Narrow bore chanters

[Lorenzo]

To be honest, I have never heard a narrow bore D chanter that I like. The best of them sounded very similar to the sound given off by a soda straw.

The Medium/ wide bore Chanter has more tone and volume both of which can be controlled by the type of reed fitted to the chanter. I have a special smaller reed, for my own medium bore Rowsome pipes, that is very soft and quiet so that I can play without waking up the house.

If you want a narrow bore consider going to the flat C or B chanters which are the Cadillacs of pipes. Pipes in these keys have a better tone and are very easy to reed. I also have a Rowsome C set which by comparison makes my D set sound like automobile horns.

All the best,
Pat Sky

[Brian Lee]

Man - I hope this isn't how the rest of the world views pipers - if this thread is anything to measure against.

Poor Bo. I hope he's getting some good advice off list, without the pomp etc.

And all this over a few meagre millimeters :roll:

[ballysodare]

And all this over a few meagre millimeters :roll:

I guess size really does matter?

Cheers

[Patrick D'Arcy]

Late to the party as usual, Pat. And look, you're not even dressed! :roll:

djm

No, I'd just rather stay out of things. When I feel like I have nothing to say I like to say nothing... unlike a few here I can see.

Patrick.

[Brian Lee]

I guess size really does matter?

Cheers

I would seem so I was always told it's not the size of the wave that mattered - rather the motion of the ocean!

[tompipes]

""I see I'm not the only one who likes broad generalizations. "Everybody?" Out of the thousands of uilleann pipers from Leo to this coming Friday, how many of them even owned a double chanter? You've named a fragment, and statistically minute fraction, of all the players in history""

I named a few pipers that I knew of that have played double chanters. It certainly not a complete list and I agree its a small percentage but don't deny that they existed and just because there aren't as many around doesn't mean in any way that they were a failure. Call them a rareity, hybrid or even a novelity but not failure.

"" And you use a very, well, not all that clever polemic tool to suggest I've said anything like these named players were "nobodies."

I didn't mean to insinuate that you accused non-wide bore chanter players as "nobodies". I think you did a good enough job of that yourself.

""In your world of statistics, how does naming three players, make this a "significant" percentage of either players or makers when counted against every other piper in the history of the instrument? These players did not in any wild hallucinogenic moment of delusion make their names and reputations playing double chanters""

Nah, wrong again. Pat Ward was hugely famous for playing his double-chanter and it did make his reputation. To an extent, Leo Rowsome used Pats chanter (even though he had plenty of his own) to record on the Drones and the Chanters as a tribute to Pat. Since that recording Leo was inundated with requests to play the double chanter again. Joe Shannon played a double chanter with his taylor set for years. It may not have soley put him on the map as a piper, but thats what he did play.


I don't see why you can call C# sets failure. Do you not think that these even served a purpose as a developmental instrument that eventually brought us to the wide-bore chanters that you revere so much. Whats going to happen when, in time, pitch moves up again? This is happening already, most european orchestras are hitting A at 446 and it won't be long before folk instruments follow suit. So potentialy in 50 years we could be a semitone up again. Will 2004 wide bore chanters be a failure then? No they won't.
There have been concert D chanters since the 1770's or 1780's or when ever Union/uilleann pipe were developed. These past makers were not failures. International bodies moved standard pitches not individual makers. Makers of irish pipes failed no-one. Billy Taylor developed wide bore chanters but they were tuned A=453 and not A=440. Was he a failure?? Certainly not.

Bottom line, theres absoultely nothing with wanting, buying and playing a narrow bore D set. They have never failed anyone, ever. I'm not nuts on Bb sets, there a bit too low for me , I hate reggae, squid, and I can't stand banjos, spoons and bones. But I'm not going to tell somome that they're wrong if they like things I don't.

Tommy

[leremarkable]

Tommy Martin wrote;

I'm not nuts on Bb sets, there a bit too low for me , I hate reggae, squid, and I can't stand banjos, spoons and bones.

Tommy, I'm right with you on all the above, especially the reggae though I'd have to add bodhran to the list.

Royce, why do you need to use so many words to get your point across?

