Armagh Pipers Club is a product of the uilleann pipes Renaissance. This book is based on our experience in first learning to play the pipes and secondly teaching the young and not so young to play. We feel that there is a need for such a book and ever since our Tin Whistle Tutor appeared, many people have asked, "What about a Pipe Tutor?"

This book is the result and we intend it for the use of beginners who have no one to show them how to play. We try in this book to give an idea of the basic techniques of piping in order to equip the beginner to go to learn from other pipers and records and tapes of piping. We would advise all learners to invest in some of the excellent records of piping which are available in the shops and which are listed in the back of the book.

The book is based on a course which we have developed in our piping classes here in Armagh. We hope to take some of the mystique out of piping - there are no mysteries and definitely no fairies, as Frank MeFadden would say. Great pipers combine all the various techniques to produce an individual style of their own. The great attraction of the pipes is that there seems to be an unlimited variety of sound and expression in one instrument.

It is rare to find an instrument used exclusively for playing folk music which has three different types of scales, three drones, three or four sets of keys for accompanying the melody, plays two octaves and a good few semitones. The uilleann pipes have all these. The complexity of the instrument is usually enough to prevent the beginner even considering taking up piping unless he has somebody to teach him. Even then, many of the great pipers have kept the mystique of piping going and don't believe in explaining anything to the beginner. This book does not attempt to contain all that there is to be said about piping. It is merely intended to arouse the interest of the beginner learning either on his own or in a class and help him to start on the long road towards becoming a piper. Séamus Ennis says 7 years learning, 7 years practising and 7 years playing.