Chiff and Fipple Forums

Though in the case of things like the Vandeleur set (which, to be fair, is one of my favourite historic instruments) it might be more to do with rich dilettantes being talked into buying the biggest set of optional add-ons available.

Not sure the Vandeleur family was talked into anything but the set ruined the Moloneys when the Vandeleurs refused to take it off them anmd nobody else could afford to pay them for the work.

Mr.Gumby wrote: ↑Fri Sep 17, 2021 9:35 am
If you listen to his 78rpm recordings though, the only note he uses on that expanse of keywork is the low G which he hits at the end of each part, each time all the time. Plop. Almost hypnotic in its repetitiveness. Perhaps 'it's a great conversation piece' (is that a Monty Python quote?) applies to these things?

Does anyone else ever find some of the old greats lacking a bit of, I suppose, musicality? They are no doubt better pipers than I’ll ever be and I get that they were showmen playing to the cheap seats, but even accounting for the quality of recording, a lot of the early stuff seems to me to be a bit robotically fast, and not terribly expressive.

It may be that our modern expectations of phrasing have diverged from those of the past, and it’s clear that they were capable of playing any way they liked, so it’s not a skill question, but more of taste and how it changes.

(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 bit robotically fast, and not terribly expressive

I think the recording medium isn't particularly kind to the pipes; all you hear is the chanter with most of the sound attenuated, occasionally a snatch of drones in the background. Given the way piping seems to have been taught in the past directly from player to player largely without formalised / written methods, I find it very difficult to imagine that the expressive techniques we hear now weren't used in the 18th or 19th centuries

Does anyone else ever find some of the old greats lacking a bit of, I suppose, musicality?

Not sure we should equate old with great. Some of the old players who were recorded were downright awful and some of the really great ones never were (commercially) recorded. Not a lot has changed, perhaps.

Mr.Gumby wrote: ↑Fri Sep 17, 2021 4:24 pm

Does anyone else ever find some of the old greats lacking a bit of, I suppose, musicality?

Not sure we should equate old with great. Some of the old players who were recorded were downright awful and some of the really great ones never were (commercially) recorded. Not a lot has changed, perhaps.

A very fair point! But to compare like for like, I can’t think of any old recording I’ve heard that has the nuance of phrasing or expression of say, Liam O’Flynn. Even for dance music, being faster and less tolerant to varying the tempo, I feel like one gets more complexity from, let’s say post war, top notch pipers than what we have recorded from the early 1900s.

And I have no doubt that pipers of the same skill lived and played back then and would have influenced the style (even if they didn’t record). That’s why I wonder if the taste has shifted.

Though no doubt the appeal of watching a piper show off pure speed and dexterity has always existed. Such things are fun to listen to… once.

Ofcourse tastes have changed, styles have changed. But Dinny Delaney, Mici 'Cumba', Martin Reilly, whatever little glimpses of their playing we have, should give an indication of what was out there in skill and complexity.

It is very hard to build a coherent picture of what was out there based on the few surviving fragments.

Perhaps Touhey is a case in point. When I was learning only the few commercial sides he recorded on 78 rpm and a few cylinders that were available, mostly Henebry's and a few that escaped from Busby's basement, helped us build a certain image of his playing. But as the Busby collection became fully available and later the O'Neil cylinders a far wider view emerged and it became clear the scope of his style and repertoire was much broader than the picture we had formed earlier. Some of it really surprised me. We rely on an incomplete view, built on the few fragments we have, what was handed down through the playing of others and stories and reputations that came down. But we can never know or even remote grasp what, say, Garret Barry sounded like. I dare say though, his playing may have surprised us.

RLines wrote: ↑Sun Sep 12, 2021 12:55 am I’ve yet to find a way to play the set with the contrabass attached that doesn’t obstruct the playing the other three regs in some way.

Didn't O Mealy make 3-reg sets with contrabass? He left off the small reg IIRC.

I did that when I got an E reg, I put it in place of the small reg, which I hadn't been using much anyway.

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

myles wrote: ↑Sat Sep 18, 2021 5:46 am 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

Another set from from the museum. NPU has a similar Coyne that Geoff restored, went on loan to Nollaig MacCartaigh for a while. I played that a good bit when work was ongoing, I have pics of it but have not scanned them.

I do have this one but the extention was taken off there. Geoff and Nollaig at the offical presentation of the restored instrument (the work was grant aided so all official business with speeches and a representative of the body that provided funds, you can probably look it up in the Piobaire, with pics):



Note it also has an outboard feed with nothing connected. Likely for a now vanished e reg.


While at it, here is one of Dickie with his Wooff (and you can see he's actually using the low D on the bass extention in the G chord he is playing:

The Vandaleur set is in which pitch - Bnat, Bb, etc.?

Chanter length for the Vandeleur Moloney is 460mm

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?

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)

myles wrote: ↑Sun Sep 19, 2021 6:57 am 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)

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.

Mr.Gumby wrote: ↑Sun Sep 19, 2021 7:02 am 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' never really caught on - it's a lot of extra weight for the sake of a couple of extra notes (particularly as your bass drone is sounding a low D anyway)