Na Píobairí Uilleann

[ausdag]

I finally worked out Brian McNamara's version of The Morning Thrush today with my Slow Downer and a C# chanter. Yay!! Now that's good tune.

I only learn tunes I like, which means tunes I don't like, I don't learn. Too often I try to learn tunes for the sake of adding another one to my repertoir or so I can better impress the tune-junkies at sessions. But many session tunes are dull - 'Ships are Sailing' for example - so I don't enjoy learning them, or playing them, so I bin them. Then if a session-ite asks me if I know 'Ships are Sailing', I say 'I do, but I don't play it'.
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DavidG

http://home.iprimus.com.au/ausdag

[GregoryG]

I agree with your approach. I find I am only motivated to learn a tune if I've got a good recording of it, so that it is familiar, and I like it. I've been taught tunes at various times, but without a good recording and the familiarity that comes with hearing it repeatedly, I'll learn the tune, but then drop it and eventually forget it.
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Gregory Graham

[cj dixon]

That is my approach as well. I enjoy the spiritual motivation that comes with a piece that I truly enjoy playing. Any other piece is purely mechanical and with playing time being so little and as a result, so precious, I would rather be playing something that moves me.

CJ
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CJ DIXON Celtic Instruments

[GilesB]

I have heard so many tunes that at one point or another I have thought were dull in the hands of someone who has taken the time to get inside it and turn it into something quite special. The more tunes I learn the more material I have to add to the variation/alteration possibilies.

I think that it is great when I hear a tired old session stalwart tune played in a different setting or with variations that give it new life or a different feel. Often settings played in sessions are not the best ones for pipes. Ennis, Reck and others have great settings of loads of pretty standard tunes, many new recordings have great settings or interpretations of very common tunes. To me part of the challenge is giving life to tunes that may seem mundane. Every tune can be a great tune if treated the right way I think.

[ausdag]

[KMilsom]

I only learn tunes I like, which means tunes I don't like, I don't learn. Too often I try to learn tunes for the sake of adding another one to my repertoir or so I can better impress the tune-junkies at sessions. But many session tunes are dull - 'Ships are Sailing' for example - so I don't enjoy learning them, or playing them, so I bin them. Then if a session-ite asks me if I know 'Ships are Sailing', I say 'I do, but I don't play it'.[/quote]

Finally, I actually have come across someone on the same wavelength
I used to play lots of sessions..... but after a while I just dried up and put the pipes away for years. The I realised what a fool I had been, now I play for my own pleasure, I have found an excellent accordion player and we just play and learn the tunes that we love whilst getting drunk and giggling.
I have also discovered a tremedous cache of Northumbrian pipe tunes which sound splendid on the Uilleann Pipes
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[the_nyyaaa]

I agree with your approach too. I think our individual tastes and preferences - in tunes, in ornaments, in pipe sets, in reedmaking techniques...in everything, big or small, that bears on our playing, really - are one of the ways the universe ensures that we don't all become the same piper.

that said, GilesB and ausdag certainly have a point too.

the end result of which is that i haven't really said anything in this post. i'd delete it if there was a "delete" option.
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There are three kinds of people: those who can count, and those who can't.