Punjabi Celtic Bagpipes

Subject: Punjabi Celtic Bagpipes
From: GUEST,Nick Dow
Date: 02 Jul 23 - 07:46 PM

I'll have another go. My last thread was not looked upon favourably, with the exception of Dick Miles and one other who got where I was coming from. Yes, this video is populist but a brave starting point. I will argue again that Asian Folk music sits alongside our own Folk Music seamlessly. British Folk music has diverse influences which have been absorbed over the centuries. It's time to absorb them again and welcome them as an addition to classless global music, which will dance into the new century when I am fertiliser. It seems the Asian community have had the same idea, which should be a lesson to us all.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XK-wHSqus9g

Subject: RE: Punjabi Celtic Bagpipes
From: Felipa
Date: 02 Jul 23 - 10:57 PM

my understanding is that bagpipes travelled from the middle east to west originally. And since seeing Nick Dow's post, I read that "Bagpipes, the iconic national musical instrument of Scotland, may have originated in India more than 3,000 years ago." https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-scotland-31815441

singer Sheila Chandra mixes Celtic/British and Indian influences. for example: Dhyana and Dónal Óg: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GqNZU-I4Uis

Subject: RE: Punjabi Celtic Bagpipes
From: GUEST,Nick Dow
Date: 03 Jul 23 - 02:39 AM

Wonderful!! Just what I have been trying to suggest. Will we see her at any UK Folk Festivals? I'll reserve judgement.

Subject: RE: Punjabi Celtic Bagpipes
From: GUEST,RJM
Date: 03 Jul 23 - 04:01 AM

I agree Asian Folk music sits alongside our own Folk Music seamlessly.
i remember Pete Castle recorded Lord Bateman with an Asian musician some years ago

Subject: RE: Punjabi Celtic Bagpipes
From: Felipa
Date: 03 Jul 23 - 08:40 AM

Sheila Chandra used to perform a lot - her career goes back to at least the 1980s but according to her website she retired from performing over 10 years ago. "Sheila Chandra made some of the most beautiful and innovative recordings in the World Music category - beginning with her band Monsoon’s 1982, ground-breaking Asian Fusion, Top Ten hit around the world, ‘Ever So Lonely’ - until voice problems forced her to retire in 2010." I see she has branched out into other fields such as writing and coaching https://www.sheilachandra.com/

Subject: RE: Punjabi Celtic Bagpipes
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 04 Jul 23 - 02:15 AM

I remember that when helping to run Swinton Folk Festival I approached 2 local Asian community centres for help booking some music, dance or both for the festival and got no interest :-( We had funds from NW Arts to book ethnic minority acts and I ended up booking a Guyanan story teller and a Ukrainian dance troupe. Maybe I had the wrong approach?

Subject: RE: Punjabi Celtic Bagpipes
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 04 Jul 23 - 02:15 AM

I remember that when helping to run Swinton Folk Festival I approached 2 local Asian community centres for help booking some music, dance or both for the festival and got no interest :-( We had funds from NW Arts to book ethnic minority acts and I ended up booking a Guyanan story teller and a Ukrainian dance troupe. Maybe I had the wrong approach?

Subject: RE: Punjabi Celtic Bagpipes
From: GUEST,Nick Dow
Date: 04 Jul 23 - 02:32 AM

Let's hope things have improved.

Subject: RE: Punjabi Celtic Bagpipes
From: GUEST,RJM
Date: 04 Jul 23 - 03:51 AM

I remember a discussion about 40 year ago, on this subject and one of the organisers of a festival objecting and saying "o no, i have to live next door to Asians",
so amongst the English folk scene there was a small amount of people who were racist, I hope that has changed.

Subject: RE: Punjabi Celtic Bagpipes
From: GUEST,Nick Dow
Date: 04 Jul 23 - 07:18 AM

I think a lot of Racism in society generally has gone underground. While we have for the most part progressed from the 'Nimby' attitude that Dick witnessed, there is a sort of given attitude within certain areas that proclaims, 'Well they may be Doctors and Lawyers and Politicians but they will never really be one of us'. That said this is gratifyingly missing on the Folk Scene. I would love to see more ethnic minorities in our clubs. I did a concert in Fishgaurd with a mixed audience, and they were very supportive. It sticks in my memory.

Subject: RE: Punjabi Celtic Bagpipes
From: Jack Campin
Date: 07 Jul 23 - 11:21 AM

I think the bagpipes in that video are an Eastern European type so it's even more mixed up than they say. The tune is Irish, played in a Scottish style, and the dancing in kilts seems to be a mashup of Irish and Highland.

The bit of cultural fusion nobody wants to talk about is that Highland pipes are actually English - first played in Scotland in the late 1400s and soon abandoned in England (where the quieter central European type of bagpipe hung on for longer).

