Dunno if it's always the same tune wherever you go, but I have a good recording of the one played for the piping-in at the Tree Inn near Bude on Tuesday. If you pm me with an email address I can send you an MP3 of it.
When I was at Durham, the head of the college I was at had heard I was a piper and asked me if I could pipe in the haggis for the college's Burns Night dinner. I asked if this entailed walking. He said, "Well, uh, yes." I said in that case, I'd be happy to do it but someone would have to push me in a wheelchair.
He found someone else who played the Highland pipes. Balls!
It was Hatfield. So unsurprisingly not having enough of a sense of humour to wheel me into their grand hall in an office chair playing Irish pipes. They had to go for some puffy-cheeked Highland piper poncing about in a kilt.
I played for 30 minutes as the guests were arriving... 95 of them.
I played a selection of what I call Lowland Scottish tunes mainly
Meeting of the Waters/Cockmey Jocks/Gallawa Hills/Loch Ruan/
Rustic Bridge/RowAn Tree/Bonnie Galloway..then anything that entered my head.
Piping in the Top Table was to... Teribus
Piping in Haggis was... A mans a Man for A that
Piping out the Haggis was... Corn Riggs are Bonnie
All went down really well, hope this helps
Our piper ("our" I say!) played an unidentified Scottish march and followed it by the theme from "Star Wars". My wife told me off for giggling - the piper didn't! It sounded great by the way.
Super Trouper (Abba) goes a treat on the Highland pipes. Or should do. It's within their range.
@TheSilver Spear:
I'd forgotten to include Hatfield in the fruity college list, but yes, they definitely qualify, or used to.
Years ago, it was an all-male hive of rugger jocks. There was an immemorial contest with St. Chad's as to who should have possession of 'The College Virgin', a rubber doll of the kind delicately known as a 'Japanese Inflatable'. Whichever college had it, would assign to its care a newcomer deemed to have the most suggestive name. (I remember one year this duty fell to a lad called Willy Fawcett.) The guys in the other college would strive by whatever means possible to kidnap it.
St. Chad's was there to produce High Church vicars. I never did know what Hatfield was there to produce.
Ebor_fiddler, which theme from Star Wars? Luke Skywalker's theme? If it was Skywalker's theme, have you ever tried to play it in 3/4 like a waltz? Yes it works and I have done it in public. I obviously got away with because I am still alive. When the audience realized what I was doing, they were laughing too hard to think of throwing anything at me.
before I came to Scotland, the phrase "piping in the haggis" always conjured up a vison of molten haggis being pumped to the table via a system of conduits. RI'm not joking. But I wasn't all that sure so fortunately I never aired my thoughts ... I mean everyone knows that prime hindquarter of haggis (the bigger, left-side one) is too solid to pump.
Like Mix O'Lydian I've played a few Burns nights but am usually skulking in the bar with the rest of the band when the piper's doing his thing, pumping the poor wee haggis or whatever, so have little memory of what they play
Piping the haggis
Piping the haggis
A bit late i know for this year. But what tunes are typically used to pipe in the haggis?
# Posted on January 27th 2011 by harmonic miner
Re: Piping the haggis
Dunno if it's always the same tune wherever you go, but I have a good recording of the one played for the piping-in at the Tree Inn near Bude on Tuesday. If you pm me with an email address I can send you an MP3 of it.
# Posted on January 27th 2011 by Steve Shaw
Re: Piping the haggis
love the ozzyism 'dunno'...good man yerself, ss, you are coming along nicely, man
# Posted on January 27th 2011 by Skull Duggeraigh Dubh
Re: Piping the haggis
Ours is still in the fridge, we hae twa, 'un's traddie, 'un's veggie. They do keep, dinna thae ?
( Enough of the dialect, the noo ! ).
# Posted on January 27th 2011 by Guernsey Pete
Re: Piping the haggis
Pete - it wid be "*yin's* a traddie..."
# Posted on January 27th 2011 by Rudall the time
Re: Piping the haggis
Usually "A man's a man for a' that".
# Posted on January 27th 2011 by bogman
Re: Piping the haggis
http://www.thesession.org/discussions/display/5578/comments
# Posted on January 27th 2011 by domhnall.
Re: Piping the haggis
When I was at Durham, the head of the college I was at had heard I was a piper and asked me if I could pipe in the haggis for the college's Burns Night dinner. I asked if this entailed walking. He said, "Well, uh, yes." I said in that case, I'd be happy to do it but someone would have to push me in a wheelchair.
He found someone else who played the Highland pipes. Balls!
# Posted on January 27th 2011 by DrSilverSpear
Re: Piping the haggis
Play some 'organ' music.
