Pipers playing limited 'tunes'?

[chasem]

I'd also wager that those are most often the songs that pipers/bands are requested to play. Those are the songs most people recognise as 'bagpipe songs,' and as such I'm sure most people would commonly ask for those two songs to be played, as they're the only songs they know that are played on the pipes.

[Planopiper]

Bagpipe music all sounds alike to most people. There are really only 3 tunes. Scotland the Brave(StB), Amazing Grace(AG) and "that other one". I'm trying to remember if I've ever been asked to play something else by a non-piper. To add to the confusion, most people don't know the name of Scotland the Brave. They know the melody, but by some other name. Most of the time, if someone does ask for something else, you can play Scotland the Brave and they'll say "That's it!" Most pipers don't really enjoy playing StB or AG, but do it because that's what people want. Like Elvis used to tell his band "We may be sick of Hound Dog, but that's what the crowd out there is paying for." Or words to that effect.

As a side note, there are no bagpipe songs. Songs are the things you sing with your voice and they have words to them. Instruments only play tunes. Melodies with no words. The "Eyes of Texas" is a song. You sing it to the tune "I've Been Working On the Railroad".

[Southern Breeze]

I think that Amazing Grace and Scotland the Brave are simply the ones people not only remember but may have been the only ones they've heard.

On a side note, I was asked to play Taps at a friends funeral earlier this year. They had a piper play Amazing Grace as the funeral procession enterd the cemetery. Here's the humorous part- I was kilted and the piper was wearing a suit.

[Riverkilt]

I love them both...classics to be enjoyed. Would rather hear them than wonder what it was being played....

Ron

[David Dalglish]

At the world pipe band competition in Glasgow a couple of weeks ago, there were 200 bands & I did not hear Amazing grace or Scotland the Brave once

[auld argonian]

At the world pipe band competition in Glasgow a couple of weeks ago, there were 200 bands & I did not hear Amazing grace or Scotland the Brave once

I'd expect that serious competing pipers would avoid the easy stuff.

Sort of like when you hold auditions for an amateur theatre group and everybody show up singing "Tomorrow" from Annie as their audition tune...after hearing "Tomorrow" twenty five odd times, you're SO much more inclined to give the person who gets up and sings "Memory" from Cats a listen...any change is an improvement.

Sort of like listening to several thirteen year old guitar players doing "Stairway to Heaven" and then having one kid play....anything else!

Best

AA

[Iolaus]

When I took a six week summer class at the community college, the teacher had us working on a half dozen different tunes. There seems to be a standard canon of tunes that are expected to be mastered before you are considered a competent player.