Do you need a laugh/cringe?

[rgouette]

lads, you have GOT to check out a youtube called "Wedding - epic bagpipe malfunction "

Good Lord in heaven I couldn't believe this...
**warning** GHB debacle contained herein

[BigDavy]

Hi rgouette

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yLIDnzHetKg

Jeez that sounds like my uilleann pipe playing it is that cringeworthy.

David

[magroibin]

And let that be a lesson to all the future Brides out there...
Always hire an UILLEANN Piper!!!



P.S. I've never even picked up a set of GHB's - but I probably I could have played 10% better than this bloke!!!

P.P.S. I'm glad nobody ever video taped MY worst piping experience.
...
......
...........
Nobody did..right?!?

[Jeff Cullen]

OMG! Cringe worthy is right. So awful... and it has nothing to do with his bass drone coming apart in the doorway. His playing is terrible, his tuning is terrible, his blowing is terrible. I've been playing GHB for 38 years and this ranks among the worst I've ever heard. Why would he think that someone would want him playing at their wedding? So wrong.

[MTGuru]

For those of us who are GHB impaired by choice ... Aside from the temporary de-dronification, and the awful tuning ... What is actually, specifically wrong with that high A? And the tuning of the G in the Wedding March? Just a bad reed? Bad fingering?

I didn't laugh, for there but for the grace ...

Added: OK, I laughed a little.

There was the time I flew to London to give a video presentation, and started by setting the video projector on fire ...

[uillmann]

there but for the grace ...

Amen!

[rgouette]

I will say this, I played a wedding recessional with a set of Dunbar P3's FAR ahead of when I should have.(I never had a lesson), but my perfectionist streak demands that I at least can play something reasonably well sounding, in such a public setting.

The impression one gets here is that the guy just can't handle the pipes quite yet:
though also perhaps the drone snaffu just threw him so off, that he simply lost it..

Poor fellow.

That would make for an interesting thread: "who played in public before they should have..."
:O

[MTGuru]

perhaps the drone snaffu just threw him so off, that he simply lost it.

Probably part of it. You're nervous and over your head, something goes wrong, you get flustered. Then everything else that can go wrong does go wrong. I wonder if he lost his kilt off-camera.

[uilleannfinlander]

there were quite long thread of "the worst piping video "on Bob Dunsire GHB forum ....there were many "not far away from terrible"

[reedmasters]

Couldn't listen to more than half of that. Hurt my ears too much!!!

[bensdad]

It sounded to me like there was a mouse running up and down the inside of the chanter.
Some of the notes just weren't coming out, but his rhythm wasn't too bad when he got back to the bits that did come out.
Poor guy.
Who hasn't spent half an hour getting everything in perfect tune, only to find when you kick in the drones that they've decided to go awry? And you're stuck because the bride is already walking?

[learnthegrip]

Sounds like he has a leak somewhere, though it may be just really bad blowing. Can't tell much about his fingering because he's having so much trouble keeping the pipes going. Maybe the bass drone got partially knocked out of its stock or something.

Reminds me of a trip to Nova Scotia in 1973. I stopped to hear a boys' pipe band practicing in a parking lot in Halifax and got to talking with another guy who was watching. He said his son had just had a very disappointing score in a competition and that if I was willing, he'd put me up in his guest house for a few days in exchange for some tutoring. Who could refuse an offer like that?

Next day, I sat down with the son, age 11, and he made a very respectable showing on the practice chanter. When he struck up his pipes, though, he sounded, not as bad as this guy, but terrible, nonetheless. When I tried his pipes, I found that they were leaking so badly that there was no hope of playing in tune, or really playing at all. An hour or so of rewraping all the tenons, reseating the reeds, adjusting the flapper valve and it was a completely different instrument.

I tagged along with the family to the Antigonish games a few days later, and when the son competed his score was something like 30 points higher than his previous effort. Good lesson for all concerned.

[Clarinetcat]

I wonder if the drone would have stayed in if the woman hadn't pulled on it?

[JonM422]

Had a similar "flustering" instance a couple of years back playing the pipes for the opening of a curling tournament. Apparently ending up flat out on the ice in a kilt will throw you off your normal "A" game no matter how well everything worked out when warming up the pipes before hand. Haha

On a side note, definitely agree on the cringe-worthiness of the playing.

[rgouette]

opening of a curling tournament

awesome!
...and ouch