The opposite side - prevalence of bag under right arm

[Jens Olsen]

I am "raised" as a right handed piper. When I started to learn this in 2006 I was told "this is how to play".
And so I did.
Quite many years later, I foud out, that there was such a thing as lefthanded pipers that had their bag under the right arm.
"That was strange, I thourght!"

I am a lefthanded person
I am a righthanded piper

I have always found this, to be an advantage.
My bag is under my left arm, which by nature, is my strongest arm. So... thats a plus.
Using the strongest part of my body to create the preassure and tone has from day one seemed logical.

The finger position was never an issue, as initially I was told, that there was only one way to do it. Left or right handed was not even a question.

I am very happy to be lefthanded and play as a righthanded piper.
I get to use the best part of my body, to control my instrument.
The preassure is a delicate thing, and the arm I use to control it, is my strongest.

So... Even that I am lefthanded, I think playing the lefthanded way, would actually be a disadvantage.

Actually I dont understand that some other lefthanded persons want to be trained different... or are told so...
Since I have always found my situation to be a good advantage.

I sometimes wonder what righthanded pipers think and feel about having their instrument under their "weak" arm...

[EquusRacer]

I am "raised" as a right handed piper. When I started to learn this in 2006 I was told "this is how to play".
And so I did.
Quite many years later, I foud out, that there was such a thing as lefthanded pipers that had their bag under the right arm.
"That was strange, I thourght!"

I am a lefthanded person
I am a righthanded piper

I sometimes wonder what righthanded pipers think and feel about having their instrument under their "weak" arm...

Thanks for sharing your experience and perspective. As for right/left handed, I actually think of pipers being (or becoming) ambidextrous.

[Silmakhor]

Thanks for sharing your experience and perspective. As for right/left handed, I actually think of pipers being (or becoming) ambidextrous.

I'm a "lefty" piper, but the right arm in this setup does all the work. I don't think left or right hand dominance comes into it at all.

[fletch]

The majority of the reason I play left handed is that it was just more comfortable to start off playing right hand over left... When I got on to the pipes, the first set I had was set up to be on the left shoulder. In changing to the right shoulder, I think that the increased comfort came from the bottom hand being freed from the squeezing... my birls were much easier to play... There was really no difference at all between which arm was doing the squeezing... Just some observations from a left handed piper who has tried to tame the beast with both arms...

[pancelticpiper]

it seems to me that the image of Cummings was an amalgam of different sittings.

The process of painting, from the Renaissance until fairly modern times, has been for the artist to work from "cartoons" which in art means a very different thing than a comic strip or animated film.

A cartoon is a sketch, a study, generally in pencil, done from life. There would be a more detail cartoon, generally in oils, of the model's face, and sometimes also hands.

The final painting would be completed in the artist's studio. The model wouldn't be present.

When you see the actual painting in the Museum of Scotland it's really clear that the lighting as painted is very inconsistent.

I've seen the original.

Before the advent of photography, paintings weren't expected to resemble photographs. Instead, art went through a number of styles over the years. There were styles where the lighting was very dramatic, a stong light coming from a single source. And there were styles where the lighting sort of came from everywhere.

This painting is done in a style often seen in old portraits where the emphasis is on surface detail. This shows up with faces that have lots of detail but lack convincing underlying structure. Also the artist was at pains to paint every tiny detail of the clothing, yet sometimes you don't get much of a sense of the anatomy under the clothing.

It's common for modern viewers to judge art of previous periods by the modern standards of photography and photo-realism, which didn't exist then.

Also, the bag makes no sense in terms of playing position...

It looks OK to me. Artists of many periods have been known to put emphasis on the inflation of the bag. I'll post a 20th century example of that.

On the bass drone, it's worth remembering the other contemporary image shows a two section bass.

I highly doubt it, for one thing the size of the lathes used, the other thing being that every other species of bagpipe AFAIK has a three-section bass, probably going back to the lathe issue.

[Calum]

I mean the way the neck of the bag takes a 90 degree left turn. It makes no physical sense, for all that it's compelling as an image.

My point about the assembly of the image from disparate parts is that we have to be really careful about making the assumption this image tells us anything, really, about what pipers, piping, or bagpipes actually looked like in that period. The only other forked stock of that kind, so far as I know, is the Glen fake made in the 19th century, which was probably based on this image.

