Episode 1 Píobairí Ard Mhacha - The Armagh Pipers

PIPES PLAY

IRISH GAELIC:

PIPES PLAY

THEY SING

We'll look at some other tunes that you've previously done

and try and put some of those techniques into those tunes.

Have you done it?

-Yeah.

-Do you want to try it on your own?

-Yeah.

And then maybe I can learn it from you?

SHE PLAYS A TUNE

He's OK there. We're turning this

into something else and it's not going to be available.

But there doesn't seem to be anybody here at the minute.

-So you OK, then?

-Yeah, yeah.

I have to go and cover a class for somebody, so I better go on.

How you doing? I have to move somebody somewhere.

My specific interest in learning and playing music didn't happen

until I went to Edinburgh in 1961.

Started listening, and I was an avid listener,

but the sound that had been really interesting,

but didn't really know what it was, was the pipes.

Luckily enough, it was Billy McBurney's shop in Smithfield

that I'd gone into.

And I can't remember what words I actually used to describe it.

I said it was this instrument, you know,

it was different to a flute or a tin whistle or a fiddle

and it had a particular sound to it and all the rest of it.

So he produced this EP, which turned out to be

The Ace & Deuce of Pipering by Seamus Ennis, and played it.

PIPES PLAY

And I said, "That's it! That's the sound I'm after.

"What is that instrument?"

I eventually did get pipes.

I'd been to the Dublin Pipers Club and I just had the idea in my head,

"There's a Dublin Pipers Club, why not an Armagh Pipers Club?"

So, I established a pipers club, which was really just ourselves,

like, Dara, Fintan and myself.

And the first objective was to teach music

and to start promoting the pipes.

It developed very, very quickly

so we ended up starting classes all over the place.

So eventually, we were just pushed back and back until we said,

"Right, there will be only one class and one pipers club.

"It will only exist in Armagh and people will just have to travel in."

So that's how it became Armagh, centralised.

Hi, guys. How we doing? OK, there you go.

How did we all get on with our practice this week?

-Good.

-Good.

Now, a wee bit of a problem there.

PIPE BAG WHISTLES

-OK. Has that been giving you a bit of bother?

-Yeah.

We'll just soften that valve up a little bit here

and make it a wee bit easier for you to blow.

CHANTERS PLAY

Hold the chanter at the bottom.

See the way I'm holding it here at the bottom?

Good. And top finger on.

And two fingers down.

Well done.

And back onto your knee.

Two fingers back down, middle finger up.

Ten minutes' practice every evening between now and next week.

See you next week.

Yeah, use G-D, cos you don't have this string.

Molly has extra strings. That's the E.

OK, try that.

You can keep playing.

Does that make sense? Is that enough?

SHE LAUGHS

It will keep you going.

MUSIC PLAYS

Because you've nothing to compare it to,

you can't say whether it was strange or normal or anything,

but there was a lot going on, definitely.

I definitely have a memory of hundreds of tin whistles

lying around the place.

There was boxes that they'd bring to the classes,

those Generation whistles,

and we'd play with them and hit each other with them and stuff.

And I do remember trying a few different instruments.

I remember my mother trying to teach me the fiddle,

but it didn't make sense to me

and then, probably a year or two later,

my father tried me on the pipes and I liked that,

that seemed easier and it suited my state of mind.

The strings didn't.

But then I think when I started the pipes

my da had a wee class of three - there was me,

Tiarnan O Duinnchinn, and a fellow, Michael Murphy,

and that was in the living room of the house

but it definitely grew massively, even in my childhood,

and then after I left, it sort of seemed to grow exponentially.

Basically, the general thing that is happening is there are six concerts,

five individual concerts and then The Hooley,

which involves about 16 or 17 different acts

playing on four stages.

The Hooley is really the key event, so we need to have volunteers

to check the doors, to be able to get people into their seats.

The other thing is in those four venues,

there will be no alcohol served

and, as everybody knows,

I won't be touching a drop that night, you know?

PEOPLE MURMUR

Seriously, you know...

But people who have volunteered can check these lists here

and make a note of exactly what they have signed up for

in case they don't remember.

So, everybody's perfectly clear then?

I don't believe that somehow, you know?

I can't hear a word you're saying.

PIANO NOTES SOUND

LIVELY FOLK TUNE PLAYS

UPBEAT FOLK TUNE PLAYS

I think the William Kennedy Piping Festival

is a massive event.

But I think for the younger members of the club, it's a massive thing.

It's a massive thing for the pipers that every November

they have a lot of the best pipers,

not just in Ireland, but around the world,

come to Armagh and perform and play sessions and hang out all weekend.

And that definitely is a, sort of, a big part of the calendar,

I think, for everybody here, now.

When I was coming back again, and you're older,

and you appreciate it more,

I was learning something every time I came

and definitely was inspired by the music

more than almost any festival I'd go to year-round

because it was very different.

It is very different.

Definitely people you've never seen before and people that would

give you ideas about things you might do yourself.

We are from Belgium and we are big fans of

a Belgian bagpipe band called Griff.

Griff was invited and we tagged along

and we got to know this festival,

and we just loved it from the very first time.

It's got this, sort of, a family atmosphere

and it's now our sixth consecutive year

and we are going to keep coming back as long as we can.

I had an operation at the beginning of October,

which is a lengthy recuperation,

including wearing this contraption for six weeks.

A lot of them think I'm going around

with a pair of bellows under me arms, you know?

And then they're looking at it for a while, you know?

That's what they think and then others were thinking

maybe it's a new training device.

I have less and less to do every year, anyhow,

so I skived away from as much work as I could.

I can take absolutely no credit for the William Kennedy Piping Festival

but it's extremely well run

and it's very professionally run, you know?

The sound and the staging and the line-up, the concerts,

they're very well designed and interesting, I think.

So, you know, it's definitely something you can be proud of,

people in Armagh should be proud of.

When we started off, we had a very simple philosophy

and that was to highlight the pipes of Ireland and Scotland

and then that moved on to discovering other piping cultures

and that was a great voyage of discovery.

You don't have to get bigger, you know,

but you do have to be creative every year

and try never to go backwards.

You always have to go forwards and aim high all the time.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE