never actually getting a tune out.
t
as they incessantly mess with their pipes for a few hours, never actually getting a tune out.
Reminds me of a session I went to where 3 pipers showed up… there was also two drummers there… myself with a fiddle and a friend with a whistle told dirty jokes back and forreth for an hour or so, while the patrons of the bar looked on
When I lived in the DC area I played for a while with the snappily titled “Fabulous Potato Heads Rhythm and Blues Ceili Band” performing on a variety of instruments in pub settings. We were a six piece band including drum kit and pub stages are small so it was often difficult for me to have a chair to pipe. I made a leg brace out of pvc plumbing which was effectively a squared letter A. The top horizontal piece tucked neatly behind the knee and the foot then rested on the cross piece, and with two legs it was stable. It was also light to carry and cheap to make.
Ian
Didn’t Woody Allen do something similar as a cello player in a marching band, complete with stool. I think he ran to the front of the band, sat and played until the rest of the band passed. Then he’d pick his stool up and run to the front again. I reckon that’s the way to do it.
He did? Summon my legal team! 
t
Summon my legal team!
Woody Allen’s kneecaps have been duly broken.
Hi there
Here is a photo of Johny Doran playing standing up with one foot resting on his pipe case
…and here’s Mr. Doran with a popping valve in his chanter
Plenty of info on Johnny Doran (and Felix) at the following link:
While Johnny Doran did play standing, and that is a photo of a piper standing in the manner ascribed to Johnny Doran, I find it hard to believe that particular photo is of Johnny Doran standing playing the pipes. The hairline just does not match the other pictures of him at all.
djm
Yeah, that’s the one! Classic! Thanks Mukade.