The future of Uilleann pipes "Irishness"

[rorybbellows]

In a recent interview Gay McKeown expressed the concern that the Uilleann pipes may in the future lose their "Irishness" status due to the fact that most pipes are made outside Ireland and maybe to a lesser extent are being played by people all over the world.
Is the Irishness of Uilleann pipes going to be a victim of its own success ?


RORY

[Ted]

They are already being used in non-Irish soundtracks in films and advertising. Many of the best pipes made today are not made in Ireland. The instrument is becoming recognized by composers and non-Irish musicians for it's unique sound. Many instruments from other cultures have been adopted by Irish musicians, such as banjo, accordion, fiddle (originally from Italy), and concertina. These instruments were developed for music from other cultures but have found favor by Irish musicians to interpret Irish traditional music. When in Clifden last year, I asked a young musician if the banjo he had on the stand was a tenor or plectrum banjo, as it seemed to have a long neck. It was an American antique. He proudly told me it was an "Irish tenor banjo". The uilleann pipes will find a lot of use in other musical forms, as it should be, as it really is a versatile instrument. The use of instruments by musicians from one culture (which were developed in other cultures) to interpret their music is nothing new. The Irish have "borrowed" plenty of other's instruments themselves to interpret Irish trad. That musicians from other cultures adopt the unique voice of the pipes is a good thing. Its' use has expanded in Ireland over the past years, and its' use will continue to expand across the globe. There seems to be no danger of it dying out in Ireland for ITM and is also used there for other musical forms. The cat is already out of the bag and there is no going back.

[An Draighean]

In a recent interview Gay McKeown expressed the concern that the Uilleann pipes may in the future lose their "Irishness" status due to the fact that most pipes are made outside Ireland and maybe to a lesser extent are being played by people all over the world.
Is the Irishness of Uilleann pipes going to be a victim of its own success ?

I think the nearly opposite argument could be made, here in the U.S. anyway. The vast majority of Americans for several generations have the notion that "When Irish Eyes are Smiling", "Danny Boy", and Great Highland Bagpipes constitute Irish music. Most do not know what Uilleann pipes or ITM are, but when introduced to them (by whatever means including movie soundtracks) some will be curious enough to explore and learn something about ITM. I would also bet (but have no way of proving) that the great majority of Uilleann pipers in the U.S. are playing ITM rather than other styles. I submit that Uilleann piping in America is increasing the "Irishness" and awareness of ITM here, even if the Irish themselves think it is being diluted.

[billh]

I don't think this is quite what Gay meant in that interview. I think the point was more specific to pipe making - rather, that if Ireland is not a centre of excellence for uilleann/union pipemaking, there is a risk to the tradition; not in any nationalist sense, but in the sense that players and makers need to be near one another for the best synergy and continuity of tradition. (I would point out that by continuity, I don't mean stasis...)

Ireland is clearly the cultural centre of the instrument from a musicological, historical, and performance sense (though one could argue that there is has been a second great centre in the U.S. for over a century, albeit one distributed over a huge land mass). Thus it is logical that Ireland is the place where a 'critical mass' can best be achieved, in contrast to the isolated maker scenario that is common elsewhere (and which makers work hard to overcome).

- Bill

[john]

where can i go to see this interview?

[john]

had a look online - couldn't find it

[TheSilverSpear]

From the mid-eighteenth century, union pipes were also made in Scotland and England. Just sayin'.

[rorybbellows]

had a look online - couldn't find it

Hi John, there were a couple of clips of the opening ceremony of pipecraft on you-tube ,it was in one of the clips that Gay gave a short interview, but I have looked for the clip but it seems to be gone.

Its probably a gaol of NPU to make Ireland the centre of pipemaking ,but with the nature of pipemakers been born and not made its impossible to say where the next great pipemaker will come from. Unless NPU is willing to fund the relocation of pipemaker to Ireland than they will always be scattered around the world. Maybe that would have been a better way to spend the money pumped into the pipecraft thingymagig.

