Matt Kiernan - I was told - invented the “shuttle drone”. Does anybody by chance have a pic of a Kiernan shuttle drone?
Id say the French were at it a long time before that.
Never hear of or seen a Kiernan shuttle drone.
Maybe your thinking of Sofierne/ Dave Evans pipes?
I recall someone mentioning they made shuttle uilleann drones at some point.
I used to have a barrell style drone set made by Bayley.
Earliest illustration I know of for a shuttle drone is Praetorius in Syntagma Musicum c1620 where he describes it and says it emanates from France. The principle of putting several bores through a single piece of wood to give a low pitch within a shorter length was already well established in renaissance woodwind e.g. the Rackett and also included a rather interesting bagpipe The Phagotum of Canon Affrani c1536
Mersenne in Harmonie Universal 1637 shows the Musette with its shuttle drone. He also illustrates the Cornemuse de Poitiou which appears to use a triple bored section in the bass drone to reduce its length
First maker I am aware of to apply the shuttle drone principle to the Union Pipe is Malcolm MacGregor, London c1810-25 using both the shuttle style of tuning or more commonly with slides coming out of the end of the barrel unit. He also included regulators in the unit the most common arrangement being tenor with four keys and Baritone with a single D key with a long touchpiece so it could be played with the lower three notes of the Tenor to give simple chords. In addition to these he also made a number of double chanters including at least one example where one bore was the chanter and the other a regulator. He also used a triple bored barrel section some of his bass drones a tradition carried on by Robert Reid on a few sets and later by the Taylor Brothers.
Have never seen or heard of Matt Kiernan making a shuttle or barrel drone although he may have repaired /reeded them. There was an article several years back on one being brought back to working order in the NPU Journal by (if I remember correctly) Eugene Lambe
The late John Addison used the principle on a Bass (low G) set of NSP’s
Modern makers to make UP sets with shuttle or barrel drone units include Richard Evans, Mike Hulme and myself
Chris
Oh, sorry, confusing words: It is not “barrel drones” but a tenor drone attached to the chanter with a special cap. Many years ago I was at Eugene Lambe´s (in Fanore) and he showed me one and I played it: Cute little thing.
Thanks for the exhaustive reply, Chris. I’ve played a MacGregor “chanterator” - not a bad idea. For the curious, it’s just like playing a normal chanter, but when you press most of the keys you get a regulator note sounded by the other bore/reed. Works but requires some devilish angles in the bores, to put the keys in the correct positions and be connected with the regulator bore. MacGregor for some reason put the lowest fingerhole way out of line with the others, too; also fitted a big ivory endcap over the bottom of the chanter, so you have to play it open or off-the-knee, unless you just take the ivory off, stick some cork into the bottom of the regulator bore and play it in Union pipe fashion. What a nut. Was telling a friend about some of the weird improvements people have come up with for pipes, usually by makers who built normal sets most of the time; Mac’s stuff by contrast was almost always unconventional.
The Lambe windcap drone thing I always figured was just him taking a cue from French pipes - you see that a lot with your cornemuse etc. Might be handy for tuning; you could play a practice set and have the tenor drone on tap without having to put on the full set of pipes. Although what I do is to have a rubber wine cork stuck into the mainstock cup; the cork is bored out to accept the tenor drone. Voila, instant adjustable pitch pipe, for tuning reeds. You simply block off the exit of the drone to shut it off. I use a smaller pipe bag for this, also. My full set pipe bags are pretty huge.
I have seen a few of those made by Ginzberg/Kwisthout too.
Sorry again. That is what I meant. Thanks, Mr. Gumby!
It’s a very simple set-up. Mind you, you need to insert tubing through the chanter head to separate the feed of chanter and little drone to cut out interference between the vibrating reeds.
RORY
Nice. That a Ginsberg chantadrone, Rory?
Theres a good chance that it is ,but I couldn’t be sure. I saved the photo a few years ago from the net but can’t remember from what site
RORY
I have that photo on my saved photos file. I believe I found it here. I’ll try to find out.
Im sure it was a Ginsberg C that changed hands not too long ago on here.
Yes dunnp,
I bought it from Jim Harrison
The chanter is a Ginsberg C, the side drone by Eugene Lambe, according to Jim.
link to FS thread:
https://forums.chiffandfipple.com/t/fs-b-and-c-chanters/78145/1
It sounds quite sweet, if a little quiet.
The chanter reed didn’t like the aussie summer.
I am currently attempting to make a new one.
Andy had a Matt Kiernan B flat chanter which he loaned to me for many years. It had a
lump of white plastic at the top of the head, into which Andy had had a tenor drone fitted
- he eschewed full sets but liked a drone from time to time! Ingeniously, it was fed air by
a rubber tube which ran down into the chanter head and through the brass tube into the
bag thus providing it with the separate air supply necessary! Soon after I returned the
chanter we were upstairs in his rooms. I asked how the chanter was going for him and he
answered that it was playing beautifully. “With the same reed?” I asked. “Oh no,”
answered Andy, and proceeded to show me the chanter with no head, no reed and the
bottom D closed with sticky tape. It turned out that he would blow directly into the top
of the chanter and play away for hours at a time, often lying back in the bed. Any other
piper would be puffed trying that but as Andy’s music consisted of triplets, quads, quins
and dodeca-duplets with the odd short note, a breath lasted a lot longer! He also said it
was perfect as Mrs. Kelly’s sister Nancy wouldn’t be disturbed by the sound of piping!