From Stirrin’
Several, if not many, years ago you posted a thread with a picture of a ticket to a “Red Hot Chilli Pipers” concert – with the intent to show how easy two letters can change what you expected to see (i.e., Red Hot Chilli Peppers) .
Well, I like the pipes and that got me interested in looking into these red hot pipers – I had never heard of them before – and I happen to be listening to them tonight, so I offer a couple of video clips if you care to share. Bagpipes are not for everyone, so it certainly wouldn’t hurt my feelings if you don’t. On the other hand I wonder how many closet pipes fans there are out there.
The first video is just two songs – “The Hills of Argyle” and “Highland Cathedral” – the latter being a classic played at weddings and funerals. The second video is a concert which is over an hour long, but has a lot of entertaining songs on it – again, if you like the pipes and the arrangements written to incorporate them.
-Stirrin’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gaXZhpCqXwg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SdF-HAVVp4s
The Wicked Tinkers are fun to listen to as well. I’m too tired to search YouTube for links.
Wicked Tinkers
https://youtu.be/pOGG7p-EOmQ
Reminds me of a friend who went to a Cat Stevens concert not knowing he had converted to Islam.
https://youtu.be/PnvAu3C0Gb4?t=322
The above demonstrates blatant cultural appropriation, but damn fine cultural appropriation. As a Scot, I approve.
Good morning everyone.
I do like pipe performances, and these seem an enthusiastic bunch, but I’m only seeing this now and do not have an opportunity to explore these links completely at this time. I will watch them and those added by commentors as well, such as Grool and M., and I expect good things.
But the pipes are more than entertainment to me, they are actually rather personal.
It’s become something to be ashamed of becuase of Bill Barr publicly playing them before he committed treason, but I do, in my own way, pipe at time and at need. I got into it as kind of a LOL family heritage project (quarter Scots, if you don’t like it, away ‘n bile your head), but mostly do it for ceremonial reasons now, and sometimes it seems to bring peace.
I am self-taught and inspired by the Lord, in that I have never had a formal lesson, and my piping shows it. I can do some recognizable tunes, but rather inexpertly and I’m never sure about my drone tuning because that’s a difficult thing to do when the drones are right next to your head, your fingers are engaged on the chanter anyway to get the right note, and you don’t hear well anyway, but I manage well enough for my purposes. It’s nothing I’d do in a parade and I rarely do it publicly, but sometimes and for some things I have to.
One such thing is my father’s birthday.
Every tax day, which was his birthday, I assemble as much of my immediate family as I can at his gravesite, usually my mother who, thank God, is still with us; my wife; my son, who never knew his grandfather in this world as he was born a few months after his grandfather passed (we’ve said they passed each other as my son was travelling from Heaven to us my father was travelling to Heaven from us), and whoever else in the rotating cast can take time from their busy, mature lives to stand and remember a father, a husband, a grandfather, and a patriarch of a line.
And there I play the pipes for him, usually a bar or two, depending on the day and my lungs. My lungs were fine this time, but it was chill and damp yesterday and my mother is not a young woman, so I kept it to one bar of “Amazing Grace”. This is pretty much what I do now and I DO celebrate the Lord’s grace, in my life and ALL our lives, as none of us deserve it, but it is available to us ALL because of His love for us.
And that’s pretty amazing.
I also do a reprise on Father’s Day, during which there are a LOT more people on the cemetary grounds, for obvious reasons. It is a Catholic cemetary as my father was Catholic to his core and my mother converted to marry him, and it’s not really a Catholic tune, but no one has ever complained, and I have had people in the cemetary come to me in tears and thank me for playing that as it was a favorite of their father as well, or spoke to them in a way words cannot. It has nothing to do with my talent, but in the God-given inspiration of that simple tune, and it it grants others a peace for their loved ones, that’s a touch of God too and no doing of mine.
I have in the past recorded this and sent to Claudia as her mother passed around this time a couple of years ago, and God’s grace is as much for her as it is for me. I will not relate what Claudia has said privately about this, but she knows the Lord has her mother in hand and is at peace with it, but because of the timing I felt I should share this with her, and she was kind enough to accept it. I did not do another recording this year because I really haven’t improved and it would seem a bit vain, plus I only found the last of my drone reeds after our recent, hectic move and didn’t have a lot of practice time, but Claudia, this is for your mother too, as she continues to await you many years from now as she rests secure in the arms of the Lord, so please continue to have that Blessed Assurance and peace with it, you and your sisters as well.
I have played this in my church on some occasions, once or twice as a closer in a Christmas pagent, where the Pastor had me walk from the vestibule to the office across the altar while piping and the congregation celebrates that grace that came from Heaven that we mark on that day. That’s one of the few public showings I do outside of my father’s memory.
The other is funerals. This is (thankfully) rare for me and only when the Lord moves me to do so, but most notably I piped for a boy who died after a few month’s struggle because I am friends with his grandfather and he was grieving hard; and then, 13 years later, I piped again for the father of that boy as he was laid to rest alongside his son. These are difficult for me because of my personal involvement, and the pipes can be extra difficult when dealing with your own sorrows and your own tears, but again this seems to help comfort those who hear it with the Lord’s help and grace, so when He tells me to do it and I must obey.
So that’s what the pipes are to me. A link to heritage, a comfort in times of loss, an instrument of the Lord’s healing when and as He desires it, and, above all, a way to touch Heaven and a reminder of how the Lord in His Heaven touches us with His grace at all times and in all places and in all circumstances.
My piping is not good, but it is sincere. When it touches someone, it is not my skill, but His grace that touches them.
My piping is NOT good all the time, but my Lord IS good.
All the time.
Never forget that.
Never.
God Bless,
SNS
“the latter being a classic played at weddings and funerals.”
I was right, AH,AHH,AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH…
And hear I thought this was going to be an article about peyronie’s disease because of the picture of the hot pepper… LMAO
My daughter, now a conservatory violin student, attended a performing arts middle school and volunteered to play in a quartet for the annual police memorial service. She and her young group would show up early and play music while attendees found their seat then the ceremony would open with the Fraternal Order of Police Pipe and Drum corps. What a chill-inducing procession that was! The drum major was a monster of a man with the bass drum and all of them in their kilted uniforms was such a somber and awesome entrance! Then when they were positioned, the major would give my daughter a stern look to cue the kids to play the National Anthem (which they did with beauty and dignity) Fond memories!
I thought it was one of the, is this your shape commericals.
I saw them perform at the 2019 Highland Games at Loon Mountain in NH. Aside from the caber tossing, they were the top attraction at the Games.
One of my newly found and becoming a favorite old Bill Haley and the Comets songs is Rock Lomond from their album Rocking The Joint from 1958. It’ll get you going with rockabilly and bagpipes playing together. “You take the high road, I’ll take the low road and we’ll all get together in Rock Lomond.” Great song that never got hardly any airplay. Two of my favorite Scottish bands are The Tannahill Weavers, The Battlefield Band and others. I love bagpipes and fiddles and the occasional diggerido to give a very low bass line to their incredibly rousing music.