Well, I am not a folk singer. But I am a fanatical classical musician (that’s “fanatical” not “fantastic” though I am pretty good). I play the trumpet in a concert band and a symphony orchestra. Probably spend 10 to 15 hours a week at it.
Steve, My cats run to the furthest place in the house when I practice the canter. I think I have figured out the secret to learning to play the bagpipes, it is… You have to let all the gaud awful screeches, and shrieks out of the canter, before you can actually play a tune. I’m pretty sure that I have a lot of annoying sounds still left in mine tho…
Dave Taylor said:One of my Commanding Officers played the pipes. He would often be seen behind the Pilot House, marching back and forth to a drummer that only he could hear, playing his pipes, oblivious to the stares of the crew.
Steve, My cats run to the furthest place in the house when I practice the canter. I think I have figured out the secret to learning to play the bagpipes, it is...... You have to let all the gaud awful screeches, and shrieks out of the canter, before you can actually play a tune. I'm pretty sure that I have a lot of annoying sounds still left in mine tho..
A grizzled old Chief Warrant Officer and i were observing the show one afternoon. You know the type, he served with Noah as a Mess Boy. He leaned over and asked me, in all seriousness, "Doc, how do you tell the difference between bagpipes well played, and bagpipes poorly played?
I was at a loss for an answer, as I really don’t think that there is much difference. :lol:
Who’s listening you or the dogs? I think that it is truly a perspective thing!!
Bagpipes? Like a bunch of cats having a vasectomy 
Like Steve, I play recorders - all of 'em, and I like most kinds of music, from hymns, traditional/show tunes, C&W for the lyrics, classics - esp baroque with guitar for the recorder - a great combo, and my favourite - jazz. I especially like Dixieland, Latin, & Boogie Woogie, despise west coast/hot. To answer Dave’s question, I sure do remember Hoot’n Annie and all those groups you mentioned. I have heard their stuff again recently, but my tastes have become too sophisticated for it now, I guess… I enjoy the complexities of Jazz and Bach/baroque music too much nowadays! I used to spend hours in coffee houses and attend folk festivals with the best of 'em. Man I thought I was so cool! But although Viet Nam is over, the trip back to hear that old Folkways stuff was pretty cool nostalgia. Couldn’t take it every day though. Hans: while you were there doing your thing, I was hitch-hiking through Europe, mostly France, and doing odd jobs over there, for a year in 66-67. Never got East of Holland or North of Sheffield, England, though. Had French and English, not a word of German or Scandic languages. I entered Germany, but language too big a problem. Most of the young Germans I met on the road or in hostels spoke English abd French very well, though. Metta lotta Auzzies in those days, doing their ‘round the world thing… One especially vivid musical memory is, I was sitting in a bar in the South of France overlooking the Med - this was in Perpignan - jukebox came on - Jefferson Airplane’s “Somebody to Love”. I remember thinking, “Woah… something really BIG is going on in music back there!” Well, after my year was up I came home with a trio of LP’s I spent some of my precious little loot on over there - Jacques Brel (Folk?), Nana Mouskouri (Pop) and Play Bach (Jazz)… and then I started up a new fad which I called hippiedom… do you remember that? Ha ha!!! Ross: Taxes like that, it’s time to take out the pitchforks and firebrands. Maybe get rid of the Royals? “Off with their heads!!!” Well, your taxes pay for their weddings and their goofy Princess Beatrice cousins’ servants and their fascinators and their days at Ascot and their polo ponies and their corgies and their armed guards …
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“The peasants are revolting!!!”
Your right there John and our Royals pretend they are Scottish (bagpipes etc…kilts…Balmoral holiday home in Scotland) when in fact they are German. Family name originally GUELPH. Ring a bell?
Guitar in a Country/Rock band from about 1967 to 1974.
No singing, just rhythm or lead.
Sold both my Gibson and my Fender Stratocaster.
A little electric bass and a pedal steel. (but not while
performing… )
Yeah, I know. The Kaiser was their cousin. That makes WW 1 one of their little family spats, doesn’t it?
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John Le Forestier said:
Yeah, I know. The Kaiser was their cousin. That makes WW 1 one of their little family spats, doesn’t it?(http://freightsheds.largescalecentral.com/users/choochoo_chaboogie/_forumfiles/fascinator02.JPG)
The Czar was a cousin, too, as I recall. More fun than the Hatfields and the McCoys.
Ross Mansell said:Nah, you don't measure up in that department either. ;) :D
[b]British. We pay more taxes than anyone else .[/b]
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Denmark
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Sweden
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Italy
Matter of fact you’re not even among the Top Ten http://www.cnbc.com/id/42192653/World_s_Highest_Tax_Rates?slide=2
Mik said:Couldn't agree more. Never could fathom his popularity. Never could stand even trying to listen to his caterwailing. Put on Dylan, and John will change the station; it's just too painful on the ears. Music? Poetry? My rat's a ss.
