Narrow bore chanters

[Uilliam]

Royce in his own colourful way has a point and ye seem to have missed it!He is not saying that concert pitch is the traditional pitch per se but is the norm for a lot of pipers these days and rather than go for a "narrow bore D" then get a flat pitch.(incidentally C or Bb is not strictly speaking flat{Baroque }pitch so that leaves ye C# or B although C and Bb have been accepted into the flat pipe world)So that leaves ye with quite a big choice.Do ye want to be a solo player or do ye want to be a groupie in sessions?or put another way do ye want to be a flat set or concert set player?Of course there is nothing to stop ye getting a narrow bore chanter but ye wont be taking it to sessions so ye would have to buy a concert pitch anyway!If its a question of neighbours then a compromise should be saught with them,practice from 7pm to 8pm say,or maybe ye could use a hall or if the weather is fine find an open space somewhere.If there is a pipers club or piper near ye then ye could get lessons there and practice too!! 1/2 fiddles etc are a complete red herring..there is no such thing as a practice or student chanter(despite the claims of some pipmakers)a chanter wether keyed or not is quite simply a CHANTER! so ye are not going to graduate from anything! There is a lot more in Royces' post than ye are giving credit for(well actually ye are giving no credit at all!)So maybe ye should read it again,he has a view and I tend overall to agree with him,but in maybe slightly less prosaic language!
Slan Go Foill
Uilliam

[AlanB]

I go with Royce, particularly with the 'shrinking violet'. Narrowbore D is not a chance to sound like a 'flat piper with friends', they are just quieter, less resonant, less expressive than Concert Pitch Wide Bores, and not easy to reed either. I can't say I've ever come across a narrow bore D in a session, so I guess it's not a common solution

The ones I've come across have been fine in as much as they play in tune and have UP characteristics.

What astounds me is that UPipers go and divide their camp with a 'Flat Pipes are intellectual and Concert Pitch is insensitive, uncouth'. Pipes in general, in the wrong hands, just sound sh*t whatever.

[Harry]

What astounds me is that UPipers go and divide their camp with a 'Flat Pipes are intellectual and Concert Pitch is insensitive, uncouth'.

I'm not sure that we all do. At their best though both schools sound nicely different ,I'd like to think that some of us still celebrate that difference.

I have to admit that I haven't played a narrow bore beast in D yet that has made me dribble, and the ones that I have heard/ tried did seem to offer less tonal colour to the player than wider bored yokes. I can still see uses though for the learner who wishes to practice discreetly although I'm not convinced that the ones that I've tried would be the best instrument to learn solely on.

At any rate I think that the 'narrow bore D age' is/ has(?) been an interesting experiment. Medium or medium-ish bores are a different teapot of eels altogether of course (narrower, narrowish and narrowist being the new technical terms for what I assume we are talking about here )

Regards,

Harry.

[Royce]

Nice diatribe, Royce, but you've got it bass-ackwards. What we call "narrow bore" and "flat sets" today are what was the original or "norm" for UP design until the late 19th - early 20th century when the wide bore was first developed. I'm sure the history of the UPs has been hashed over enough times here about various tunings, etc. but to claim that concert D/wide bores are the only correct form of UPs is dead wrong. Sorry, but going for the smoother sounds of narrow bore is actually getting back to the original nature of these beasties, and certainly should still be considered a valid option today.

djm

You need to work on the encode-decode problem there laddie. I've not got it wrong at all. The wide bore D is not only the "correct" or "normal" or "real" form of the D uilleann chanter/pipes, it's the only one. There is and never has been historically, any other D, there is only wide bore. You're just disagreeing with yourself if you contend otherwise. And contrary to any contention read here, a so-called "narrow bore D" is not going back to any sound ever heard ever. It's not a good "flat" sound in the least. It's not "flat sounding" at all. It's just lame "concert D" sounding. it sounds like a badly reeded, badly set up, and usually poorly played wide bore wannabe. It does not in any way sound like a "flat set."