As for Joseph MacDonald, there's no way to know for certain, but I think anyone who went into the level of detail he did about technique would have been able to count how many drone sections he had.

image.png

[pancelticpiper]

Here's a 20th century painting which overall is pretty accurate, where the artist didn't know how to draw the shape of the bag very well.

Interesting that the bag doesn't extend out behind.

[pancelticpiper]

We have to be really careful about making the assumption this image tells us anything, really, about what pipers, piping, or bagpipes actually looked like in that period.

At the very least it tells us what the person who paid for the painting found acceptable.

We should keep in mind that having a prominent artist paint a full-size full-length portrait was an extremely expensive thing, available only to the wealthy.

The Laird of Grant would know quite well what his piper looked like. The Laird purchased and provided the piper's livery, and possibly the pipes. The Laird would expect and insist that the finished painting be an acceptably accurate representation of the man, the costume, and the pipes as the Laird conceived them to look.

The fact that the artist drew an accurate sheepskin bag, the bag's seam, and the cord binding the chanter stock into the bag (things we wouldn't expect an artist to know about) tells us that the artist sketched the pipes from life, and had a keen eye for detail.

[Piperpadre]

"From early images it seems that in the old days a large proportion of pipers played that way. Evan MacRae told me that there was an island (I don't remember which) where it was standard to play that way, it being in the Camerons' recruiting area they usually having at least one in the ranks. I saw a photo of the Pipes & Drums of the Cameron Highlanders showing three"

Willie Morrison of South Uist plays with the pipes on his right shoulder. His dad had been in the Camerons and an officer came to South Uist to recruit him for the regiment but he declined. He told me when I was learning under him at the CoP that it was common on South Uist to play in that fashion.

[Graineag]

I'm sort of surprised I hadn't written something here already, but I haven't been on the forum much lately.

I started on the whistle at 12 and since I was mostly self-taught, I instinctively played it with my right hand on top and no one ever corrected me. When I took up the pipes at 15, I did the same at my first lesson, and my teacher said that if that was how I felt most comfortable playing, it was fine with him. I later tried to switch hands when it became clear I'd need a reversed set of pipes, but by then, playing "backwards" was pretty indelibly etched into my brain.

I've always played GHB on the right shoulder and also have SSP, UP and a 6-key wooden flute that were made for me. Plenty of Irish flute players and uilleann pipers play left-handed: Patsy Tuohey, Willie Clancy, Davy Spillane, Patsy Hanley, Mike McGoldrick, Seán McKiernan (who plays Patsy Tuohey's old Taylor set), and Pat Broderick were/are all left-handed players. (Interestingly, while Pat Broderick played UP with the bag under the right arm, he also played GHB in the Irish army with his right hand on top but the pipes on the left shoulder, which I'm guessing was probably a uniformity thing).

I currently have a set of NSP on order, and it seems that left-handedness among Northumbrian pipers is much less common. The only one anyone seems to recall in living memory is the late Pete Rowley. Nevertheless, the pipemaker making my set said that he had no problem making a left-handed set for me.

South Uist probably has the reputation for the most right-shouldered players. Not all of them play that way because they're left handed. John Angus Smith has talked about how he learned to play on the right shoulder even though he's right-handed because his father insisted that every generation of pipers in the family needed at least one person who played on the right shoulder.

It's not just a Uist thing, though. I personally know two pipers from Glenelg who play on the right shoulder. Both of them learned from Iain MacFadyen, who wasn't bothered about it in the least. Duncan Johnstone was a right-shouldered player as well and one of the small minority of players who maintained that right-handed people should play this way for optimum top hand strength and clarity.

I sometimes wonder how my life would have been different if my first teacher had insisted I flip my hands around at that first lesson. Probably wouldn't have changed anything in the long run, but I don't really have any regrets--except of course that I can't try most other people's pipes. (Indeed, a lot of people don't seem to notice that I'm left-handed until they ask to try my pipes...)

I'm sort of happy though that GHB in particular is easy to play either way. It's a nice little bit of nonconformity in the world of mass-produced woodwind instruments that tend to perpetuate right-handed privilege.

[el gaitero]

I thought of this thread when watching this post-Covid competition (centre of screen starting around 37 seconds in)

(25) St Laurence O'Toole Pipe Band at the 2022 British Pipe Band Championships - YouTube

...not sure what we're looking for here...?