David Power

[Royce]

""I see I'm not the only one who likes broad generalizations. "Everybody?" Out of the thousands of uilleann pipers from Leo to this coming Friday, how many of them even owned a double chanter? You've named a fragment, and statistically minute fraction, of all the players in history""

I named a few pipers that I knew of that have played double chanters. It certainly not a complete list and I agree its a small percentage but don't deny that they existed and just because there aren't as many around doesn't mean in any way that they were a failure. Call them a rareity, hybrid or even a novelity but not failure.

"" Tommy

By that you mean they basically worked and after a helluva lot of farting around you could get both bores reasonable tuned and popping octaves mostly together. Physically they worked and that's the contest you guys keep turning this into. Yes, physically they worked. Even a few, a fad-streak of players gave them a shot. The way I understand it is they were the first dedicated effort to increase the volume of the instrument.

But I've also made and played a double bored narrow D chanter, and it's a nightmare to make and a nightmare to execute anything on. The one I made is in a landfill in Utah somewhere. Now that's maybe not the best example of the instrument, but history has dubbed it a failure in every historical sense. The Edsel was a great car, ahead of its time. It was still a failure and is now synonymous with, "Load of junk."

Y'all have a real problem dragging these theoretical excuses into modern practical advice. The last thing in the world you'd recommend to a beginner is a double chanter, and as far as I know the rush of demand to makers to start making them again is nonexistent. That's a failure.

But mostly it's a failure because a wide bore D is louder than a double bored narrow D and has a fraction of the tuning, setup, reed problems and so forth, not to mention just covering the holes.

I wonder if it's some romantic or religious fixation on "Old Masters" that keeps attempting to justify anything, even the passing experiments, that ever got turned out at some ancient period by some respected maker. It doesn't insult their work at all, because they all gave it up and moved on and that's exactly what we should all do.

The best solution to all their problems getting an uillean chanter/pipes pitched up to modern D/A=440-442, is what we're calling "wide bore."

The narrow bore D's that did exist weren't a trend or force in the manufacture or playing of the instrument, they were just one fraction of the wider range of chanters/pipes cranked out at the time that almost randomly seemed to fall into the hands of whoever ended up with them based on whatever length/pitch/chanter any given maker was trying to unload at any given moment. Some of those players ended up playing in D plus or minus a half tone either way by modern standards, and some of the time that was probably by desire and by design.

Now, if you want to say nothing is *morally* wrong with making and buying and playing a narrow-bore based D set today, again, you're making a pointless point. There's nothing immoral about playing a button box either, but that's not going to sound like a set of uillean pipes in D ought to, or is capable of, either.

Royce

[Royce]

.

So, if you must strike out from your dark little box (and I am assuming at this stage that you must), do it with the conviction of a lone madman and stop looking around for people to agree with you.

Hoping you a speedy recovery,

Harry.

There you go again, first of all you make the first personal "strike." Now you pretend to be the aloof and innocent victim. It's so stereotypically highschool debate club I should know better than to rise to it.

Secondly, you totally avoid, as I charge you, with acknowledging a confession already made that you just don't like narrow bore D's yourself, and you do so obviously as you point out here, to escape looking like you actually agree with me on the point.

The very pointed subject of the post you're responding to here is strictly the matter of narrow bore D's, not narrow bore chanters or the flat sound in general. The truth is, not even you think a narrow bore D actually *has* the flat sound you're defending and promoting here. Why then, would you however coyly, or even silently allow this notion to be perpetuated here?

Not everyone, as you apparently do have the financial ability or pure luck to be littered with any various set of pipes you could want, to just pick up a whole set of pipes on a whim, again, and very pointedly and specifically, with the primary objective being to obtain a quieter practice instrument. Narrow bore D's are just that, at best, quieter versions of a D uillean pipe that are mainly quieter and less full in tone, and suitable really only for practice. If you can pay every bit as much for a dedicated practice set go knock yourself out, but it still won't behave much like a real wide bore D that you're going to end up wanting in the end, if you ever expect to play in public next to a box and a fiddle and a flute, so you won't be practicing much the technique needed to play the wide bore you're going to have to master eventually. Any time anyone is encouraged to ponder this back-door route to the instrument, by allegedly, and I think probably genuinely encouraging benefactors of wisdom to novices in particular, I really have to point out what should be blatantly obvious disadvantages to this course.

