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The uilleann pipes as we know them have been around for about 300 years, and are considered among the world's most difficult instruments to play.
They could well be the world's hardest instruments to maintain, too. A full set of pipes requires 4 double reeds and 3 single reeds, which are typically made of cane (the dried woody stalks of a bamboo-like plant). Because all pipes are handmade, no two instruments are the same. Thus, every reed must also be made by hand. Even great reedmakers figure they'll need to make at least 10 reeds to get one single reed that works as desired. That's 40 attempts (minimum) for the 4 double reeds! Suffice it to say reeds are expensive, and skilled reedmakers are lionized.
My pipes in their maker's workshop before they shipped to me. Yes, assembly was required when they got here!
A full set of concert-pitch (key of D) uilleann pipes consists of the bellows, the bag, the mainstock, the chanter, 3 drones tuned to two octaves of D, and 3 (or sometimes, though fairly rarely, 4) keyed regulators.
All these parts, sticking out at various rather-awkward angles, are why the pipes were wittily christened "the Irish octopus."
The bellows straps to the player's arm, and is used to pump air into the bag. The bag regulates and distributes air to all the pipes' parts except the chanter through the mainstock. The drones are switched on and off at the mainstock, and create that steady buzzy hum so many people love. The chanter is used to play the melody notes, while, often at the same time, the keys of the regulators are played with the wrist to add chords and rhythmic accompaniment. It's these regulators that have earned uilleann pipes their less-derogatory nickname, "the Irish pipe organ."
Looks like an octopus, sounds like a pipe-organ ... When a great uilleann piper is in full flight, it really is almost fantastical!
The uilleann pipes all but died out in the 1950s as the last of the great Irish pipemakers took their skills to the grave. In 1968, the few surviving Irish pipers and makers got together in the hope of preserving and promoting the Irish pipes.
No doubt the 1968 "Bettystown Tionol" and the group that grew from the gathering, "Na Piobairi Uilleann," literally saved Irish pipes. (Eventually, a little show called "Riverdance" helped, too). There are probably several thousand Irish pipers around the world now, with more joining the ranks each year as the pipemaking craft improves and modernizes.
You may never have seen the uilleann pipes before, but you've heard them: in "Riverdance," with "Celtic Women," in the movies (notably "Titanic," and ironically, in "Braveheart," where they fill in for their louder, less-orchestral Scottish cousins). Their haunting, evocative sound is unlike any other.
Pipers need friends, too. The East Coast Pipers club's motto is "Education, Inspiration, and Commiseration." Each year the club holds a "tionól" (Irish for "Piper's Gathering") in the Catskill Mountains of New York. The club brings in teachers from Ireland, and people come from all over the U.S. to absorb as much knowledge as we can in a too-short, but overwhelmingly fun-filled, weekend.
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