Awesome!

[A Robertson]

To the rabble. I just sent a post with a link to a youtube video. Apologies! - I should have checked the youtube links first, before posting.
Please click on THIS link! The pipers are truly awesome! Truly amazing. The power of the pipes is..............just wow! This is one amazing tune/video!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o39CRGkGlrg
(note to self: must investigate Highland dancing! - Oh My God!)

[tulloch]

That is wonderful. Amazing how the pipes and snares lend themselves to rock so well. Thanks for the link.

[plaid preacher]

I just discovered Bags of Rock last night on youtube, myself. (They have a great version of whiskey in the jar, btw.) And from that youtube page I linked to Celtica who are also just amazing. I agree with tulloch it is amazing how when you change the backbeat of the drums a marching band tune becomes a hard driving rock classic. Give them a look http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gk6PQg7jZCE

[OC Richard]

Doesn't do anything for me... the slow part at the beginning was sort of cool but sounded like it was derivative of Breton music... I'd prefer listening to actual Breton music instead.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FC9ASS_c1WA

Anyhow here's another thread on the same topic

http://www.xmarksthescot.com/forum/f...u-enjoy-77929/

Pipe Band Drumming has had over a hundred years to develop a style which perfectly suits Highland pipe tunes, and sounds organic to the music.

Take the Highland pipes playing Highland pipe tunes and throw a Rock rhythm section behind it, and it sounds precisely as artificial/pieced-together/portmanteau as it is.

[rmckay]

I've always though that music as well as a person's musical taste will change and evolve over time. When I was a teenager, way to many years ago btw, the only place I had heard bagpipes, besides a few pipe band albums someone in my family had, was AC/DC. I think since then many artists have started using the Highland pipes quite well in the different variations of rock that you can find.

I will say there is nothing like the sound of a pipe band playing, but having grown up with influences like AC/DC, the ramones, the sex pistols, etc it is really great to hear some of the music coming out today with pipes being a major instrument in the band.

This is one of my favorites
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-1B3FA3U50

OC Richard I'm putting the next two here because I really hope you will like these. They are 2 versions of the same song by the same band. One just has a bit more modern back beat to it. Nothing like the last one I promise. Hope you like them.

original http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1hCaAOVjz0

2nd version http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQ01eBuBhzc

[OC Richard]

Well of those three I like the first of the three best. The rhythm guitarist is doing a nice complex pattern that somewhat goes with what the pipes are doing.

The 2nd one is simply a solo piper playing a couple standard pipe tunes, with what sounds like the drummer, playing only the floor tom, sort of imitating a bodhran, but not really... bodhran playing is far more sophisticated than the simple beats he's doing.

I really dislike that last one. It epitomizes what I don't like about rock drumming being used to accompany pipe tunes.

These threads have made me think a bit about WHY I don't like stuff like that, and after thinking about it for a while I hit upon exactly what it is. But, I don't know if I'm articulate enough to encapsulate a lifetime of playing the traditional music of Scotland and Ireland and many decades of listening to Appalachian, Cape Breton, Quebecois, and Central French music and how it's affected my tastes.

What it is, is that traditional reels and jigs, be they Irish, Scottish, Cape Breton, Quebecois, Appalachian, or what have you, have a complex internal rhythm.

The things usually called reels in the tradition are usually written in 4/4 time, really cut time, as there's two main beats to the bar. Each bar goes

ONE two three four TWO two three four

usually

strong weak medium weak strong weak medium weak

though often there's a strong backbeat viz

medium weak strong weak, medium weak strong weak.


In jigs, it's

ONE two three TWO two three

often

strong weak weak medium weak weak

but one again there's often a backbeat viz

medium weak weak strong weak weak

or even a more complex internal backbeat

strong weak medium strong weak medium

or even

medium weak strong medium weak strong

The ultimate basis of all of this is Gaelic singing which often seems unfettered by preconceptions about militaristic regular rhythms. Here's the most famous example, but I have many recordings of Scottish Gaelic singers doing likewise

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UtY6mi0oS2w

In Irish music, a drumming style developed which respects the complex internal rhythms of the music and is itself quite sophisticated

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SHFPSQBM0xE

Quebecois fiddling has its footstomping, which incorporates all the rhythm of the tunes themselves

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hqN5sfqL9Rs

Highland piping developed an extremely sophisticated drumming style which seeks out all the rhythmic complexities of the music and emphasizes them

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=adK1kC2gIKo

So... after a lifetime of listening to stuff like that, the rock approach strikes my ear as not only being crude and simpleminded but also ignoring and steamrolling itself over the lovely rhythms present in the music.

Instead of a jig being a complex strong weak medium weak strong weak medium weak (six distinct pulses per bar) in rock drumming there's only two beats per bar, the bass drum giving a BOOM on the 1 and the snare giving a CHUCK on the 4, all that lovely rhythm being reduced to a cretinous BOOM CHUCK BOOM CHUCK.

Ditto with reels, instead of eight distinct pulses per bar, in rock drumming there's sometimes only two (in other words the drummer plays exactly the same thing whether it's a reel or jig, something inconceivable in traditional music) or sometimes the drummer puts in four... either way it's a gross oversimplification of the music.

Appalachian music is a particular sticking-point with me, because I'm from West Virginia and my grandfather played fiddle and banjo (among other things) and I deeply love our traditional Mountain Music. The traditional style is quite complex and, really, defies having any sort of accompaniment. Traditionally a band consisted of banjo and fiddle and nothing else, which allowed all the complex internal rhythms to be heard as well as the complex harmonic structure (especially if played on fretless banjo).

Listen to this... this would be utterly destroyed by having a bass and guitar banging along

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZEf7gBT8eNY