Width of Regulator keys - important?

[Kevin L. Rietmann]

Cillian O'Briain has this notion that wide regulator keys are somehow easier to strike, you don't have to be so "accurate," and many modern makers since Lambe or Johnny Burke like these mile wide cast keys that look like the little thought balloons in cartoons if you ask me. Pretty grotesque. Leo Rowsome and Johnny Doran just had Egan type keys to play, wide but not ridiculously so, and they played more regulators than any of us, so why this width fixation, do you think it matters? And Seamus Ennis, to name one, did a great job with the merely narrow keys of his set.
I find the D set easier to get around on than the Bb, the keyboard isin't so long; but I can manage fine with the Bb anyway. My feeling is that whatever set you have, you simply have to get used to it. Some would have that the flat pipes are best for airs, the concert for dance music, for these and other reasons. Any thoughts on this?

[djm]

Kevin, I thought it was the Taylor Bros. that came up with the wide flat reg keys originally (I call them tongue depressors). I have read that, with Cillian's improvements to the mounting mechanisms, his reg keys are easily played sliding in either direction. I have heard that Gay McKeown has this design and is well pleased with it.

For myself, my reg keys are very narrow - 3/8" - per my request, but I can only slide up, due to the angle the keys are at (so they can be pressed down, each over the key above).

I like the liveliness of a D set, so I can well understand how people would gravitate to the idea that they are ideal for dance music. Certainly the key of D is more friendly to other instruments for ensemble playing (oo, did I mention that terrible sin?). The calmer sound of a flat set may appeal to some for airs, but they certainly aren't shy for dance music either. One just has to listen to Pat Mitchell flying on his B set to know that.

djm

[Cayden]

One just has to listen to Pat Mitchell flying on his B set to know that.

djm

Taking the risk of giving the impression I a picking on you this week, I would suggest anyone listening to Pat Mitchell would instantly realise he is playing a C set.

[djm]

Peter, I am playing along with Mitchell on my B whistle. His set is only about a half-cent higher. Perhaps he is flat of C, or this old recording causes his pitch to drop (?).

djm

[AlanB]

I thought it was the Taylor Bros. that came up with the wide flat reg keys originally (I call them tongue depressors). I have read that, with Cillian's improvements to the mounting mechanisms, his reg keys are easily played sliding in either direction. I have heard that Gay McKeown has this design and is well pleased with it.



djm

I have played 2 or 3 sets of Cillians regs. They are astoundingly well made, and highly durable, and functionally highly pleasing (not to mention stable and in tune). The only reason I haven't got Cillian regs., is because they haven't arrived yet

Pretty grotesque?? Hmmmph

Alan

[Lorenzo]

I was over eating dinner at some friends place the other day, and someone finally asked...why are you staring at the silverware? The shape of the end of the handles looked almost identical to some of those reg handles like I've seen:

What two pipers play the regs exactly the same? Some like wider ones so that when they play with the fingers, the fingers don't slide off the edge. tok says he uses his left thumb to reach over for an occasional key. Some use the wrist...sliding up or down, some use the heel (and side) of the palm, some bend certain keys higher to be able to hit a single lower key individually (like D on middle reg).

I think that's why preferences differ so widely. B. Koehler said he prefered the smooth rounded Quinn type keys rather than those with decorative edges.

[Cayden]

Peter, I am playing along with Mitchell on my B whistle. His set is only about a half-cent higher. Perhaps he is flat of C, or this old recording causes his pitch to drop (?).

djm

I have played with him and he's pretty much in C, must be the recording.
That aside and really what I was getting at, there's a good bit of tonal difference between C and B chanters, you'd spot that. In fact Pat's Matt Kiernan chanter is sort of raucous sounding, D.Quinn modelled his C chanter, a midbore C I think he called it, on the sound of Pat's piping. Or so he told me [after I slagged him a bit, asking why you'd want a wider bore C to start with, just a bit of Willie week banter]

[djm]

Peter, the copy I have of Pat's playing is a tape copy of a copy of a copy ... etc. It is too poor quality to pick up tonal properties. When I transferred the tape to CD I had to add about 25 dB just to hear it at all. Pat's LP was recorded sometime before 1981. What's wrong with NPU that they don't bring it back?

Lorenzo, your staring at the neighbours silverware should make them afraid ... very afraid. According to Geoff Wooff, that's exactly where old pipemakers got the nickel-silver for their keys - by beating out old silverware, and yes, that's why the old style reg keys look like spoon handles.

djm

[Lorenzo]

Well then! I have the hard part figured out! Now for some silver solder.

[Kevin L. Rietmann]

Pat Mitchell's LP was originally released by Topic records. I think Ossian rereleased it on cassette. I thought it was D when I first heard it, around and round it goes. The tone of that chanter is pretty brash.
I don't like the mile wide regulator keys myself, they look rather out of proportion to the size of the instrument itself. But "A rose is red, except when it is white." Cillian's pipes look like bottle openers! Maybe we'll be used to them in a hundred years. The Taylors had an original design, what Cillian makes is his own, it's actually a good deal different than how they made keys. I was referring to all the pipes with very wide keys - Bourke, Lambe, Spillane, like that.
Many people have strong opinions about what pipes should look, sound, play like. Right? Others seem blind to any of the above, including some pipemakers...

[Patrick D'Arcy]

I have a Lambe D set and a Wooff B set. The Lambe has the wide key's and the Wooff has the narrow keys. One is as difficult as the other to play... the B set is better set up, at a better angle and suited to my physique better than the little D set... I think what I'm trying to say is... the difference has a lot to do with aesthetics, the look of the things.

PD.

[djm]

Pat, that's just how it looks on the outside.

djm

[eskin]

My Childress B set has sort of mid-sized regulator keys, I think the length of one's arms and torso has more to do with playing comfort than anything else... I can just barely make the bottom D pair even with a strap and body english...

Haven't found a supplement yet that would add length to my arms... now there's some spam I'd actually read...

[tommykleen]

I like the flat reg keys. Taylor and Taylor-style sets have a certain rugged, blocky, arts-n-crafts (transitioning to deco) feel to them that is pleasing to my mind. I do not have a set like this, mind you. But I'd like to...mmmmmmmboy! Anyone displeased with the aesthetics of their Taylor set(s) can deliver it (them) directly to me, thank you very much.

My own set has the tear-drop keys a la Rogge. I like the roundiness that he puts on his version of the teardrop shape. Takes me back to my days of clarinet playing it does.

t

[boyd]

I have a Lambe D set and a Wooff B set. The Lambe has the wide key's and the Wooff has the narrow keys. One is as difficult as the other to play... the B set is better set up, at a better angle and suited to my physique better than the little D set... I think what I'm trying to say is... the difference has a lot to do with aesthetics, the look of the things.

PD.

.... would that be the chiselled Adonis look, or more the ten pints and a curry type of physique, then?


Boyd
[really only built for a D set, therefore]