Patrick D'Arcy hails from Dublin, Ireland. Regular trips to the Willie Clancy Summer School as well as tionóil around America have enabled him to learn from many of today's great players. Touting Tommy Reck, Seamus Ennis and Willie Clancy as great influences, Patrick now enjoys passing on his knowledge to students at his home, at meetings of The Southern California Uilleann Pipers Club and at tionóil whenever the opportunity should graciously arise.
Comfortably settled in his new habitat of California, he is a founding member of the Southern California Uilleann Pipers Club and its annual Southern California Tionól, which is currently celebrating its eighth year. He is also the host of the UilleannObsession.com website, soon to celebrate its tenth year.
Bagpipes are a class of musical instrument, aerophones using enclosed reeds fed from a constant reservoir of air in the form of a bag. Though the Scottish Great Highland Bagpipe and Irish uilleann pipes have the greatest international visibility, bagpipes have historically been found throughout Europe, Northern Africa, the Persian Gulf, and the Caucasus.
The term is equally correct in the singular or plural, although in the English language, pipers most commonly talk of "pipes."
Ireland's Bagpipes include:
Uilleann pipes: Bellows-blown bagpipe with keyed or un-keyed chanter and keyed drones (regulators). The most common type of bagpipes in Irish traditional music.
Great Irish Warpipes: Carried by most Irish regiments of the British Army (except the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers) until the late 1960s, when the Great Highland Bagpipe became standard. The Warpipe differed from the latter only in having a single tenor drone.
Brian Boru bagpipes: Carried by the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers and had three drones, one of which was a baritone, pitched between bass and tenor. Unlike the chanter of the Great Highland Bagpipe, its chanter is keyed, allowing for a greater tonal range.
Pastoral pipes: Although the exact origin of this keyed, or un-keyed chanter and keyed drones (regulators), pipe is uncertain, it developed into the modern uilleann bagpipe.
The uilleann pipes, originally known as the Union pipes, are the characteristic national bagpipe of Ireland. The uilleann pipes bag is inflated by means of a small set of bellows strapped around the waist and the right arm. The bellows not only relieves the player from the effort needed to blow into a bag to maintain pressure, they also allow relatively dry air to power the reeds, reducing the adverse effects of moisture on tuning and longevity. Some pipers can converse or sing while playing as well.
The uilleann pipes are distinguished from many other forms of bagpipes by their sweet tone and wide range of notes — the chanter has a range of two full octaves, including sharps and flats — together with the unique blend of chanter, drones, and "regulators." The regulators are equipped with closed keys which can be opened by the piper's wrist action enabling the piper to play simple chords, giving a rhythmic and harmonic accompaniment as needed. There are also many ornaments based on multiple or single grace notes. The chanter can also be played staccato by resting the bottom of the chanter on the piper's knee to close off the bottom hole and then open and close only the tone holes required. If one tone hole is closed before the next one is opened, a staccato effect can be created because the sound stops completely when no air can escape at all.
The uilleann pipes have a different harmonic structure, sounding sweeter and quieter than many other bagpipes, such as the Great Irish Warpipes, Great Highland Bagpipes or the Italian Zampognas. The uilleann pipes are often played indoors, and are almost always played sitting down.
The first bagpipes to be well-attested to for Ireland were similar, if not identical, to the Highland pipes that are now played in Scotland. These are known as the "Great Irish Warpipes". In Irish and Scottish Gaelic, this instrument was called the píob mhór ("great pipe").
While the warpipe was alive and well upon the battlefields of France, the warpipe had almost disappeared in Ireland (as a result of its outlaw by the English. The union or uilleann pipe required the joining of a bellows under the right arm, which pumped air via a tube to the bagpipe under the left arm, with bellows. The uilleann or union pipes developed around the beginning of the 18th century, the history of which is here depicted in prints of carvings and pictures from contemporary sources. At about the same time the Northumbrian smallpipe was evolving into its modern form, early in the 18th century; a tutor of the 1750s calls this early form of the uilleann pipes the "Pastoral or New bagpipe." The Pastoral pipes were bellows blown and played in either a seated or standing position. The conical bored chanter was played "open," that is, legato, unlike the uilleann pipes, which can also be played "closed," that is, staccato. The early Pastoral pipes had two drones, and later examples had one (or rarely, two) regulator(s). The Pastoral and later flat set Union pipes developed with ideas on the instrument being traded back-and-forth between Ireland, Scotland and England, around the 18th and early 19th century.
The earliest surviving sets of uilleann pipes date from the second half of the 18th century but it must be said that datings are not definitive. Only recently has scientific attention begun to be paid to the instrument and problems relating to various stages of its development have yet to be resolved.
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