These guys led off a Scottish independence march in Glasgow a few years back.

VIP Dholies

Subject: RE: Punjabi Celtic Bagpipes
From: GUEST,RJM
Date: 07 Jul 23 - 12:34 PM

Well nothing new surely, a fair proprtion of irish reels are scottish in origin
4 4 Polkas were cental european originally,music knows no boundaries irish polkas have evolved but must have roots in central europe.
a fair proprtion of hornpipes were written by a scotsman living in newcastle .,
although some claim that they are english in origin

Subject: RE: Punjabi Celtic Bagpipes
From: Manitas_at_home
Date: 07 Jul 23 - 01:13 PM

I read somewhere that the modern 4/4 hornpipe was popularised by a Dutch stage dancer by the name of Fischer.

Subject: RE: Punjabi Celtic Bagpipes
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 07 Jul 23 - 01:49 PM

What about the Lancashire hornpipes popularised by clog dancers like Sam Sherry?

(Sorry for the thread drift)

Subject: RE: Punjabi Celtic Bagpipes
From: GUEST,RJM
Date: 07 Jul 23 - 05:09 PM

to quote Peter Sellers "What about them indeed sir"

Subject: RE: Punjabi Celtic Bagpipes
From: Richard Mellish
Date: 08 Jul 23 - 06:37 AM

Different cultures have different (musical and other) traditions. So far, so good. Whether one enjoys listening to a particular musical tradition is a matter of personal taste. Whether one enjoys mash-ups of different traditions is likewise a matter of personal taste. Personally I mostly don't like them. Example: an English folk song as collected by Sharp et al and sung by a trained singer with piano accompaniment.

Subject: RE: Punjabi Celtic Bagpipes
From: GUEST,RJM
Date: 08 Jul 23 - 06:52 AM

Personally I mostly don't like them. Example: an English folk song as collected by Sharp et al and sung by a trained singer with piano accompaniment. "
That is not a mix of roots music but taking tradtional song and giving it a classical music approach , something completely different

Subject: RE: Punjabi Celtic Bagpipes
From: GUEST,Nick Dow
Date: 08 Jul 23 - 01:46 PM

Richard, you have completely missed the point.

Subject: RE: Punjabi Celtic Bagpipes
From: Richard Mellish
Date: 13 Jul 23 - 06:07 AM

GUEST,RJM said
> That is not a mix of roots music but taking tradtional song and giving it a classical music approach , something completely different

Indeed it is different from blending two different roots traditions. But English folk song and classical music are different traditions. I cited that particular mixture because I'm sure I am not alone in disliking it.

GUEST,Nick Dow said
> Richard, you have completely missed the point.

You seemed, at the beginning of this thread, to be expressing approval of blending traditions, and I said that I personally generally don't like that. If that wasn't the point of your post please enlighten me.

Subject: RE: Punjabi Celtic Bagpipes
From: GUEST,henryp
Date: 14 Jul 23 - 12:19 PM

Just in passing;
BBC World Service Radio Outlook 22 June 2023 Bagpipe fever: One Nigerian's unlikely musical mission

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3ct4r3b BBC Outlook

Pipe Major Chukwu Oba Kalu has turned a teenage dream into a national revival of bagpipe playing in Nigeria. When he was 18 he saw someone playing the instrument for the first time. He was captivated and told himself that one day he would learn how to play. His first challenge was getting hold of the practice materials and a set of bagpipes. Chukwu taught himself the basics, and then started to recruit old retired players to form a band. But his ambition didn’t stop there, as he wanted to see an old and faded tradition of Nigerian military pipe bands revived.

Subject: RE: Punjabi Celtic Bagpipes
From: GUEST,Nick Dow
Date: 15 Jul 23 - 07:44 PM

If you read my first post I was suggesting that the traditions sit alongside each other seamlessly, not that they should be blended. I was also suggesting that while persons of Asian origin living alongside us are now rightly considered British, so should their Folk traditions. So to be clear, we now have British Asian, British West Indian, British Jewish, and British Gypsy communities and many others as well. I am half Polish, and Irish, married to a Romany Gypsy. I am very much British, and so is my wife. The thread suggests that we should see some representation of these thriving traditions in our Folk Festivals more regularly than we have so far.

Subject: RE: Punjabi Celtic Bagpipes
From: GUEST,RJM
Date: 16 Jul 23 - 01:42 AM

well said Nick

Subject: RE: Punjabi Celtic Bagpipes
From: Richard Mellish
Date: 16 Jul 23 - 04:28 PM

> If you read my first post I was suggesting that the traditions sit alongside each other seamlessly, not that they should be blended.

OK fair enough. No quarrel with that.