On Bagpipes & Perspective
Q: What's the difference between bagpipes and an onion?
A: No one cries when you cut up a bagpipe
I apologise to any bagpipe lovers or players here. I'm sure you've heard it all before. It's a misunderstood instrument, we can all agree. Some of us just can't wrap our heathen heads around such a caterwauling. It's a rare person indeed that puts a playlist together on Spotify with bagpipe tunes. If you've done this, please let me know. I'll be impressed, but I can't say I'd listen to it.
However, as the sound of bagpipes drifted across the bay whilst I was surfing last week...
WAIT WHAT!
Who the hell was standing on the water's edge playing BAGPIPES? Sure, hippies playing dijeridoo or hang drums, at a stretch, or someone with a UE boom being annoying with some doof - wait, no, still not right - when I'm out surfing all I hear is waves, birds, and my heartbeat - and the music in my head, which annoyingly this week is 'Murder on the Dancefloor', after watching Saltburn. Now whenever I see my husband naked, I hear that song...dammit! If ya know, ya know...
But that's enough of my naked husband - let's get back to the bagpipes. We all looked at each other with puzzled expressions. Some of us really wanted to be annoyed. Like, who the flying fish wants to listen to bagpipes on a peaceful Wednesday afternoon? What right did this guy have to disturb our peace?
Yet there was something beautiful about it, we had to admit. It wasn't the misty Scottish highlands, but it was a broody old day - big purple storm clouds, seagulls drifting, big stingrays flying underboard, rainstorms threatening. Perhaps this was what they called 'atmospheric', right? After a while, we all put aside our 'shut up that godawful sound' and thought there was something quite magic and special about the moment.
It certainly raised questions about first reactions and bias. Most of us don't understand bagpipes. Our first reaction is to reject, to tease, to make fun of. But given a little open mindedness and openness that can come from an easy and gentle time in the water, we can allow ourselves to drift toward something like appreciation. Sure, we won't be going how and listening to Scotland the Brave, but we'll be saving this little unusual moment in our minds. It will be filed under our personal memory banks as 'Strangely Wonderful Things That Have Happened at the Beach' or 'That Time I was Surfing And...'
Cool bagpipes.
With Love,
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Yeah bagpipe music definitely isn't something you listen to if you're happy chilling and in a good mood. However after a day of battle and immense loss and suffering, you too can trauma bond with other survivors of intense violence can come together.
When I hear bagpipes I think of loss and suffering... So many of Life events in my life have had that in common.
Yes, there's definitely something melancholic about bagpies - definitely about mourning and loss!
It's them damn scotsmen... Lol and their drinking and baskethilt swords. Oh those are dirty. As well as highly effective.
Isn't it "no one cries when you cut up a bagpipe"?
I haven't actually heard of a bagpipe but I am sure it can perform magic, all instruments can with the right person holding them :)
Haha good spot!!! No on e else picked up on it 🤣🤣🤣
It's amazing how true that is!
Usually, I prefer electro and lo-fi as musical styles. However, at a festival, I had the opportunity to attend a concert by Charlotte de Witte. Although it was techno, a genre for which I had strong prejudices about its audience, the experience completely transformed me.
To my great surprise, I was totally captivated by the music. I was so entranced by the sound that by the time the set was over, I couldn't believe that 2h30 had passed. I was sweating profusely, having traveled far into my mind without the aid of drugs or anything else.
Now I also listen to a lot of techno. Experiences can really change you.
I have quite an eclectic taste in music. Even techno is a broad genre - I don't like trance as much as I like deep house, for example.
I went to a barn dance once, which I thought would be rather ridiculous. I had the best fun ever. One should always be open minded.
So many lessons in 'dont knock it til you try it' as we say in English. I mean, some things just confirm why we don't like them, but we should always check our biases.
Yes, you're right, it's very broad. What I like at the moment is technofunk. I didn't know the term, so before writing this comment, I went to Google and typed in some of the music I'm listening to on repeat right now. It seems to be exactly that.
And I completely agree, open-mindedness is important. It's not something that's really obvious. For you, I guess it is, because you're going through so much.
But I have people in mind who experience very little and stay at home most of the time watching social networks and the news on TV. Everyone is free to live as they wish. But we have to admit that these people have become very narrow-minded.
Especially if I compare them with other people who go out a lot (travel, activities, shows).
Ps: Always retest something you think you don't like. I'm thinking of leeks, every year I try them, thinking that maybe I'll like them and be able to make good leek pies, but every year I find it hard to swallow this vegetable ^^
Have you tried ROAST leeks? They go all soft and caramelised and are delicous with goat's cheese!
TEchnofunk, hmmm - got a song there to share?
Someone printed some stickers that said 'don't read the herald sun' during COVID and put them all over town on signs and buildings. I am not sure what your version is - think a narrow minded, sensationalist, sports paper. Murdoch press. I loved the sticker as it was a rallying cry to pull people out of their narrow mindedness - though of course we know that they'd just double down and stay in the same old bubbles.
I'll give it a try, but honestly there's little chance I'll like it. But I'm going to try it anyway, because of all the vegetables I know, it's the ONLY one I don't like! So I'd like to add it to my collection ^^
Here's a little techno funk list I'm listening to on a loop right now:
Otherwise, I also really like music that covers classics, but in a Techno version. I don't know if there's a name for it:
Haha, this guy's a hero!
After that, I think you have to be careful. Not everything is black and white. It's possible to look at/read narrow-minded things if you keep an open mind. The important thing is to be aware of your biases and to analyze them critically.
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Who would have thought? Bagpipes at the surf…
I know right??
Aren't bagpipes a metaphor for your husband's Glockenspiel, mayhaps?
Nice write up on bias and an undervalued(?) instrument
Thankyou. It was more about bias than bagpipes but the instrument was instrumental in delivering the lesson 😁
Nova Scotia literally translates to 'New Scotland', so one normally gets their fair share of pipes in these parts. During the heady days of the lock down chance made me witness to a community of isolated seniors being given an additional pinch of torture via a piper's serenade. It gave new meaning to the term, 'captive audience'.
Hahaha that sounds like torture.
Yes, you had the migrants from the Highland Clearances didn't you, so I imagine a lot of bagpipes!
Onions and Bagpipes - that one made my day 😆
but but but wait ... what? where did your husband in Adam's costume come from? the song in your head, or was he the one being hippie and playing the bagpipe?
Hahah no that was my imagination
😆