I can't carry a tune in a bucket.... but then again, neither could Dylan and he got rich at it :P
Dave,
I grew up singing and playing Woody Guthrie & Jimmie Rodgers,
Pete Seeger, the Carter Family songs and others.
I still have my 1964 Gibson B-15, (birthday present) first good
guitar, the one guitar I’ve kept over all the years.
Like me is showing it’s age and the hard road miles traveled.
I’ve played Bluegrass & Country Western professionally
over the years, but always loved the gettin’ together & sittin’
around singin’ & pickin’ & grinnin" more than anything else.
Hiya Dave! That ol’ Gibson sounds like a real treasure. I play the recorder in all its incarnations, and my favourite thing is to play with guitar accompaniment - what a sweet combination that is to my ears!
Hey John,
Yes, my old Gibson is a treat to play & it’s voice has mellowed quite nicely over the years.
Not quite the ballsy sound of a 37 Martin D-28, but it sounds quite nice, especially when I put
a cheater on the neck and go up a few octaves with it.
I got it new for my birthday back in 64, I was 13 & my friends thought I was crazy wanting to
play Hill Billy music.
I had a Recorder a longtime ago, picked it up when in Germany along with a jaw harp.
Never could get much put of either one, so gave them away & got a kazoo… (think -Leon Redbone)
I also pick around on the Mandolin & Bass, play a pretty good frailing Banjo. ala Pete Seeger.
Play pretty good Blues AutoHarp & a little Boogie Woogie on the 88’s.
dave jacobsen said:Dave,
........... I got it new for my birthday back in 64, I was 13 & my friends thought I was crazy wanting to play Hill Billy music. I had a Recorder a longtime ago, picked it up when in Germany along with a jaw harp. Never could get much put of either one, so gave them away & got a kazoo... (think -Leon Redbone) I also pick around on the Mandolin & Bass, play a pretty good frailing Banjo. ala Pete Seeger. Play pretty good Blues AutoHarp & a little Boogie Woogie on the 88's.
Listening to friends was not a good plan in the mid-60s. 
Now on that jaw harp, it is a bit limited but my ears perked up the first time I heard a diggeridoo. To me it sounded like a jaw harp with variety. Little did I know til I got to try a diggeridoo while down in Oz. Couldn’t get a decent sound out of that thing.
Guitar, kazoo and harmonica … Jesse Fuller.
BTW back then - I believe the exchange was 1US$ =4.3SFr - getting a Gibson or Martin was just not in the cards. Especially if one went busking.
There is a fellow around here thats plays bagpipes, I see him practicing, on the road side, under the freeway overpass, its a good quartermile away from any habitable areas, I figure thats where his wife drops him off to practice. :lol:
Steve Featherkile said:
John Le Forestier said:
Yeah, I know. The Kaiser was their cousin. That makes WW 1 one of their little family spats, doesn’t it?The Czar was a cousin, too, as I recall. More fun than the Hatfields and the McCoys.
OT: John, Steve, If you really want to get a better history of the Royals, the Kaiser and alot of the causes leading to WW1 you really need to read the book “Dreadnought: Britain, Germany, and the Coming of the Great War” (1991) by Robert K. Massie, I’m currently reading this behemoth, 800 pages and maybe a quarter of the book is actually about the ship itself, the rest is all about the people, geopolitics, intrigue, and egos involved. It begins in 1850 with Queen Victoria’s coronation and ends in 1914 with the start of WW1, its VERY fascinating to read how involved the rulers were creating the conditions that triggered the war, you will learn more about the Royal family, tha leaders of Parlament, the Kaisers family, his upbringing and faults and the leaders of the German empire thatn you ever wanted to know, and how once “could have been alllies” became bitter rivals in an arms race leading up to the eve of war. I’ve already picked up the follow up book “Castles of Steel” which is about the Naval clashes of WW1. Back to your regularly schedule argument
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Vic,
your bringing up bag pipes reminds me of when we were living in San Francisco 20+ years ago. SWMBO & I took the cable car out to Fisherman’s wharf. We had a meal and were waiting in line for the cable car to get back downtown when a young fellow came up and started playing an Irish Bagpipe. People were praying for the cable car to get there, the young man did not play the pipes well. Actually he played them so bad, people were paying him not to play anymore…
Like some others here, i was a folkie. I played autoharp and sang in a little college trio.
I don’t play or sing anymore except for myself, but i am still an active and fanatic collector of inter-war country and rural blues music. I have many thousand a song and play them all day long. Favourites include … no, don’t get me started. Just, you know Memphis Jug Band, the Carter Family, Blind Willie McTell, Rev, Ernest Phipps and His Holiness Singers, the Nu-Grape Twins, Jimmie Rodgers, Wilmer Watts, Gus Cannon and the Jug Stompers, Uncle Dave Macon, and Barbecue Bob. Pretty much, if you know any of those, you’ll know the other 500 i would list, right?
I even put out a CD this year – “cat yronwode’s Hoodoo Jukebox,” documenting African American songs about folk-magic. Amazon carries it…