Chiff and Fipple Forums

I've seen some decent enough HK chanters - like several makers who have been around for a long time, the early work isn't necessarily representative of later work, so blanket dismissals (or endorsements) need to be taken with a pinch of salt. They should be capable of playing in tune at least. I am ...

Good day. I'm an intermediate Uilleann piper (ok, beginning to be intermediate) after about 5 years of instruction/practice and I play a half set. I've been wondering when I should add regulators to the mix. I've asked this on The Session and got several replies: 1. As soon as possible. The sooner ...

Also most airs are hard to play well, despite the slower pace; I feel like I hear airs ruined more often than other types of tune (including by myself). A couple of them seem notably difficult...the Willie Clancy "Dark Lochnagar" springs to mind as it's easy to degenerate into noodling abo...

I find reels a bit tougher than jigs generally in the sense it seems harder (for me) to get any rhythmic 'lift' into the playing. Do members have other pieces that they find especially tricky? I don't know about the Bucks, but I find my attempts to play the Liam Walsh setting of the New Demesne soun...

I posted the Ferguson Egan above, the one with drone ends stuck on regulators etc on Thu Sep 16, 2021 3:46 am. The other Egan I posted is in the boston museum. Sorry, yes I see that now. The misassembly (if that's a word) confused me there. I think this shows off the reason these 'improvements' nev...

https://www.nms.ac.uk/explore-our-colle ... ipe/366991

Here's how Michael Egan did the extended reg thing (assuming these are the Egan pipes mentioned as belonging to Charles Ferguson on Nick Whitmer's wonderful Lives of the Pipers site)

Mr.Gumby wrote: ↑Sun Sep 19, 2021 2:52 am Chanter length for the Vandeleur Moloney is 460mm

So, another "18 [inch] Moloney" in that case, similar to the Ward / Gildas chanter now played by David Power?

http://pipers.ie/source/media/?galleryI ... iaId=26894

Another mechanically interesting set of pipes, the O'Hannigan Coyne. Seems a bit neater than the Colgan / Moloney type trombone arrangements

(I believe it has no drones or something like that, that's my memory of it anyway). I recall reading about this thing as well, I think it had neither drones nor chanter and was used in a church somewhere. but even accounting for the quality of recording, a lot of the early stuff seems to me to be a...

I can't help but think when looking at those big sets what the player's motivation could have been when they commissioned their instrument I stand by my description of them as a "piece of showmanship", certainly if ordered by a professional musician - useful as an advertising tool but les...

As for other 'nonstandard regs' Tom Kannmacher has done a bit of stuff featuring an "E" regulator setup. https://youtu.be/ye8e20etrtg I'm not sure that the contrabass regulator is the most pleasant sounding thing ever, even if they do add a great touch of visual showmanship (if I'd been pl...

ennischanter wrote: ↑Sun Sep 12, 2021 1:07 pm https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jfPp9950tfE

Good find, I'd been trying to remember the name of that Froment set's owner (Guilloux). Which has now led me to this

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=UAeEgt2_lrY

https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rja14/music/index.html

Have a listen to the Richard O'Mealy recordings on this page, plenty of low-end honking on those (O'Mealy's reg style is very unlike that of most modern day players)

Try dropping Childress and Gallen a line and see what they say, particularly about reeding for your climate, delivery times, what distinguishes their 'student' model from other instruments etc. Getting something from Ebay is always tempting but as a beginner, I wouldn't necessarily recommend it unle...

I think there's a few things going on - - A few new makers came into the business after the 1990s increase in awareness in piping (combination of the internet and the R*verdance effect). Many of these will since I guess have found it a harder trade than they had anticipated, plus materials costs hav...