I am currently teaching the instruments of the orchestra in a couple of my general music classes. I find myself wanting to say, "this is one of my favorites!", with every instrument I introduce, and if there were enough hours in the day and years in my life, I'd probably try to play all of them! I love almost every instrument, both orchestral and not, when they are played well. However...there is one instrument which I hate!
The bagpipes...
I know that I shouldn't say I "hate" anything, but I do...I truly do! And unfortunately, as I sit here writing, I am listening to not one player but NINE!!! My ears might explode! The instrument's tone quality is completely grating to my ears, and approximately 86.8% of their notes sound out of tune! Now don't get me wrong, these guys are good players! They made those instruments sound as good as they possibly can...unfortunately.
But!!!!
There were people all over the place with their phones out videoing the bagpipe band's playing, and every time they finished a song the crowd cheered like the President drove by. There are obviously a lot of people who enjoy the bagpipes, and I am very glad for that! What a boring world it would be if everyone loved exactly what I did...no really...it would be a very boring world.
So if you like the bagpipes, thank you for your part in the making the world a more diverse place. But I will go on hating them...and I'm okay with that :).
Now, I'm going to listen to my awesome, beautiful wife play with the Pensacola Civic Band...now that is music to my ears!