Uilleann Pipe Dojo

Neale Pickett |

Having screw-on colored skirts got me thinking about kids.

If I do ever start building sets for kids and teaching lessons (let’s call this the “Leo Rowsome Approach”), I could hand kids color upgrades when they hit certain milestones. The coder dojo I started here in town used wristbands this way, calling them “belts”, like in karate.

This would work like, when you first start out, you get a practice set with no skirts so you just have exposed threads. You have to put your practice set together, and show up to a couple of learning sessions, whatever that looks like; then you get you white skirts.

When you’re able to play a full D major scale in the lower octave, holding each note for 8 seconds, you get yellow skirts.

When you can walk up in thirds to a second octave B starting on D (C♯) and G (C♮), and can play one tune from memory, you get blue.

Green happens when you can play three full sets from memory, and are using some ornamentation.

Orange, I dunno. I’m only at green right now.

Red, dunno. Maybe you’ve played in three normal sessions with adults.

Purple would be when you lead a session maybe, or lead a tune in a session.

Black has got to be when you’re playing on a reed you made.