the Season for "legit" gigs

[pancelticpiper]

For some reason this Christmas Season has been a big one for "legit" gigs for me, and evidently for other pipers as well.

I'm using the term "legit" the way it's used amongst jazz players, to mean a player or gig who sits on a bandstand or orchestra pit and plays what's written on the page.

Here's a discussion of the term on a jazz saxplayer site

http://forum.saxontheweb.net/showthread ... is-it-used

Every weekend running up to Christmas I've been doing church concerts where they're performing pieces that have actual uilleann parts written out! Now six concerts in the last two weeks.

Some concerts were doing a couple pieces I'd not heard of before Hymn to Hope and Highland Carol. Hymn to Hope was intended for the uilleann pipes. On the other hand Highland Carol was written with the Highland pipes in mind, as an instrumental piece, but later somebody wrote words for it and transposed the orchestral score to the Highland pipe's written key and slapped the word "uilleann" on the top of the pipe part! But obviously still a Highland pipe part, playing a jumbled version of the melody to avoid all the notes the Highland pipes don't have. (I ignored the score and played the full melody and the conductor didn't even notice.)

What's driving these gigs more is the set of music called Season of Joy, a collection of pieces which occupies an entire church service, complete with an instrumental Overture.

The songs in Season of Joy were mostly written by Keith Getty, an Irish guy living in Nashville who is big in the Christian music scene.

Several of the songs have uilleann parts as an ordinary part of the orchestral score.

Season of Joy:
A Celtic Christmas Overture (pipes)
Christmas Pipes (pipes, requires D and C chanters)
Joy Has Dawned (pipes)
Once Upon A Christmas
The Wexford Carol/I Wonder As I Wander
The Carolin' Reel with Joy To The World, Hark The Herald Angels Sing, Deck The Halls, and Adested Fideles (pipes)
Emmanuel
How Suddenly A Baby Cries
Jesus Saves (pipes)
By Faith (pipes, requires D and C chanters)
Celtic Christmas Blessing
Postlude (pipes)

Note that some scores require the piper to have chanters in D and C. In the case of By Faith this is clearly indicated in the score. In the case of Christmas Pipes it was NOT indicated in the score, but the pipes' part which is written in G corresponds to the orchestra parts written in F, and the pipes' part which is written in A (three sharps) corresponds to the orchestra parts written in G. (As if a piper will use a C chanter to play in G, using the "G# key" all over the place!)

There's a CD which comes along with Season of Joy. I wonder who the piper is, he's very good! But what he's playing often doesn't match the score, and he's playing in many sections which are "tacit" in the score. I pretty much ignored the scores for some pieces and tried to do more or less what the piper in the recording was doing. The "pipes" parts in the orchestral scores on some of these pieces are decidely un-pipelike and strike me as a trumpet or clarinet part which has had the word "uilleann pipes" slapped at the top.

Anyhow I did a Season of Joy concert last night, and there were at least two others going on that same night at other churches in the area. One had initially called me, but later said "Oh, we found a piper." I wonder if the piper they found has a C chanter... if not, he wouldn't be able to play a couple of the exposed pipe parts on Christmas Pipes, which are in F, unless he's really good at using his F natural key and B flat key.

Here's a link to the Season of Joy site

http://wordmusic.com/season-of-joy-a-ce ... ation.html

[Cathy Wilde]

Serendipity! I'd never heard of the Gettys until a couple of weeks ago, when I did a church gig last weekend that had a number of Keith & Kristin Getty pieces. There was one called "Carol of the Bells/Young Tom Ennis" that I ended up having to transpose to play on the F flute. The way it was written for Eb whistle I would have had to play in A major, which made the B part a little too exciting at speed. All those half-holed G sharps and no opportunity for do-overs ...

Another piece we did (not the Gettys) was "Light of the Stable." I had to laugh since the arranger had helpfully written out parts for ... Db and Gb tinwhistle! No problem, I just transposed the parts to work on G and B whistles, and hey, they meant well, right?

Kept things lively, that's for sure, but in these cases the choir calls the tune -- and the key. FWIW, it was nice to be able to for once justify my accumulation of whistles and flutes in so many keys.

Speaking of Keith Getty, a fellow in the orchestra told me he'd gone to hear the Gettys when they were in Louisville, and that he'd so enjoyed the music of a certain uilleann piper from LA who played with them. He said, "Oh, wait, I have his card somewhere" ... guess who the piper was?

Our dear Mr. Pat Darcy.

Sorry I missed that!

Peace, joy, and Gb whistles to all ...

[pancelticpiper]

Yes indeed our own Pat Darcy is the Getty's regular piper and tours with them.

I subbed for Pat on a Getty tour a couple years ago and it was a great experience.

Yes I ended up using whistles in several keys in addition to the pipes.

Yes when you start doing church gigs you end up needing whistles in every imaginable key. I have all chromatic keys and I've used every whistle.