A narrow bore being thought of as pitched in C, B, Bb, is pretty much a recent convention as well, because they aren't really in any of those "keys" they just call their D a D at a lower frequency. Even the C# sets are probably best thought of as wide-bore because they went up that high not entirely to match a pitch but mainly to get more volume or a brighter tone or whatever elusive quality that particular maker was experimenting with on that chanter, the pitch rose as a side-effect of opening up the bore a bit.

I suppose it was the Rowsome/Taylor shops that first conscienciously said to themselves, "Let's match the pitch of the box and piano." And coupled that deliberately with increased volume and projection. When "concert pitch" was adopted in this manner, meaning A=440 or more precisely, 4=442, because that's closer to what the Italian boxes were playing at and still do from what I've measured personally locally, the union of the wider bore and higher pitch only then became the "original concert D" pipes.

Nobody ever ever played "narrow bore" D sets, in the sense of universal pitch standard. Everybody's D was D, it was just a helluva lot flatter than concert pitch. In fact, if you go back to the presumed "pastoral" or "new" bagpipe, just judging by the length of the chanter, bottom D was probably an A or close to it by modern standards, like border or smallpipes. A was and is "God's own key" in the Scottish traditions anyway. But until the need to fit into Irish Traditional music along with fiddlers, and particularly set-pitch players like box players, no real D-based on A=440-442 pipes existed, narrow or otherwise. Now, in my humble and respectful opinion, there's no practical reason to invent a narrow bore D at this late stage of the game. It's back-engineering a new invention, not returning to any standard or tradition that ever existed.

If you're playing a long, narrow bored chanter/pipes your D is still D. If it makes you feel better you can call it by whatever name modern orchestral instruments would call the nearest frequency to which it falls. But it's still a D. My D doesn't have to be the same as yours. Who decided that eh? There's something wrong with your head if it be thinking otherwise. You don't be thinking like a piper.

I keep hearing about all these Eb sessions in Ireland. There aren't any. There may be sessions where D is a half tone higher than our modern conventional frequency assignments decree, but D is still D in a so-called Eb session. It's just not the same pitch as Yanni's D. It's the same as Yanni's Eb. If Yanni wants to bring his Korg, well, he can either use global retune and make his D tune to the session, or, because of his perverted musical conventionalism, he can just move up a half step and play in Eb. Yanni feels better because he doesn't have to change his mindset as long as he keeps his mouth shut, and doesn't say something like, "Let's go back to measure 17 where the pipes come in on the Bb"--because, I'm not coming in on a Bb, I'm playing an A. And not even an A#, which I find clearer and a far more expressive a key than Bb....

So back to Taylor/Rowsome wide bore's: that's the only D chanter design that ever existed in history that actually played at or near "concert" pitch.

Having said all this, nobody ever in 1842 sat down with a big long, narrow chanter and said, "This is too loud." No piper or maker has ever deliberately scratched head and thought seriously about how to give their pipes less projection and clarity. No, even in the old days the only question was how to be heard, and heard cleanly, brightly, tunefully and reliably. But never, heard lessly. That's almost the definitive quality of any bagpipes. Not even Northumberland pipers blip and peep around wondering amongst themselves how not to be heard so much, and they've got one of only a very few bagpipes that really are pretty quiet.

Indeed, I overheard two Northumberland pipers telling a wire-strung harpist to "quit hammering away on that blaring nuisance" at a session the other day because, between that and the fizzing the Guinnes was making at the head of the pints you couldn't hear the Northumberland pipers.

And there's a load of piping misfits for you: Northumberland pipers. They're now of course, making a lot of microscopically drilled true concert G sets I hear, and I know some pipers are playing D sets at concert pitch, but they're traditionally somewhere around F plus, often thought of as around F#: Just try to work that into an Irish session. I suppose, if you did think of it as F, you could play in "C" and "F" along with guitar and piano and C boxes and that ilk, but you'd be at least 25 or more cents sharp of "concert" pitch even at that, and probably closer to 50 cents sharp of F or C etc.

