Saturday 23 January 2016

Five things that go well with pipes

I've mentioned those things I feel add nothing to pipes, so it seems right to mention those things that do actually add something to pipes. I've used "five things" rather loosely here...to be perfectly honestly this is more of a list of four and one of those isn't really an item...

More pipes. No better than example than Ross and Jarlath, but I always love it at our sessions when the (Irish) piper plays along with me, mainly on My Home Town.

Fiddles. See, for example, The Waterhorse's Lament on The Desperate Battle of the Birds, but anything by Braebach, or the Mackenzie brothers, will illustrate my point.

Harpsichord. Not the obvious choice, perhaps, but it works astonishingly well. Hats off to Mr MacInnes for dreaming this one up.

Nothing. Much as I like these pairings there is really nothing to beat solo pipes, be that smallpipes or GHB. Many of Mr MacInnes's tracks on both his solo albums give you lone pipes, but for a full CD of unadulterated piping pleasure you need the Grand Concert of Scottish Piping or Alasdair Gillies' Lochbroom. Mr Gillies plays in a very measured style that brings out the forms of the tunes, so you can somehow hear the patterns very clearly. There is something rather zen, I find, listening to it. like Bach cello suites, they are, all different and yet somehow all the same, so that you can listen intently and nothing in the music or the playing of it distracts (except that Mr G is one of the perpetrators of the pointless twiddling at the end of tune....)

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