Chiff and Fipple Forums

Hi Ennis chanter,
The Sam Lawrence C# chanter looks mighty grand. Are the chanter mounts in stained boxwood and the chanter in ebony.
How do you find the playing pressure compared to concert pitch. Although only a semi tone different I find the difference in playing pressure quite noticeable. Then again my concert chanter is a wide bore and my C# chanter was made for me by the late Matt Kiernan based on an old Kenna C#. It plays about half way between C# and C. I mean as a constant not as a variable. My fingers tend to leak a lot on the wide bore concert, especially the ring finger of the right hand but the Kiernan C# plays like a dream.Small tone holes.
Do you intend to turn this into a full set at in the future. I've seen and heard Sam's work so I would think you would have no worries about balance and playability and such.
Do you have a sound file of yourself playing the chanter. I have heard Sam's sound files of course but it would be nice to hear yours too. The same chanter in different people's hands always sound different don't you think? I have no wish to put you on the spot as it were. You may be a very experienced player so a tune would be great if you could manage the time. If you are far less experienced then even a scale would be grand.This is purely from an interest angle as C# is my favorite pitch with B nat' running a very close second.

mike delta wrote:Hi Ennis chanter,
The Sam Lawrence C# chanter looks mighty grand. Are the chanter mounts in stained boxwood and the chanter in ebony.
How do you find the playing pressure compared to concert pitch. Although only a semi tone different I find the difference in playing pressure quite noticeable. Then again my concert chanter is a wide bore and my C# chanter was made for me by the late Matt Kiernan based on an old Kenna C#. It plays about half way between C# and C. I mean as a constant not as a variable. My fingers tend to leak a lot on the wide bore concert, especially the ring finger of the right hand but the Kiernan C# plays like a dream.Small tone holes.
Do you intend to turn this into a full set at in the future. I've seen and heard Sam's work so I would think you would have no worries about balance and playability and such.
Do you have a sound file of yourself playing the chanter. I have heard Sam's sound files of course but it would be nice to hear yours too. The same chanter in different people's hands always sound different don't you think? I have no wish to put you on the spot as it were. You may be a very experienced player so a tune would be great if you could manage the time. If you are far less experienced then even a scale would be grand.This is purely from an interest angle as C# is my favorite pitch with B nat' running a very close second.

Thanks, it is mounted with boxwood and german silver. The wood is Stained African Blackwood if you can believe it! I would love to turn this into a real full set, to me, this chanter is a chanter for life!

Here is my sound cloud. Don't expect much from me, I have only been playing for 14 months! I would advise listening to the latest recordings(The first four), the reed was in quite poor condition due to a piece of lint stuck between the reedlips in most of the recordings (The chanter was dull sounding, accompanied by an unstable Bottom D prone to Gurgling.). But you're free to pick what you want.

Hi Ennis chanter,
Thanks for the info' and sound clips. The chanter sounds well and you a player of only 14 months? Well personally I think you are doing very well indeed. Keep up the good work.
Mike

New (to me) old pipes - a Matt Kiernan C. Very pleased with it so far. So full of TONE!!!!





Cheers
A

selection of chanters by thorntonmusic, on Flickr

Left to right,
A boxwood, ebony, brass chanter with a fitted tenor drone in D.
A Honduras rosewood, boxwood, brass chanter in C.
A Honduras rosewood, imitation ivory, brass chanter in D.
An Argentinian Lignum Vitae, boxwood, brass chanter in D.
An ebony, imitation ivory, brass budget model in D.

All by me!

Tommy

Beautiful wood-pairings, Tommy -- the mounts look like boxwood, but what's the darker wood? I also like the old-school bass drone resonator. And is that a brass (or brass-sheathed) bass drone slider tenon, or is that a trick of the light?

Regards,
Mick

Yes Mick,
Boxwood and Honduras rosewood and brass.

I have some bass drone designs where I use a brass tube for that slider tenon. It's structurally very sound but you'd have to make some internal measurement adjustments if the set you were to copy has a wooden tenon.

Tommy

About six years ago, I was relentlessly pursuing the somewhat insane dream of getting my hands on a set of pipes. I was a music composition and trumpet performance major at the time, and was drooling over just about any new instrument I could get my hands on.

Unfortunately, my loving but naive parents decided to surprise me with a pakistani-made practice set. You know the drill...african blackwood, thin brass, and a hideous plastic reed about the size of a GHB practice chanter reed.

Sounded about like it, too...

Anywho, I diddled with the "set" for about four months, fighting all the way. I taped the hell out of the chanter holes as I'd seen for years in the Scottish Piping world (I'd played Tenor drum for ~6 years at that point), and resigned myself to the soundproofed practice rooms at my college. Even hit the bore with a drill press at one point, figuring "What could I possibly have to lose that I won't miss?"

Then, one fortuitous day, a young friend accidentally sat on it, breaking the chanter clean in half. No amount of super glue and zip ties could possibly resurrect that which already has 'no life', so that was that. It took a good six years to save the money necessary to finally place an order to Tommy Martin, who knocked this special request out of the park.

But first, before I toss up some eye candy...I finally found a use for the old stick.




On to happier days...




D in Turkish Boxwood with Ebony mounts and windcap, with fitted tenor drone. Sounds phenomenal, many thanks to Tommy and the gent pages upon pages (years) ago who posted a chanter by Eugene Lambe with this drone setup, which I quickly fell in love with.

That's unique, I've never seen an arrangement with the drone like that!


Nice fire picture, too.

Nice chanter, I'd like to see more pictures.
Any sound clips?

GLammers wrote: a chanter by Eugene Lambe with this drone setup, which I quickly fell in love with.

RORY

Yep, that was the one. If it ever comes up for sale again, PM me first

Sounds great so close to the rest of the chanter for mic'ing in a small setting.

No sound clips yet...I'll work on that.

GLammers, as satisfying as the death-by-fire might have been, surely you could have sold the thing to a McPub somewhere and recouped some of your parent's investment?

tommykleen wrote:GLammers, as satisfying as the death-by-fire might have been, surely you could have sold the thing to a McPub somewhere and recouped some of your parent's investment?

Have to say I'm with GLammers on this. Burn baby burn.