Hello Ardith,

On Thu 2039-Apr-07 15:42, Ardith Hinton (1:153/716) wrote to James Bradley:

AH>          Well... I suppose they might have to blow hard initially to
AH> fill the bladder with air, but AFAIK it's the drones which supply
AH> the "harmony".  From the standpoint of a clarinet player one of the
AH> scary things about bagpipes is that the drones & the reed seem to do
AH> their own thing (almost) independently. Another is that while I
AH> would put more air into my instrument to produce more volume,
AH> bagpipe players seem to do it when the bladder is about to run out
AH> of air.  I inhale when my lungs are about to run out of air.  As a
AH> member of the audience you'd realize that I do it at the end of a
AH> phrase or whatever... but for me watching a piper is like watching a
AH> person speaking a foreign language with dubbing in English.  I can't
AH> reconcile what I see with what I hear.  :-) 

INdeed, is the same for most wind instruments that are
powerd by the player's breath, iow pump organs bagpipes etc. though
technically wind instruments don't qualify.

But then remember that not reconciling what you see with
what's happening is another part of what those things do,
always remember they were created as munitions.
Entertainment wasn't their thing.


AH> Among professional musicians & their fans such trivia
AH> as gender & skin colour are irrelevant from where I sit.  Dallas
AH> often played in mostly black groups to mostly white *adult*
AH> audiences.  I wonder if these suburban kids relate to rap music
AH> because their parents don't... [BEG]. 

I think that's a big part of it with the young folks, as it
was with young folks of our generations too.  ONe thing that helped me was the
older kids at the school for the blind,
where ad hoc combos of musicians were as ubiquitous as
sandlot baseball among neighborhood sighted kids.  Also, I
had an uncle who was heavily into older forms of jazz.  HE
could sit down with me as I was listening to rock 'n roll,
then put something else on the stereo and show me how one
lead to the other.
Then I got into the bebop era, and that disappointed him a
bit.  But, I was playing with two or three different groups
of folks then (high school years) everything from younger
black folks playing soul MOtown etc. to older mixed racially organizations, to
rock 'n roll & country depending on the
group of folks and where we played.
You've got to remember this was late '60's early '70's, and
exploration was the driving force, at least in my world.


Regards,
           Richard
--- timEd 1.10.y2k+
 * Origin:  (1:116/901)