Local piping student Tim Hill with piper Paddy Keenan.
If you were an actor, it would be like taking drama lessons from Robert DeNiro. If you were a cyclist, it would be like getting some pointers from Lance Armstrong. If you’re a piper or whistle player, getting some tips from Paddy Keenan is learning from the best.
Keenan, fresh from a performance on Wednesday night, May 21, at the World Café in Philadelphia, spent several hours Thursday night at the Irish Center, where he taught two workshops to about a dozen—some awestruck—students.
Paddy Keenan, born into a Travelling (Pavee) family from County Meath, comes by his musical talent genetically. Both his father and grandfather were uilleann pipers and Keenan began piping when he was 10. He’s been called “the King of the Pipers,” and “the Jimi Hendrix of pipers.” A founding member of the famed Bothy Band, he plays like most virtuosos: seemingly effortlessly, as though his instrument has always been a natural part of him. When he lifts the flute to his mouth or fixes his long, thin fingers on the chanter of his pipes, he almost seems to be releasing the music rather than making it.
Tall and flute-like in build, the soft-spoken Keenan gently coaxed the neophyte whistle players and pipers at the Irish Center into solo performances of the tunes and techniques he taught them. When, at one point, he admitted that at least some of the vibrato he produces on his flute comes not from his fingers but his breath, one student gasped. “Oh!’ she said. “My flute teacher told me that you never do that!” Then she grinned. In fact, they all grinned, including Keenan. If the best tell you to break the rules, you break them.