# Posted on January 27th 2011 by Toppish
Re: Piping the haggis
harmonic miner,
surf over to www.bobdunsire.com, a terrific website dedicated wholly to the Great Highland Bagpipes. You'll be glad you did.
# Posted on January 27th 2011 by Greg the Piano Tuner
Re: Piping the haggis
@TheSilverSpear:
Which college was it, again? Not The Castle or Chad's, by any chance? They are/were the fruitiest ones.
I hope the event was as outlandish as the Cambridge dinner portrayed in the TV production of "Porterhouse Blue".
(A contemporary of mine who is a Cambridge don assures me that Cambridge is in fact just like that...)
# Posted on January 27th 2011 by nicholas
Re: Piping the haggis
It was Hatfield. So unsurprisingly not having enough of a sense of humour to wheel me into their grand hall in an office chair playing Irish pipes. They had to go for some puffy-cheeked Highland piper poncing about in a kilt.
# Posted on January 27th 2011 by DrSilverSpear
Re: Piping the haggis
I played for 30 minutes as the guests were arriving... 95 of them.
I played a selection of what I call Lowland Scottish tunes mainly
Meeting of the Waters/Cockmey Jocks/Gallawa Hills/Loch Ruan/
Rustic Bridge/RowAn Tree/Bonnie Galloway..then anything that entered my head.
Piping in the Top Table was to... Teribus
Piping in Haggis was... A mans a Man for A that
Piping out the Haggis was... Corn Riggs are Bonnie
All went down really well, hope this helps
# Posted on January 27th 2011 by Dave_
Re: Piping the haggis
Just for Al:
What's the difference between haggis and an American breakfast?
One's a big bowel full of of cereal...
# Posted on January 27th 2011 by Jon Kiparsky
Re: Piping the haggis
I'm neither a piper or Scottish - just a member of a ceilidh band that's played at quite a few Burns nights over the years ...
My understanding is that the following are considered to be "haggis" tunes:
A Man’s a Man for a’ That
My Love She’s But a Lassie Yet
However other well-known tunes are also acceptable, eg.
Road to the Isles
The Green Hills of Tyrol
The Rowan Tree
Scotland the Brave
Bonnie Dundee
Highland Cathedral
# Posted on January 27th 2011 by Mix O'Lydian
Re: Piping the haggis
Our piper ("our" I say!) played an unidentified Scottish march and followed it by the theme from "Star Wars". My wife told me off for giggling - the piper didn't! It sounded great by the way.
# Posted on January 27th 2011 by Ebor_fiddler
Re: Piping the haggis
I like the Notre Dame Fight Song.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7csGhMQoQms&feature=related
"Here coomes the haggis agin,
let's grab a fork and prove we are men -
high laird o' the sausage race,
put a grin on yer Highland face..."
# Posted on January 28th 2011 by Piece
Re: Piping the haggis
Super Trouper (Abba) goes a treat on the Highland pipes. Or should do. It's within their range.
@TheSilver Spear:
I'd forgotten to include Hatfield in the fruity college list, but yes, they definitely qualify, or used to.
Years ago, it was an all-male hive of rugger jocks. There was an immemorial contest with St. Chad's as to who should have possession of 'The College Virgin', a rubber doll of the kind delicately known as a 'Japanese Inflatable'. Whichever college had it, would assign to its care a newcomer deemed to have the most suggestive name. (I remember one year this duty fell to a lad called Willy Fawcett.) The guys in the other college would strive by whatever means possible to kidnap it.
St. Chad's was there to produce High Church vicars. I never did know what Hatfield was there to produce.
# Posted on January 28th 2011 by nicholas
Re: Piping the haggis
Ebor_fiddler, which theme from Star Wars? Luke Skywalker's theme? If it was Skywalker's theme, have you ever tried to play it in 3/4 like a waltz? Yes it works and I have done it in public. I obviously got away with because I am still alive. When the audience realized what I was doing, they were laughing too hard to think of throwing anything at me.
Laurence
# Posted on January 28th 2011 by fauxcelt
Re: Piping the haggis
before I came to Scotland, the phrase "piping in the haggis" always conjured up a vison of molten haggis being pumped to the table via a system of conduits. RI'm not joking. But I wasn't all that sure so fortunately I never aired my thoughts ... I mean everyone knows that prime hindquarter of haggis (the bigger, left-side one) is too solid to pump.
Like Mix O'Lydian I've played a few Burns nights but am usually skulking in the bar with the rest of the band when the piper's doing his thing, pumping the poor wee haggis or whatever, so have little memory of what they play
# Posted on January 28th 2011 by Bren
Re: Piping the haggis
"Molten Haggis"... I think you've just named your new Scots Trad/Rock fusion band.
# Posted on January 28th 2011 by Jon Kiparsky