Talk:Great Highland Bagpipe

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[edit] Capitalization of title

Proposal: change capitalization of title to "Great highland bagpipe" (as it is not a proper noun). Badagnani 07:28, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

A fair point, but in practice most of the literature does capitalise it. I know I always do. Calum 12:34, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Pakistani pipes

I'm a bit leery of an unqualified mention of Pakistan's GHB manufacture. I've known a few people who have bought GHB pipes made in Pakistan and have found that not only are they unplayable but cannot be made playable by a qualified pipe maker. I have personally heard pipe maker Jerry Gibson warn neophytes about purchasing pipes from Pakistan since there is no way of ensuring you'll get a playable or even fixable set. Then there's this article from The Piper's Review where a restorer tries to make a Uilleann set of Pakistani origin playable. See also this post from pipe maker Tim Britton, discussing his experiences trying to make Pakistani pipes playable. The usual conclusion is that they have little value beyond decoration.

None of this, of course, means that there aren't any legitimate Pakistani pipe makers producing playable pipes, but (1) most Pakistani pipes on sale in various outlets don't name their maker at all, making it hard to know what you're getting (and sometimes the country of origin isn't mentioned at all, particularly on eBay), and (2) completely unplayable pipes appear to be common enough that players without substantial expertise in judging the wheat from the chaff are generally advised to avoid pipes of Pakistani origin altogether, and similarly for flutes.

In order to avoid discussing this tangential issue in the article, I'd like to suggest removing the parenthetical comment. I don't think the comment could stand without a discussion of quality. --Craig Stuntz 18:15, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

I'd agree with that - in any case, I don't beleive that the size of the industry in Pakistan is in fact larger than in Scotland. There are actually a few decent makers over there (GHB making isn't rocket science, after all), but the mjority are just turning out sticks with holes in them. Calum 17:29, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] External links

A weakness of paper encyclopedias is that they are merely written. Wikipedia is not on paper, so it doesn't need to have that limitation. For example, when introducing musical instruments, wouldn't it make sense for a reader to be able to hear samples of the instrument played? It was for this reason that I added (back in April) external links to two internet streaming radio sites on the "bagpipe" page (which actually belonged here). Somebody assumed they were spam, but they weren't: I have no affiliation with either site. I read WP:EL#Links_normally_to_be_avoided before posting, and none of those criteria seemed to fit my additions. Also considering Wikipedia:What_Wikipedia_is_not#Wikipedia_is_not_a_mirror_or_a_repository_of_links.2C_images.2C_or_media_files, I only included two such links. But of course there were so many other kinds of links already that mine got indiscriminately deleted with the bunch. Before I consider reposting them in this article, I wanted to hear from others why such external links should or should not be included, given my reason for wanting to include them. and_e_r 16:51, 2 October 2006 (UTC)

Since the GHB page has a link to Bagpipe Web Directory - Exhaustive link directory, and since that page has links to plenty of places to hear bagpipe music on its "Broadcast" page, I've decided that there's no reason for me to add such links here. Someone, not reading this Talk page, might assume the links are spam and remove them anyway. and_e_r 14:57, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

A better solution might be uploading some sound files here. I don't have a clue what counts as fair use, but if anyone does and is willing to do the editing, I will happily rip a few representative tracks and email them for inclusion on this page or any of the other pages (I can provide GHB/Border/smallpipes/Uilleann/Northumbrian for anyone who is enthusiastic enough ;) Calum 21:33, 2 November 2006 (UTC)