Philadelphia Piping

It is a cold, gray day in Philadelphia, and the furnace in the drafty old Commodore Barry Club can push the temperature only to about 50 degrees F, but the musicians just button their overcoats tighter, blow on their hands and take out their instruments. After all, it isn't every day that so many of their kind -- 20, at least -- gather in one place. In a musical subculture so arcane that few even know it exists, this counts as a world-class event: the first East Coast Convention of Cumann na bPiobairi, the national Irish Pipers' Club -- and what is a little discomfort? The novices are eager to hobnob with such superstars as Al Purcell, from Detroit; Bill Ochs, Jerry O'Sullivan and Matt Connolly, out of New York; and Denis Brooks, all the way from Seattle. For the pros, it is a chance to trade techniques, tunes and gossip saved since they last met.

The word bagpipes conjures up an image that is, in this case, far off the mark. Unlike their strident, better known and more ancient Scottish cousins, the Irish (or Uilleann) bagpipes are soft and melodic; their construction is different, and no one wears an ethnic costume for performances. Not that the Irish scorn the Highland pipes; they play them too, on occasions like St. Patrick's Day parades, but that is in part because the Irish pipes cannot be played standing up. Besides, they are not very loud. The Scottish variety is challenging enough, but Uilleann pipes are in a class by themselves. They are difficult to obtain, harder to maintain and nearly impossible to play.

Indeed, Uilleann piping is so intimately linked with frustration and suffering that players consider themselves initiates in what approaches a religion. According to tradition, it takes "seven years' listening, seven years' practicing and seven years' playing to make a piper," but the reward is mastery of a difficult physical skill, plus the experience of creating one's own musical nirvana. The sound is something like an oboe, something like a bassoon, and, when all the various parts are used, like several of each playing at once.

Even after 21 years, though, the suffering is not over. Uilleann pipes are fiendishly temperamental; they can break down in dozens of ways without warning, and the prudent performer is always ready for a crisis. "Can anybody help me with this reed?" calls out Sandy Jordan, a Virginia-accented neophyte and the only woman in a room filled with bearded young men. Timothy Britton, a piper, pipemaker and transcendental meditator, comes over to have a look. "The reed's cracked," he says after a quick inspection. "Here, try some Krazy Glue." More trouble from across the room: a cigar-chewing piper, improbably named Roy Rogers Jr., has a mysterious air leak. "Blow some smoke into the bag and see where it comes out," advises Britton.