The recent discussion about what woods where used by the “classic” makers and when got me wondering: Is Robbie Hannan’s Kenna set (ca. 1800 I think?) Ebony (as it appears in the videos and photos I’ve seen, not lucky enough to exp. in person)? Or is it a fruitwood or Greenheart stained black/dark?
Secondary question: Is the chanter he uses on the Moll Rua/O’Farrell’s Welcome to Limerick set from “The Drones and the Chanters Vol. 2” the Kenna chanter or the Rogge that he’s currently playing?
That set is ebony. It also is believed to be Coyne by many folks, it certainly is very like Coyne on the ‘inside’ as well as outside.
Which recording of Moll Rua are you referring to? He was playing the “Kenna” chanter on his first, original album.
regards
Bill
Thanks Bill, So since it’s an ebony set, given the earlier discussion, do we know anything about the set’s lineage? Ie was it commissioned by someone who was capable of ponying up the dosh to have the maker be able to obtain ebony for the set when that wood was still more “upscale”?
I’d heard about the Coyne possibility. I figured I’d refer to it as Kenna since that’s what it’s been referred to commonly as well.
I’d meant the Drones and Chanters Vol. 2, forgot to type it in! Since
corrected.
Just as an aside, does anyone have information about the Legacy Kenna set that Ronan Browne has in his protection?
I have seen the Youtube video and the Myspace page, but I didn’t see anything about the key or what the four drones tune to.
It has a sort of ‘crackly’ piercing sound. That could just be the microphone, but it would be interesting to know more about it.
Mukade
Hay Mukade, I think that set sounds like it would be somewhere between D and C#. But to me it sounds closer to D (I could be wrong though). The idea of pitched bagpipes from what I’ve been told is a relatively recent thing; say in the last 100 years or so. The fourth drone I believe is tuned like it would be on a set of Scottish Smallpipes, a fifth above the tonic. So hence why the F# regulator note sounds to be a minor, as it’d make up a minor cord in a G tune.
Cheers L42B 
I sat 2 foot in front of him in Miltown at a table in the reed making portable. That set would be the furthest thing from “piercing,” which I’d associate with a fife, certain concert chanters, and/or some of the people who usually decided to sit at the “next table” in nearly every restaurant that I go out to in this town I live in!
Ah yes, I should have remembered.
Drones and Chanters v2 predates Robbie’ acquisition of the Rogge chanter, I think. Pretty sure it’s the Kenna. I mean “Kenna”. 
[*]
In any case, as a three-regulator B set, it would seem to qualify as “Grand Union Pipes” and thus what I privately think of as “Late Classic Period” pipes (or perhaps “Golden Era”, i.e. the apogee of pipemaking in the decade before the Famine). If Timothy Kenna did indeed have a hand in making it, it would have been IMO near the end of his career. I don’t think that the set can be traced back far enough to be helpful in the attribution - no idea who it was originally made for, for instance, nor when, other than physical characteristics.
Bill
[*] Robbie has always referred to this set as a Kenna, and it was indeed believed to be a Kenna when Robbie acquired it. As more information continues to come to light about the old sets, the balance of evidence shifts, as the chanter is not legibly stamped.
Ken McLeod made a comprehensive description of this James Kenna set, complete with photos, bore dimensions and a nice set of drawings by Wilbert Garvin, in his article “An Early Set of Irish Pipes, Circa 1780” in Volume 1 of the Sean Reid Society Journal (available from NPU).
McLeod describes three drones in D, with the fourth in A. From the recordings found here, I surmise the set is happiest a smidgen above concert pitch, roughly A=444.
It really sounds like that. I’d agree with your description, personally, but these things are subjective. Pretty near modern D as I recall - he played an impromptu duet with Sean McKiernan on the Patsy Touhey Taylor a few months ago in Drogheda - not a combination you hear every day!
regards
Bill
If we’re talking about the set in this clip, it’s one of the nicest balanced sets I’ve heard. The volume and tone of the regulators suits the chanter perfectly.
That’s the set, all right. Nice to have a clip of it available.
Bill
Thanks for the info Bill.
I love that James Kenna set. The “creamy tuning” clip on the myspace page in particular. What a sound!
I’ve always thought it was interesting that early ‘classic’ makers like Kenna (usually lauded as makers of flat pitch pipes) produced sets pitched in D, long before the ‘concert D’ pitch was supposedly developed by the Taylors for American vaudeville halls.
I’m not sure that the issue is pitch, but rather volume and tone. The Taylors’ (or whoever developed the wide bore concert pitch pipes) innovation seems more that they got more volume from the instrument to allow it to be heard in larger venues, such as concert halls, in the days before amplification. A little how the Dobro guitar got developed.
Interesting distinction. I based my comments on Ronan’s recording (which sounded loud-ish - to the extent that can be discerned on a recording) and hearing Joe Kennedy live playing his Kenna set which sounded to me like it had the volume of most modern concert D sets. (Admittedly, Joe plays his Kenna drones - regulator not working - with a reproduction chanter and perhaps the chanter is in no way close to the sound Kenna intended with the original chanter, although it goes well with the drones.)
Disclaimer: I could be talking waffle. Just taking a break while learning the difficult second passage of a new tune.
I’m not sure that the issue is pitch, but rather volume and tone.
There was a good amount of pitch changing involved in their innovations too in the sense that they made sets in the new concert pitch of A = 452 although there is at least one Taylor set out there that runs flat of that.
Kenna used the older pitch of A = 415 and even older A = 393ish.
