Chords for Patrick Sky: Uilleann Pipe Maker - Spruce Pine, NC

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ [C] _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ There are days when Patrick Sky picks up his bagpipes and plays.
_ There are also days when Patrick can be found in his [Eb] workshop repairing or making a set of pipes. _ _
_ _ _ _ [C] Every day, either I play a little bit or I'm working on them, so I'm sort of steady, steady at it.
Forty years ago, few people played what are called Irish Ilin pipes.
Even fewer people, as in no one, was making the instrument.
Now, though, there are makers of the bagpipes scattered around the world,
and probably several hundred people who can play them.
_ It looks like the piping has been saved from almost sure extinction.
There's a reason the Ilin pipes nearly disappeared.
There's nothing easy about them.
Not playing them?
On _ _ a scale of one to ten, I would say it's at least a nine or ten in difficulty.
It's really hard to learn to play them.
_ Even when you get everything going, they change.
You have to be able to, if you're playing for people, you have to be able to adjust them and keep them in tune.
Nor is it easy to make them.
You [B] have to make all the tools, [E]
reamers, drills, everything.
I [B] knew it was nuts, and the fact that it was so hard and nuts,
I just dug in my heels and it really appealed to me.
I think if that had been easy, I don't know whether I would have bothered with them.
Patrick makes full sets, and he fixes sets that are in disrepair.
Mostly, though, he builds practice sets.
That consists [C] of the bellows, the bag, and the chanter,
but you don't _ really need all this.
The practice set plays exactly, [F] it's the exact same thing [Eb] as these,
[Cm] except it doesn't have the drums [F] and the other parts.
Patrick [G] has plenty of experience putting illin [C] pipes together.
Remember when I said the instrument was almost lost forever?
It was Patrick's guy [F] who saved it from going the way of the dinosaurs.
I started making them back in about [C] 1973 or 74,
and at that time there was virtually no one making them.
They were almost extinct.
I guess what I [F] started sort of rejuvenated the [Cm] pipe making thing.
Now there's almost as [F] many pipe makers as there are pipers.
_ [G] One of [C] the key skills that Patrick learned
is fashioning the reeds that are necessary for the bag pipes.
_ [Fm]
The reeds on these things are sort of like an oboe reed,
and most pipers, you have [C] to learn to make your own reeds in order to get them to play.
That was the earliest part, is learning to make those reeds.
I [G] wrote a little book out [Ebm] of it called The Insane [Fm] Art of Reed Making,
and the [C] thing swept the traditional [D] field.
Everybody [C] grabbed a copy of it and started making reeds,
and [F] so it sort of revived reed making.
_ The landscape [C] was much different when Patrick first discovered illin [G] pipes than it is [Cm] today.
He tried to [C] find a set for himself, but it was a difficult quest.
I went around to [F] all these Irish bars, and I'd [Cm] go in, and in a real loud voice I'd say,
does anybody know where I can get a set of illin [C] pipes?
And finally this guy goes, oh yeah, I know where there's a set.
The owner of the Irish [G] pavilion was planning to put the pipes on [Cm] display.
[C] And she loved Irish music, and she said she felt guilty that she wanted them to be played.
Patrick didn't yet know how to play them, so she wouldn't [F] sell to him.
_ [C] So I went out and withdrew $300 for the back and gave it to my friend Liam,
and he went in and [Fm] sat down and played the pipes.
She sold them to him right [C] away, and so I picked them up for $250.
_ Once he owned the pipes, Patrick committed himself to mastering the instrument.
He did pretty well.
There was a period there when _ I used to tell people I was the best piper in all of New England.
It's true because I was the only piper.
_ Patrick couldn't make such acclaim today.
He plays just fine, but [F] many others have picked up the pipes [C] now.
[C] One of the things that made it spread is the pipes play well with the violin and other instruments,
[G] unlike the [F] Scots pipes [C] or the war pipes.
There are [G] notable differences between the [F] Irish illin [C] pipes and the more common Scottish instrument.
The sound that can be produced is a big one.
[Fm] The Scots pipes will only [C] play _ one octave plus one note,
which makes it very, very limited, the kind of tune you can play,
where the illin pipes play a full two octaves.
The volume of the illin pipes is similar to that of violins,
pretty [Eb] convenient since Patrick's wife Kathy plays the violin.
[F] _ [C] I was at my wife's house one time, and I looked under the bed and I saw a violin case.
I said, what is that?
She said, it's a violin.
_ [F] I gave her some [C] encouragement and she started playing.
The next thing you know, a few years went by and we were playing together ever since. _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ [Cm] _ They say it sounds like a hive [F] of bees, a [G] nice humming, buzzy sound.
[Am] It's a unique sound. _
[D] _ [C] That sound can be heard today [D] because of Patrick's guide,
[C] and enough people are interested in the pipes now that they are no longer in [D] danger.
It's [Gb] getting more and more perfectly round.
Patrick will continue playing the pipes and going forward.
He figures he'll still spend time in his workshop making and repairing them.
I [Eb] don't want it to become where I'm down there eight hours a day, seven [D] days a week.
It's still _ _ more of a hobby than anything else.
It's nice to make a few bucks, you know. _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ [C] _
_ _ _ [G] _ _ [D] _ _ _
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