The pipes the pipes are calling
He who pays the piper calls the tunes
Originally uploaded by itsjustanalias. They’re called Gaitas, they only have one drone, unlike the scottish bagpipes which have three, and the tuning is different to the Galician pipes, in that you can lift any finger, not just uncover the holes in order. Well that’s about all I know about the pipes, and that small amount is thanks to this man who very kindly chatted for a while after I asked him if I could take his picture. I also asked him if they do this every week. He said something to the effect that it’s a part of some church celebrations, for some reason it’s a sacred year (the university is 400 this year but I’m not sure it’s related). This chap is a part of La Banda de Gaitas del Centro Asturiano de Oviedo. He said there are four bands and each Saturday (I’m not sure if it’s all year, there are easily reached limits to my Spanish) they get dropped at one end of the old centre of the city and they play, then walk to another spot, play a bit more, walk to a bar for a cider and so on. He was keen to point out the procession of priests and altar boys between the Iglesia de San Isidro to the Catedral (he actually said there were monks and nuns and all they were missing were women in burqas; a little secular our piper fella I feel). I have to do a bit more digging to find out exactly what’s going on.
Anyway, the pipes. They sounded pretty similar to a band of scots pipers, the drone’s a little higher pitched, and they had drummers and it was all very bagpipey… mostly played for walking, it’s not nearly martial enough to be marching music. They did play one tune that sounded like the start of ‘Somewhere over the rainbow’ and then went weird. I followed the band after they started playing and I noticed members of other groups who had played earlier. They’d finished and were taking advantage of being in the market to do their shopping. After a couple of minutes it seemed totally normal to see traditionally garbed Asturians, bagpipe tossed casually over one shoulder, picking out their lettuce. Of course, no one else seemed to notice anything strange at all.
Tags: music, oviedo
Both comments and pings are currently closed.
Sounds like a lot of hot air to me but congratulations on staying alert.