Royce

[ballysodare]

Tommy Martin wrote;

Royce, why do you need to use so many words to get your point across?

David Power

He ascribes to the "size matters" philosophy as well. The bigger his paragraph the bigger his....idea?

Cheers

[Royce]

It doesn't take a genius to wrap thread or wad tape on a perfectly good reed, which is what you pass for "knowledge of reeds" when making recommendations of quiting them down.

No serious reed maker, or uilleann pipe player, would consider wrapping thread or wadding tape on a good reed as a way of MAKING a reed sound quieter for a WB or MB chanter. There are several major styles of making WB chanter reeds. One style, of which I have three, allow the player to simply adjust the bridle up or down to quiet the reed to almost nothing. Another style, of which I have two, needs to have the bridle squeezed down to adjust volume suitable for the players preference.

To say that wide bore chanters and reeds were meant to have to play loud is not unlike saying all horns (trucks, fire engines, trains, automobiles, and bicycles) are only meant to sound loud. Obviously, you can transfer any of those horns on to another vehicle, or adjust the volume on any of them (if you know where the screw is, and how to screw).

When Pat Sky, who is a master at reed making, and who plays concerts with the likes of Tommy Peoples, explains that he prefers making quieter reeds in a wide bore chanter, and explains here on page one of this thread how it is contructed to play quieter, you might consider awakening to the possibility that there is plenty yet to understand about reed making...and quietly accept the fact.

Why would anyone want to put a fire engine horn on a large bicycle? I've made them, and played loud blasting reeds. There's another way.

You force me to reveal your own lack of the big picture. First of all, no, horns only work at certain pressure levels, and while say, a steam horn makes no noise but a wheezy hiss at a lower pressure level, it does at some point start to sound and fill out like a "horn." Above that it sounds like a "better" horn. And above that you run into an area of subjectivity as to how loud loud ought to be, or how much power is just being wasted being loud and not necessarily "better." But horns are by definition, "loud," otherwise, they would not be horns.

The same goes for electro-mechanical buzzers and horns, and insufficient voltage simply makes no noise at all, then first a feeble rattly buzz, and with sufficient voltage begins to sound horn or buzzerlike, and beyond that parallels the choices in air/steam horn systems. Same goes for whistles.

Your analogy is very grossly flawed in that a narrow bore D is in fact a bicycle horn and the modern widebore D is in fact a diesel horn. The question to be asked is, having fallen in love with the 18 wheeler, why would you hang a bicycle horn on it?

Relative you your "styles" of reeds, well, all reeds have a device, a cramp or belt or bridle designed to open or close its throat, and how this arrangement is layed out on mechanical terms is irrelevant to volume produced by the reed. It's just harder on a wound bridle to crimp it open, and it opens at a lower point for intonational purposes more complex than would apply in this paragraph. Opening and closing the throat, contrary to your apparent understanding is not primarily a "volume" adjustment, but more like an "operating pressure" adjustment. It first and formost does determine how much pressure is delivered to drive the bore and it's the bore that determines how much pressure it needs from the reed to operate. Wide bore chanters are inherently higher pitched and louder for a couple of acoustical reasons, but the end result is they begin to voice at a minimum pressure higher than narrow bores, and deliver thereafter far more "volume" for less work than narrower bores. But more importantly, they behave more efficiently at the higher pitch.

But the point is, adjusting basic elevation or "opening" a reed to a "good" position is what sets behaviors like low D, back D, basic pitch--I repeat--basic pitch, and how full the bore is driven for basic response/octave behavior. When you suggest that this bridle/belt is there to make the chanter quieter, it's almost embarassingly naive. The first thing it does, when, as you recommend, you "quiet the reed to almost nothing," is dramatically shoot the base pitch of the chanter up. You now don't have a concert D chanter, you have a concert D plus whatever you sqwoze it up to. So now you have an exercise not only in a feebly-behaving reed, but in how to get the chanter all back in tune where it was supposed to be when you brutally jerked shut a perfectly good reed like that.

This will also dramatically raise the upperhand intonation, sharpening back D to an unuseable pitch most of the time, even if you tape it down. And of course if you tape it down much, it will then just choke off because the hole is too small, particulary with your much-touted narrow bore D's, where the hole is smaller than most ear piercings and offers almost no ability to adjust it.

