When I was a student there were a few pipers from the Vale of Atholl at the same Uni', and they all played other instruments as well as pipes, mostly folky things like whistles, small pipes, bouzoukis and mandolins. I seem to remember that the Vale even recorded an album where they were all playing their second instruments as well as pipes and drums. Does anyone play anything other than pipes and drums, and if so do you find it helps or hinders your piping?

I was very much into folk music for about thirty years. Haven't done much of it lately. I played in several folk groups during that time. We even ran our own folk club here on the Wirral for many years. My main instrument was guitar but I also played quite a bit on mandolin, spoons, bodhran and keyboard. For much of this time I was the lead singer but we also did a fair bit of unaccompanied harmonic stuff as well so I learned a lot about writing counter-melodies, etc through doing this.

The one thing I found was that I could never play any other wind instrument because it would have interfered too much with the fingering on the pipe chanter. I've always had great admiration for those who can.

i was and still am into heavy metal.
i use to play lead guitar in a heavy rock band.
it was rather a strange feeling going to pipe band practise on wednesday and friday then playing a fender stratocaster with a 100 watts marshall amplifier on a saturday morning in the drummers garage.

my other passion is DJ-ing and music production. I havent as yet purchased decks but i intend to for the summer. All my work has been done on pc using mp3 files. The next project is remixing current tracks.

Like Alan I also played guitar and luv heavy metal but prob different era than Alan, deep purple,black sabbath,cream,etc b*nd

Ray P

Well in my younger days I was 1st fiddle in orchestra.

hello ray
yes i know deep purple and black sabbath very well.
it was 1980 at the tender age of 13 that i decided to buy a thin lizzy record called live and dangerous.
the bands to date ray are bands like creed and system of a down, and you must of heard of slipknot.
and of course youve got bands like busted and good charlelot

Im a huge fan of Linkin Park, sadly i missed the manchester concert! However i will be at BLink 182 next month.

plz dnt tell me u like slipknot alan its not music at all, but i have to say when the lead singer actually sings and doesnt shout he has got a good voice lol

im also into DJ-ing and i also used to play guitar and keyboard oh and the side drum.

i mostly listen to dance music with a lot of bass in it

good stuff

craig m

OK, leaving asside the fact that a discussion of the relative merits of modern rap-metal versus 70's behmoths like Black Sabbath is way WAY off the original topic, Busted and Good Charlotte are not metal, they're cheesy pop groups for kids who want to be skate-punks but don't want to upset their parents! And how come no one's given Metallica a mention?

To get back to the original thread, I've found playing the low D whistle actually helps with the pipes. Because the holes are even futher apart than those on a pipe chanter it helps stretch the fingers making them more supple. The guitar is also handy for writing seconds for slow airs.

has n e 1 played a different instrument in a pipe band e.g. I used to play the side drum now I play the pipes?

craig m

In addition to the pipes (a fairly recent madness owing to a dare which got out of hand) I have played the flute for many years in and out of orchestras, windbands etc. And yes, the fingering differences can get muddled at times of stress......such as when the chap in charge insists on doing a difficult tune at ramming speed when I'm still reading it from the music. I tend to use a flute E fingering hence producing the odd unexpected B in the tune. Doesn't often happen with other notes though.
However, my flute playing has definitely deteriorated but that could be lack of practise these days :lol:

Bev

modern rap should have a c in front of the rap, that would describe how I see and hear modern rap,everything they seem to put out contains an adverse ammount of foul language, if they cant write tune without it they should take up bricklaying or something flex
Ray

its not tht bad ray but im not really keen on it. dance music is the best lol

craig m