RORY

[TheSilverSpear]

More or less agree with Rory on that. Unless, as he says, NPU is going to pay makers to relocate to Ireland, I think that horse has bolted and I don't see it going back into the stable. There are already great makers scattered around the world. And that's assuming it was in the stable in the first place, which I'm not sure was the case. That was my point above -- in the 18th and 19th centuries, there were MORE makers in places like Edinburgh and Tyneside than there are now.

I was playing in a session the other week and a punter asked me what kind of pipes I was playing. Said she didn't recognise them, because they didn't have regs (yes, yes, I am aware of this and feel a bit inadequate every time I see someone with a 3/4 or full set, but nevermind), and then told me, "Did you know, there's only one guy in Ireland who now makes uilleann pipes." I told her that I didn't think that was the case.

[mke_mick]

Maybe it's easy for me to say this, not being an Irish taxpayer, but I think the Pipecraft Centre is a great thing: where else, in the entire world, is anybody offering classes in making Union/uilleann pipes?

Saying it's a waste because most pipemakers won't live in Ireland is like saying that the Royal Library of Alexandria was a waste because too few scholars stayed put in Egypt. The point is to help preserve and expand the craft and to disseminate it outwards, not to create some sort of national monopoly that, as others have pointed out, never existed anyhow.

(Of course it would be a shame if Ireland some day becomes a much less significant center for pipemaking (and performing) than, say, the U.S. or Germany. But not necessarily a catastrophe: for how many decades was Irish traditional music in general marginalized in Ireland, arguably nearly dead, before it started to rebound in the 1960s and 70s?)

There's a lot of ebb and flow with any craft, tradition, or musical style. Having centers of learning, like the Pipecraft Centre, helps preserve some kind of continuity, even if it's impossible to do more than influence and disseminate, versus actual control (which is impossible, even if one were to do something very chauvinistic like creating an "Académie du Piping" that establishes an arbitrary, pseudo-definitive "true Irish piping/pipemaking" and calls anything else heresy ).

So, it seems to me that encouraging a "concentration of expertise" in Ireland is, as Bill Haneman says, a sensible and even obvious way to help keep the pipemaking tradition alive, evolving, and yes, Eire-centric (why not try?). At the very least, it gives us colonial types a yardstick (meter-stick?) to measure our own efforts against.

Regards to all,
Mick

[CHasR]

I think it takes a great deal of skill & musical cunning to make the Uilleann pipe sound decidedly "UN-Irish"...but Im listening with 'familiar ears', so the bias is set. (What does ragtime played on Uilleann sound like to someone who;s never heard ITM, i wonder??)
but, most of the European (non-GHB) bagpipers ive met are tickled to pieces their instruments and music are even known, let alone played, beyond their own borders.

[Ted]

I understand the concern about pipes being in Ireland. The NPU pipecraft scheme seems to have been brought about to have more makers of pipes in Ireland. It was advertised in Ireland as a craft from which one could make a living. Your averge craftsman would be hard pressed to do so, unless they took up the instument and were capable of at least a rudimentary knowlege of playing pipes. The tuning and voicing are hard won arts, and not every craftsman would be able to master it. I heard complaints in Ireland that potential makers in the class might buy up supplies of ebony and other timbers so that those there who were already making pipes would have a harder time obtaining these scarce resources. The scheme is not universally well received by some established makers there. Time will tell what the end result will be.

[Calum]

I find it very hard to believe Uilleann makers make a dent in the wood market comparable to, say, clarinet makers.

[Ted]

Try to buy some ebony in today's market. It is almost impossible to get for anyone, clarinet maker or not.

[MichaelLoos]

(What does ragtime played on Uilleann sound like to someone who;s never heard ITM, i wonder??)

Funny - about 20 years ago, I played Scott Joplin's "Original Rags" at a festival in Hungary, accompanied by a cimbalom band - no one in the audience had ever seen or heard the uilleann pipes before, so no one was under the impression the music didn't suit the instrument. On the other hand, no one felt it sounded particularly Irish...