Read more in Music at Boing Boing

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

  • http://twitter.com/incarnedine_v Dan Hibiki

    why would you do that to innocent garbage bags?

  • aperturehead

    This is nice (and it sounds wonderful!)
    BUT I’m going to hold out for a PVC pipe and plastic bag TUBA

    • ryuthrowsstuff

      I remember sesame street doing a segment on making a Tuba from PVC pipe, the plastic cone from a washing machine and a cheap mouth piece.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Nell-Anvoid/100002383626402 Nell Anvoid

    How can one tell the difference between good bagpipes and lousy bagpipes????

    • awjt

       Nice.

    • aperturehead

      Good bagpipes don’t get you laid
      Bad bagpipes don’t get you laid.

      There is no difference between the two

      • http://twitter.com/chriscoreline chris coreline

        i have met dozens of pipers in Dublin
        i have yet to meet a single piper in Dublin. FYI

  • Aurvondel

    In the 90s I made a droneless bagpipe using a franzia 5-liter wine bag, a susato ABS whistle (with a little extra pvc), and reeds cut from a yogurt container. What I always wanted to try was a double-chanter one, maybe using a tabor pipe for the second chanter (or making my own) but I lost interest in the experiment.

  • http://daruiburns.tumblr.com/ Dlo Burns

    Let me just state I hate everyone who will attempt to do this, and anyone who plays a real bagpipe, and most of all I have unending hatred for anyone who plays bagpipes in a parade.

    • awjt

      But I bet you like haggis.

      • http://daruiburns.tumblr.com/ Dlo Burns

        Eh, add nutmeg and it’s basically minimally processed hotdog.

        • awjt

          How’d I know?

        • kraut

          I’m sure there’s plenty of crap in hot dog, but I’m sure there’s precious little oatmeal and sheeps lungs in hotdogs… 

    • http://www.facebook.com/people/Nell-Anvoid/100002383626402 Nell Anvoid

      Well, we now know what Hell will be like for you should you end up there.

  • Spinkter

    Have to say that whoever that is playing them is pretty good. Excellent ornamentation. Bagpipes are hard as fuckall to play well.

    • Antinous / Moderator

      Bagpipes are hard as fuckall to play well.

      Not that that stops anyone.

  • Jeremy Pickett

    12 or 13 years ago i found a guy that had made a set of uilleann pipes out of plastic tubing.  to create a semblance of a tapered bore instead of reaming them out like you do with wooden bagpipes, he cut the the ends increasingly large (but outer bore of the smaller piece the same as the inner bore of the larger piece) at angles.

    when assembled he had a chanter that apparently could play two octaves in relatively in tune.

    :sigh: i want my shop back so i can build things again.

  • Antinous / Moderator

    Pakistan is well on its way to becoming the top bagpipe-producing country in the world.  It’s a fact.

    • http://twitter.com/chriscoreline chris coreline

       yerp, and there mostly terrible for various reasons, one of which slightly involves espionage.
      seriously, if you buy one instrument from Pakistan buy a Bodhrán, they are about £20 and they play like £500,

  • Syn -

    is it just me or these sounds oddly like something 8 bit? I love it!

  • http://twitter.com/chriscoreline chris coreline

    how he managed to get two octaves out of PVC is pure witchcraft, id complain about tuning, but getting any semblance of that reel out of real pipes, let alone junk is an achievement. 

  • http://twitter.com/the_damned_fool the damned fool

    And now, for you, a video of a guy playing a recorder and plastic bag-pipes on youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzh4VLLD5RI