The music of bagpipes is "simple" -- but it's also the most interesting, compelling, clever, brilliant, ingenious, hard-core music in the world. There is absolutely nothing like bagpipe melodies. I remember hearing (on an old Shotts album, circa 1970 or so) "Donald Cameron", "The Cameronian Rant", and "Pretty Marion" for the first time and being in total shock. I was absolutely hooked at that point. It was not just the sound of the pipes but the wicked MELODIES themselves that drew me in.
I played a recording of bagpipe music for a friend with a doctorate in music, who had never heard good bagpipe music before in his life; played the absolute best I could find - Strathclyde Police quartet MSR back when they were an absolute machine - and his immediate reaction was "How do you reconcile the pedal tone?" My thought was, "What do mean? How do you NOT like the drone [i.e. "pedal"] sound!?" Try the chanter sound alone and you'll find the drones to be necessary to soften the sound.
Pipe music is like a beautiful painting - the chanter sound (the melody) is the subject in the foreground, and the drone provides the background.
Thanks, Jim, for allowing me to film you a few years back when you came to London and gave the Piping Society a recital. A rare treat!
piperbob2 1 year ago
Exellent piper, one of my favourites.
Kahavat 2 years ago
Well said Jim!
madpipertn 2 years ago 4
The music of bagpipes is "simple" -- but it's also the most interesting, compelling, clever, brilliant, ingenious, hard-core music in the world. There is absolutely nothing like bagpipe melodies. I remember hearing (on an old Shotts album, circa 1970 or so) "Donald Cameron", "The Cameronian Rant", and "Pretty Marion" for the first time and being in total shock. I was absolutely hooked at that point. It was not just the sound of the pipes but the wicked MELODIES themselves that drew me in.
ChrisZ70 2 years ago
I played a recording of bagpipe music for a friend with a doctorate in music, who had never heard good bagpipe music before in his life; played the absolute best I could find - Strathclyde Police quartet MSR back when they were an absolute machine - and his immediate reaction was "How do you reconcile the pedal tone?" My thought was, "What do mean? How do you NOT like the drone [i.e. "pedal"] sound!?" Try the chanter sound alone and you'll find the drones to be necessary to soften the sound.
ChrisZ70 2 years ago