Lowland (border) pipes had just about gone extinct by 1900. They were recreated from old plans from the 1700's (see Hamish Moore article on line) and have only been returned to use in the past few decades. So it would be hard to say "how they are supposed to sound". Also, Fred is playing his own composition here. To say he is "playing too fast and losing the essence of the music" is silly. He wrote it. He plays it the way he (and most of his audience) want it to sound. Hard to argue with that.
Wow. It's not just bending and distorting notes. It's much deeper than that. It's about the musicality, interpretation, entertainment, as well as his amazing technique and fingering.
This is where American country music came from - Scotch-Irish (or Ulster Scots) in the new world trying to recreate this sort of thing with the guitars, fiddles, and banjos that they had. They didn't have any pipes by then because pipes are really a bitch to build, maintain, preserve, learn, and play, and the new world just wasn't a good place for pipes for the longest time. But we had Scotch-Irish folks in abundance, all up and down Appalachia, and this sort of music was already burned into them when they arrived.
I don't see how there's an argument - she's speaking Ulster Scots. It's not Irish, it's not Scottish, At the risk of being inflammatory, it's a dialect of English. And as for Fred, he's incredible. What's really cool is how all the recordings of the hard drive are subtly different. I don't know if he pre-rehearses them, or if they're improvised, but it's sweet nonetheless.
Agreed 100% on the endless variation...by this point I'm not sure if this is a song Fred rehearses, or if it's part of the background music of the universe itself, and he can just tap into it whenever he wants. Either way, it's fantastic.