Which has never bothered Highland pipers, who play A=476+ these days, and the best you can do is think of A as Bb and add 30-40 cents to it correction to really be tuned. If it got a bit higher you could play in B I suppose, but nobody's working on that right now, and they're making concert A chanters for those who have to play with fiddles etc., as has become so popular with the kids nowadays. I remember when I did that with a full pipe band, a drum kit, bass and electric/acoustic guitars in the late 70's early 80's and all I got was, "Why do you have to play that Irish sh*t?"

But I digress.

When the wide uilleann bores came out and the pitch of a "true" D chanter was set, this notion of trying to make the pipes (whichever pipes you care to talk about, as they almost all had a previously independent musical tradition that needed adaptation) fit into more popular, mainstream, academically-designed instruments was again the driving force for said developments. The only point of going up to "concert" pitch was to play with and against the boxes and pianos and over the crowds of the pubs and music and dance halls the pipes were now encountering.

If you don't want or need to play in D, if you don't like the modern wide bore D sound, don't buy or play *any* pipes in D. The sound you're looking for is somewhere between C/C# and Bb or so. The sound and feel you're looking for is about 17-18" long, has little baby holes and a reed that behaves almost entirely differently from a concert D wide bore. It isn't a different version of the same instrument, it's more like a different instrument. If you want that sound, learn that chanter. Don't castrate a D wide bore designed to sing over the Hohners and to musically humble fiddle-sawing hacks with one pop. Just buy the real thing you want in the first place, whichever real thing you actually want.

Choosing between wide bore and narrow bore D is ridiculous. There is no narrow bore D. It has not existed and should not exist. How is it then I keep hearing these wistfull shopping-trip ponderings as if choosing the color or your toenail polish? They aren't even the same instrument, any more than an English horn is the same as a bassoon just because they both have reeds, or even double reeds. Or because you blow into them. It's the most naive, sub-comprehensive debate I've ever suffered repeatedly until I have the urge to either kill or take my own life just to relieve the pain.

You're sitting there in your novicial mindlessness wondering, hmm, I think I'll be either a brain surgeon or maybe a bus mechanic....

So again, I don't have it backwards. The so-called "narrow-bore D" is a basmati runt of an abomination that generations of makers and pipers deliberately refused to invent. It not only wasn't developed, it wasn't even considered for a couple of hundred years of masterful pipes and players. And now suddenly we have this perverted little mongrel being debated nearly every time somebody wants to start playing pipes. Why?

I just don't get it.

Royce

(And I mean this in a loving and supportive way.)

[djm]

Nobody ever ever played "narrow bore" D sets, they didn't exist. In my opinion they shouldn't, but as I say, it's back-engineering a new invention, not returning to any standard or tradition that ever existed.

Sorry, dude, you're way off the mark here. There are existing older sets that go from what we today call a Bb right up to an Eb/E. They were all built long before wide bore D came along. There were many different tuning standards in the past, including A=439Hz up to 453Hz. Many of the older sets are noted to NOT quite meet any pitch standard, leading to various comments that many pipemakers in the 18th-19th centuries were winging it, getting the set to sound in tune to itself. Since there was no concept of playing with other instruments, there was no pressure to meet any tuning standards. That kind of requirement really only came in with the early 20th century, along with the need for greater volume to be heard in "concert" settings.

I agree with you fully that the wide bore D tuned to A=440Hz is the only worthwhile option if one wants to play in sessions with other instruments, but there is no need to put others off of a narrow bore if they think it will meet their personal requirements, and that really is my only point.

djm

[Tony]

....I just don't get it.

Royce

Really Royce... You don't have to 'get it'
Since it's such a mongrel instrument why are Wooff, Angus, Kennedy, Boisvert, Sloan, Rogge and Hubbert making them?

[No E]

....I just don't get it.

