Only Chicago can mix politics and piping...

[castledangerous]

Wow that is an insult to Irish-American musicians. For example, my wife's cousin who twice won the All-Ireland Fiddle championship

[SteveB]

Castle...
I am happy that your spouse is an exception. Come St Patrick's Day around here the beverages being consumed by the public help improve their perception of the "music". Two years ago in Southie, a band with twelve pipers, and no two of them playing the same tune. By the way the percussion side was just as bad. Of the eighteen bands with pipes and drums, only two were listed in EUSPBA. The rest would be laughed right out of the games.

The audience wants to hear pipes, even if they are bad. I have taken to a nearby hill to break in some reeds. While fighting with one very stubborn chanter reed, I was producing all kinds of squeaks and squacks. I had rehemped and realigned the reed, and was trying to just get a complete scale out it, when I happened to look up to a group of hikers that had stopped to listen. I ended my sounds and got a round of applause and thirty dollars tossed in my pipe bag.

There is no telling what is another persons pleasure.

Slainte