Piping "compliments"

[Nanohedron]

Where were you for the Great, Northern Irish, Tionol dag nab it?

Oops. Busted.

[Cathy Wilde]

So I thought about this just a little more over lunch, and you know, piping reminds me a lot of life on the horse-show circuit. When people come up and say "I just love your horse" yeah, they really are talking about the horse -- but they're talking about the end-result horse, or the horse they see right at that particular moment.

HOWEVER, you as the owner/rider/trainer can ultimately take it as a big compliment to your horsemanship because 1) you found him and then hauled his sorry butt out of field full of mud-encrusted psychotic Neanderthal-yearlings 2) you cleaned him up and taught him to function in polite equine, and eventually human, society 3) you spent more than a few delightful eons just trying to get the little bugger to stand still while you put a saddle on him 4) you then spent Godknows how many more hours riding him in tiny circles (euphemistically known as "training") 5) you've moved Godknows how many tons of his manure 6) you've spent Godknows how much money on feed, horse treats, vet, training, board, and emergency-room bills and 7) you were lucky enough that this person saw him jump a lovely round and missed seeing him as the raving lunatic who tried to single-hoofedly dismantle the warmup ring not 10 minutes ago.

So how about this: if people love your pipes, the pipes might be what they see & hear ... but you as the diplomat who manages them should feel good because you present them in such a great light.

???

(yeah, yeah, yeah) -- but maybe there's a grain of truth in it?

[Nanohedron]

A really BIG HONKIN' grain, if you ask me.

[Patrick D'Arcy]

So I thought about this just a little more over lunch, and you know, piping reminds me a lot of life on the horse-show circuit. When people come up and say "I just love your horse" yeah, they really are talking about the horse -- but they're talking about the end-result horse, or the horse they see right at that particular moment.

HOWEVER, you as the owner/rider/trainer can ultimately take it as a big compliment to your horsemanship because 1) you found him and then hauled his sorry butt out of field full of mud-encrusted psychotic Neanderthal-yearlings 2) you cleaned him up and taught him to function in polite equine, and eventually human, society 3) you spent more than a few delightful eons just trying to get the little bugger to stand still while you put a saddle on him 4) you then spent Godknows how many more hours riding him in tiny circles (euphemistically known as "training") 5) you've moved Godknows how many tons of his manure 6) you've spent Godknows how much money on feed, horse treats, vet, training, board, and emergency-room bills and 7) you were lucky enough that this person saw him jump a lovely round and missed seeing him as the raving lunatic who tried to single-hoofedly dismantle the warmup ring not 10 minutes ago.

So how about this: if people love your pipes, the pipes might be what they see & hear ... but you as the diplomat who manages them should feel good because you present them in such a great light.

???

(yeah, yeah, yeah) -- but maybe there's a grain of truth in it?

Brilliant Cathy!

Patrick.

[tommykleen]

....and


...scene.

tommykleen

[rgouette]

I would tend to assume that particular phraseology would come from those who are familiar with piping, and can at least recognize an in-tune, and overall good sounding set.

The folks who know little to nothing about pipes, tend to be the ones who come out with "wow, what are those?"
or, "I love the sound of those...what are they?"

mho

[Jarlath.I]

The folks who know little to nothing about pipes, tend to be the ones who come out with "wow, what are those?"
or, "I love the sound of those...what are they?"

Or my favorite - "Is that some kind of a bagpipe?"

[J-dub]

Ha! This is totally my experience, at least when playing at sessions with other ITM types! Or comments like "your pipes sound really in tune tonight". Just take it as a complement and move along.

Could it be some kind of piper humbletude because we know we're only a reed-tantrum away from sounding horrible? Or is there something about the pipes that looks more like operating a machine or a contraption (or hanging onto a crazed honking animal), so people compliment the machine, not the operator?

Hmmmmm.

LOL, or riding a wild animal. I remember David Power saying the pipes are at their best when they are like riding a wild beast that you are barely able to stay on. And you just gotta love the "you know, that sounds just like a bagpipe" comment, kills me every time.

Actually the only genuinely heart-felt complement I can ever remember getting was at Burning Man in 2008. After playing my C set for a bunch of Irish lads and lovely (if a bit dusty) topless ladies, one gal came up too me and said "that was the most amazing thing I have ever heard, thank you. I want to give you a big hug" LOL, hug away baby, hug away - oops mind the bellows! What an amazing evening that was...

John

[magroibin]

Damn. I must admit guilt to using said compliment.

I remember two recent incidents when I commented on the "pipes sounding good". Well...they did sound good actually. But what I really meant was that their playing sounded good.


....but I couldn't actually tell them THAT!!!

[djones]

we're only a reed-tantrum away from sounding horrible?

Excellent turn of phrase!! Brilliant!

[Richard Katz]

Other than having the word "uilleann" mispronounced and butchered (ulean, alien, ullin), I have had many a compliment on my playing more so than the sound of my pipes.

For this I am always grateful.

My most recent compliment came from the daughter of a close friend of ours that recently passed. I played "Be Still My Soul" and "Amazing Grace" for her memorial service.

She used to come over to my whenever she heard me playing and came in our living room to sit and listen as long as I would play for her. She really loved the uilleann pipes.

Her daughter wrote me "I could listen to Richard's music forever..."

I also received a nice compliment from Paddy Moloney and Matt Malloy when I played with them last year. They said that my pipes sounded great (wanted to know who made them) and also said that I played brilliantly! Well....my ego swelled for quite a while after that.

I rarely get the comment that my pipes sound good because most people (who are not pipers) wouldn't know the difference unless of course they were terribly out of tune.

Cheers! Richard

[highland-piper]

Whenever someone has told me my highland pipes sound great it usually falls into one of two categories:

1) other pipers who are actually complimenting me on the tone and setup -- since they know such things are not automatic.

2) non-pipers, who don't really know enough about the music to comment on the playing, so they complement the overall impression.

However, when I play Scottish smallpipes people, both pipers and not, frequently comment along the lines of "Those sound great." Which I always take to be something along the lines of "Those sound great and it's a totally different sound from anything I've ever heard before, especially those loud, annoying (and all too frequently out-of-tune) highland pipes."

[fgibbons]

So Tommykleen, what's your interpretation of this encounter between me and an accordion player, about 3 months ago:

Me: Nice to meet you. I'm Frank.
Accordion: Nice to meet you Frank. Your pipes sound great....
Me: Thanks...
Accordion: .... nice and quiet. I've often played with pipes and they can be so loud and overpowering, but yours are nice and quiet.
Me: (staring at red Paolo-Soprani piano accordion) .........eh, thanks?

[tommyk]

Funny, never gave it a second thought:
As a pipe student and audient, I've both heard and said such a phrase.
The meaning I always took (from those familiar with pipes, at least) and the meaning I've always meant is an acknowledgement of the difficulty of maintaining a set in good working order - much of which is reed tweaking, which can be quite tricky and is why many folks who take up pipes put them down again.

Thus, a "your pipes sound good!" comment is really a, "wow, you have everything nicely in tune and working together - you clearly have a good working knowledge of how to handle a set like that . . "

[John O'Gara]

You guys rock! All I ever get is "Your pipes LOOK great!"

Obviously, I've got lots of work to do..............