Royce

Really Royce... You don't have to 'get it'
Since it's such a mongrel instrument why are Wooff, Angus, Kennedy, Boisvert, Sloan, Rogge and Hubbert making them?

Same reason Britney Spears sells records... there's a demand.

No E

[biliii]

...

[Cayden]

There is and never has been historically, any other D, there is only wide bore.

I have seen and played several chanters by the older Kenna that were pitched in D and Eflat (in todays pitch)that were no wide bore chanters, they were the very first form of union chanters. Robert Reid made d chanters that were no wide bore chanters.

Get your history straight my man.

[Royce]

....I just don't get it.

Royce

Really Royce... You don't have to 'get it'
Since it's such a mongrel instrument why are Wooff, Angus, Kennedy, Boisvert, Sloan, Rogge and Hubbert making them?

Because a fairly large number of perpetually-self-condemned simpering non-uilleann pipers who really don't want to be heard or be a part of the music at all, apparently think it's an acceptable alternative to learning the uilleann pipes.

They'll make you a bombard as well I suppose. That's not uilleann pipes either.

Royce

[djm]

What about a cornemuse?

djm

[Royce]

There is and never has been historically, any other D, there is only wide bore.

I have seen and played several chanters by the older Kenna that were pitched in D and Eflat (in todays pitch)that were no wide bore chanters, they were the very first form of union chanters. Robert Reid made d chanters that were no wide bore chanters.

Get your history straight my man.

You've hear "of" them, not them. They existed for about five minutes in terms of the history of the instrument, if you want to count that as part of a tradition. The narrow bore failed at that pitch for both technical and social reasons. You couldn't hear them for one thing. What you did hear wasn't all that worth listening to, especially compared to the longer, flatter sets. You don't have to conjecture, because you can still compare a narrow-bore D with a wide bore D and both with true flat sets right this very second. When you squeeze the scale of a narrow bore up just a half step or so more to hit a true, modern D, what you've got is a chanter that sounds something like a muffled concert wide bore.

The very fact that you volunteer this "history" only proves my point. You've got a couple of attempts at the very very beginning of the instrument that did not, (and you can't debate this) survive to be played and perpetuated even to a statistically measurable degree. On the other hand, we have a broad and rich history of all other chanters in a host of flatter pitches, and of course the wide bores in real concert D, all of which have been preserved, played, developed, advanced, perfected, preserved, and revered right up to the present time.

All you're telling me is Kenna and Reid were the first to learn that a true D narrow bore was a mistake and a failure. If you want to contend otherwise, please show me the dozens and dozens sold, played, preserved and being played today--or for longer than a few minutes in their entire history. You can't show me these, because, as I said, those pipers and those makers deliberately dropped the entire notion as a failure and a bad idea in the first place. You've shown me two makers at the dawn of ancient history who gave it a crack and knowingly dropped the whole attempt. You haven't shown me anyone else who picked up the ball and ran with it. The entire combined mass of everyone who followed knowingly and intelligently refused to even bother with the concept.

These pioneers and their prefunctory first experiments aren't any more testimonials to the validity of the narrow bore D than any of the hundreds and hundreds of other freak and unplayable chanters that have passed into obscurity by those and others who followed, now deemed "great" makers. They all went on to make real chanters in real pitches based on real reed and bore designs that actually worked and sounded good.

They didn't make any narrow bore D chanters. Dead. Finito. Nevermind.

And again, as put to me by another forum contributor, why do present "great" makers produce these? First of all, I'd really question a couple on the list proposed as "great" makers. We'll know in an hundred years or so about the one or two of those who *may* survive to gain that status. And secondly, the punter has the money and the maker has the lathe and if the former is to pass into possession of the latter, the bottom line is any maker will chatter out a custom chanter when the demand is made. Odds are, Kenna and Reid thought to, or were asked to just make chanters that could play with fiddles, and ran off a few, with results that by definition have become historically unimportant.

I could also counter with, well, how many great "Irish" makers are making these narrow bore D's, today, much less ever, and how many great Irish (or really, any other) pipers are playing these narrow bore D's? Hmm. Think about it.