By the way thats why those pipes are refered to as ‘flat sets’. Its because they are flat of modern Concert D or Concert C (later Kenna and Coyne only made pipes in D and C, the pitch changed so we have C# and B as a result)
so technically a chanter in C# or B would be a flat chanter and but D, C, and Bb wouldn’t be…
I wonder if the James Kenna set was made originally for a European customer. There are organs in parts of Germany from the time of Bach that are tuned to A = 435 and others as high as A = 480!!
I’d say the choir loved that!
Tommy
I think it’s worth pointing out that these ideas about the pitch of old sets are highly speculative, though plausible.
Basically nothing is known about what the old makers were thinking about when they pitched sets; no tuning forks from the old makers survive, no pitches were specified on any documentation associated with a particular maker or set (prior to 1900 anyhow). There were multiple, competing pitch standards in use throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, and even in the 20th century (although by then the range of pitches in common use had narrowed somewhat).
I do think that it is likely that the old sets were being consciously matched to some pitch, and doubt that it’s coincidence that Coyne sets most often seem to have been in what we call C# and B (i.e. two semitones apart - possibly nominally in “D” and “C” of the time). But this is inferred, not known.
There were at least two Kennas who made pipes, over a long historical period. Sadly another point making these ideas highly speculative is the extreme scarcity of surviving instruments. I don’t know of any other surviving Kenna chanters (ignoring those which have been so badly damaged that little can be inferred from them) in the pitch of Ronan’s “Legacy” set, though bodies survive (such as, probably, Joe Kennedy’s). I could count the number of privately held, working, mostly-unmolested Kenna chanters on the fingers of one hand - and that’s including work that spans over half a century. Only one that I know of plays in the pitch that could be called “A=415” (about modern C#). I know of two - maybe three - that play in modern C or thereabouts (which would corrsepond to the pitch of D at about A=393). What conclusions can safely be drawn on the basis of so few instruments?
By the way thats why those pipes are refered to as ‘flat sets’. Its because they are flat of modern Concert D or Concert C (later Kenna and Coyne only made pipes in D and C, the pitch changed so we have C# and B as a result)
so technically a chanter in C# or B would be a flat chanter and but D, C, and Bb wouldn’t be… >Tommy
Now Tommy, you’re just trying to confuse folks, there! 
best regards
Bill
Sorry Greg, but you are indeed “talking waffle”.
Joe’s Kenna set seemed to play at about Eb when he first got it going, and he made a chanter to match. It sounded nice, but he really wanted to play something in modern D. He spent some time and got it working very well at D, and I believe he may now be of the opinion that this is where it should sit.
The regulator is working quite well now, and was sometime last winter/spring when I played the set. He’s gone through three D chanters with that set, I believe. The first was pretty well wide bore, concert pitch, and I think that was used because the drones at the time (especially the bass) were quite robust.
He then made a narrow bore D made out of osage orange that sounded quite nice and felt nice and oily…
Next and last is a D chanter from some Taylor bore measurements, and I think it’s the nicest yet, and suits the rest of the set best too. It actually plays surprisingly like my B chanter, and is pretty sweet sounding. The regulator was fixed up and going sometime during the last two chanters. I only played it with the “taylor” chanter.
I think it’s worth pointing out that these ideas about the pitch of old sets are highly speculative, though plausible.
Yes these theories are based on a small amount of evidence which is a pity in itself.
But i can’t help thinking that these makers must have been working to some kind of standard, or standards.
Now Tommy, you’re just trying to confuse folks, there!
According to Dan Dowd it was a theory that ‘the old pipers had’ but that was Dan. He learned from pipers who in turn learned their music in the late 1800’s and some of those lads had the habit of calling chanters by their lenght rather than pitch anyway.
More confusion!
Tommy
Tommy this is whit I posted back in 2003..It provoked a bit o friendly banter and I think the general consensus was that nobody gave a rats aerse..
http://chiffboard.mati.ca/viewtopic.php?p=148961&highlight=#148961
Post Posted: Thu Sep 11, 2003 10:15 am Post subject: Piping Terminology
I was wondering why nobody has picked up on the incorrect terminology used on the Regulators and Drones..Commonly and wrongly called Bass Baritone and Tenor.
If we take the Regs.Bass 1st..the lowest note on this is the G(assuming it is in the concert pitch of D)which is in the same register as the G string on a fiddle,which is of course a treble instrument ,and not a Bass.It is also the 2nd string of a Viola which is an Alto instrument.the Correct term for the Bass Regulator is therefore Alto Regulator
The so called Baritone and Tenor Regs should be correctly called Trebles.The Chanter is a Treble instrument and the middle register of the Violin(treble)both regulators cover the 1st register of the chanter so they are Trebles.
On to the drones.Bass.Baritone.Tenor-wrong again..as one octave seperates each pipe it should be Bass-Tenor -Treble.
Confused?? So are these…
Leo Rowsome in his Tutor terms
Drones.Bass.-Middle-Tenor
Regs Bass-Tenor-Treble(ist mention of treble)
Clarke Tutor,Armagh Tutor and Vallelys Companion to Irish Music all use the following
Drones Bass-Baritone(1st mention of Baritone)-Tenor
Regs Bass -Baritone-Tenor
Clearly a difference betwixt Rowesome and the rest!!
It would be more correct to use the term Big Middle and Small on regulators and drones rather than the incorrect and confusing Baritone et al.
The terminology between flat and concert pitch sets also seems to be blurred.
Modern Concert Pitch(post pianoforte) is in D. C and Bb ,C and Bb are also concert pitch,although a lot of pipers erroneously think of C and Bb as flat sets.
Baroque Pitch(pre pianoforte) is C#(the D of its day) and B which are correctly termed flat sets,because they are flat of modern concert pitch.DCand Bb are not.
I hope this clears up any confusion ye may have had.