Emerald Isle

The story of how this song came to be is a tad lengthy, but we'll try to condense it a bit. It all started with a song John wrote last year (Vol. 21, No. 4) called "Everyone Is Irish," a tune that did quite well with our subscribers. For this year, John had another idea for a St. Patrick's Day tune, but it just cried out for bagpipes.

Now, you must realize, we've wanted to use bagpipes for years, but never knew any contacts near our Zionsville, Indiana, studio to make the dream a reality. Enter Mike Wilson, owner of Aire Born Recording Studios and fellow Plank Road Publishing writer. He had seen this group at a local weekend festival – The 42nd Royal Highlanders – a bagpipe, fife, and drum band based in Lafayette, Indiana. Mike contacted their drum major, Preston Smith, and gave John his info, and before you know it, we hired them. (See? Condensed!)

The Bagpipes - In order to write "Emerald Isle," John had to learn as much as he could about writing for bagpipes. For example, they only play nine notes, and they are not pitched like any other instrument! Their "A" is a sharp "Bb" for concert pitched instruments, which made recording them lots of fun. Fortunately, technology prevailed, and we were able to bring the bagpipes into pitch with the rest of our session players.

You may be wondering, "Do bagpipes belong in a Celtic-style song? I thought they were associated with Scotland." Truly, The Great Highland Bagpipes are a Scottish instrument, but Celtic music is associated with more than just the Irish. It's also associated with Scottish Gaelic, Welsh, Cornish, and other origins.

The Music - This song is in 4/4, but with a triplet undertow that gives it a lilt. It's easy to sing, and should young singers have any doubts about how it goes, we have penny whistle, fiddle, and acoustic guitar playing the melody. The orchestration on this piece is dense, including bagpipes, fifes, bodhran, Scotch bass drum, snare drums and other drums, strings, and our rhythm players. We recommend listening to just the instrumental version of the tune at least once to fully appreciate all the wonderfully intricate textures going on. (John has outdone himself!)

It should be noted that bagpipes will naturally drone, unless you stop the drones manually, which is something we did in this piece at measure 17 both times. We nixed the drones so that the bass line could change without the dissonance the drones would bring to that section. Then we brought them back in at measure 25. Ah, the power of the recording studio! (You can watch a video of this on our website. See page 76 for more details.) That same drone can be heard at the beginning of the song before the melody of the bagpipes commences. Once you hear it start, you know you're in for something cool.

As with most of John's Celtic-style tunes, this song would lend itself well to Irish (or Highland) dance, so if you've got the talent, go for it! Kilts are optional.