So, it's pretty simple. Show me the big names touring the world with all the narrow bore D chanters. I don't see them. You don't have to take my word for it. Plenty of true long-scale, flat sets out there. Plenty of concert D wide bores. Don't see any narrow bore D's being played except by rank beginners who don't want to bother mum in the other room. The latter is no reason upon which to base a musical instrument purchase, much less any design features.

If you want to go back into ancient history you could probably find just about any bizarre experiment you'd care to name. I suppose it's just possible there was a 50-year-long run of Kenna narrow bore D's two or three generations back that were universally played by hundreds of famous players all over Ireland and I've just never heard of any of them.

Or, maybe, as I believe to the be case, they don't exist and never have, just like the narrow bore D chanter, in any statistically significant sense.

Royce

[djm]

Your point is well taken, at least on the surface. You're saying that there weren't many made, therefore they are crap. But if we take a look at the recent census on this forum, there's few flat sets in any key being made or used today. According to your reasoning, we would have to conclude that all flat sets are crap, based simply on the low numbers of sets. http://chiffboard.mati.ca/viewtopic.php ... 6258b524bd

Sorry, but I disagree with the conclusions you have reached based simply on the number of sets per key. I do not know how many historical sets there are by key stashed away in museums or broom closets or whatever. I do not know that it is correct to reach your conclusions without some real data to back it up. All we know is that wide bore concert D sets have become the norm in the 20th century, and if you held your statements to this extent then I'm sure everyone here would agree with you (except maybe one ).

djm

[Royce]

What about a cornemuse?

djm

I think I saw one of those in Dave Boisvert's shop a couple of months ago now you mention it...

Royce

[Royce]

Your point is well taken, at least on the surface. You're saying that there weren't many made, therefore they are crap. But if we take a look at the recent census on this forum, there's few flat sets in any key being made or used today. According to your reasoning, we would have to conclude that all flat sets are crap, based simply on the low numbers of sets. http://chiffboard.mati.ca/viewtopic.php ... 6258b524bd
(except maybe one ).

djm

No, well, we basically agree without the historical nit-picking. I'm saying not only were few sets made, but they were not continued, developed, or embraced. They were conscienciously left to die in the seed. That's a couple of hundred years and more of being deliberately left totally dead.

They are not crap, but they are not useful, there is something that does the intended job so much better that they are inconsequential, and I have not made this decision, hundreds of years of makers and players have made this decision.

Furthermore, anyone, even you, comparing a narrow bore D to wide bore D, and then to true long scale flat sets, will have to confess that it's at best "listenable" in comparison. If you really had to make one in D with a bore that small I suppose it works. But you don't have to make a D chanter with a bore that small, and they found this out several hundred years back and so they didn't bother to continue making a chanter that really had nothing going for it simply because they could.

This is a lesson modern makers should perhaps heed.

For the buyer, it's not a penny whistle. Even a penny whistle costs 12 bucks. Why don't you just shoot one testicle off instead of buying a full set of narrow-bore based D pipes? In the end you'll miss the testicle far less than you'll miss having a really good set of concert D pipes. It will cost less to fix the mistake as well.

As far as making a wide bore or any other chanter "quieter" it simply is not a valid consideration. Work better, easier, yes. Quieter, no. And I would contend that those giving advice about how to "quiet" a chanter are not nearly as "experienced" as the beginners getting the advice really would enjoy, or at least, I should say this sort of advice seems to be coming from the non-Irish players, largely American, and largely those who have a day job of respectable nature and don't seem to me to be really into the whole concept of pipering so much as dabbling around with it.

Insanely hard, insanely loud as a result, OK, you have to work on the reed. Working great? Well, if it's working great there is no such thing as "too loud." It's as loud as it is when it's working great. That's how loud it is. That's exactly how loud it "should be."

It's a set of BAGPIPES for crying out loud. What were you thinking when you bought them?

Royce