vernon
Harder than Ronnie Pickering
- Location
- Meanwood, Leeds
That's possibly because technical virtuosity in a narrow range of tunes is often favoured over a more varied repertoire. The Northumbrian piping community are fairly inward and backward looking and worship long dead players like Billy Pigg. Northumbrian pipes are more enjoyable when they are played with other instruments thoght their idiosyncratic tuning at +20 cents above F, requires the other instruments to be retuned to match the pipes.
Katherine Tickell
has brought Northumbrian piping into the present though not all of her collaborations are wonderful. I am going to marry her when I grow up.They are a bloody nightmare! I have a nine keyed chanter and it's a challenge to avoid finger collisions when trying to play clean notes. I don't know how players cope with 17 keyed chanters.
Pipe recitals and competitions can never be regarded as a spectator sport. Even I'd baulk at having to sit through a full recital or competition. They are no different from guitar gigs described as virtuosity performances - they are designed to showcase the technical capabilities of the players and not the brilliance of the music. Wankfests I think they are called.