(Just for edification, no, you don't adjust the base pitch of a reed/chanter by simply shoving the reed in or out. That's how you adjust basic intonation of the upper and lowerhands, and to some extent you can raise or lower the relative pitch of the whole upper octave. On a related note, the base adjustment of octave relationships is done with the ID/geometry of the reed staple. So, for example, you could say you'll make a quieter reed with a narrower staple, but that would destroy octave tuning. I suppose then, as a reedmaker, you could spend a lot of time trying to correct this in the other dimensions of the blades and throat, or staple length, but the end result would be a less efficient reed that doesn't play much out of tune and mostly in the right pitch.)

The next thing you'll notice, even if you've taped your whole upperhand back in tune with your lowerhand is probably that now your bottom D is too feeble to be useful, but most players who think primarily in terms of finding a "quieter" or "easier" reed, will never play a cran or a roll on bottom E or anything like that anyway, so they may never notice that the squally noise down there isn't really a note anymore. After that, you may escape the sinking or breaking back D if you're lucky. But you almost certainly will now notice that your high E is sharp, or even just an odd noise, not really distinct from D# or E.

But you, well, you're smarter than that, and well, you notice the whole upper octave is now sharp and so you pull the reed out to try to fix the back D sharpness some and try to drop the upper octave. You still need a lot of tape on back D, but now the upperhand still sharpish and so bad at high A and B that it's unuseable. When you pull the reed out you change not only same-octave intonation, but the tunedness of the two octaves overall. Sure, you can make these compromises in smaller adjustments and achieve some quieting of the chanter with only an annoying amount of negative playing characteristics. Why would you? It's still going to be louder than a fiddle and that's way too loud for auntie Matilda banging her cane on the door of her room in the back by the kitchen.

I don't care if it's Pat Sky or Mickey O'Mouse, there is no making a widebore D chanter that is "quiet" and still have it behave and speak like it is capable of. If you want to quibble about how quiet you can make it before it fails to be playable, again, that's just a line of thought I don't think is productive for anyone, but the little granny or nagging wife in the other room, who really, if the pipes can be heard at all, will still be bitching about them being too "loud." Pat Sky's reeds aren't "quiet" they're just not as loud as you could make them.

But you've got it bass-ackwards. Any adjustment to any reed even in the blade sizes/staples and basic geometry designed first and foremost to make it softer is at best an educated set of compromises intended to make the chanter not work as efficiently. The sound comes from that little column of air in there, not the reed. The basic design of any chanter has a little column of air that wants to vibrate at a certain frequency, and if driven most efficiently with a little reed that nails down that harmonic resonance, it will do so very loudly with very little effort. Attempts to stop this from happening are inherently counter to the entire principle, and are by nature compromises that deliberately prevent this little column of air from doing what it really wants to do.

The easiest way to demonstrate this principle to yourself is with a low D whistle. Cover all the holes and blow softly. Yeah, you can make low D quieter, but it really has a narrow range within which it makes a note at all. Drop under that and you get fluff. That's true for any note in the system but most pronounced at long bore lengths. Oh, oh, oh, yes a reed-bore system is *exactly* coupled in the same way as a fipple-driven system. Just like hitting the top of a beerbottle just right with a little stream of air, you can get a big fat note for almost no work at all, or you can get just a load of noise. You can only quiet down the note within a fairly narrow range before it's just not sounding, and the same thing happens on uilleann pipes, only now when you quiet down the chanter and under-drive it, you lose two octaves worth of notes, the worst of which start at the bottom, on top of which, you lose much of the control needed to deliberately choose which of those notes you want to sound, and how much much playing/bending, popping you want to do with it while you're playing around with it. Those are considerations many on this forum won't even be aware of or miss I concede.

In summary, your chanter is happier doing what it wants to do. Your reed is happier being properly coupled to the little column of air it was created to drive.

I just sold my Gallagher chanter, and I immediately missed it at the session the next day. With a reed about the same strength as the one I'm playing now, it was right out front with the boxes and banjos. I could lead a session easily--but maybe the local sessioneers are not missing that feature as much as I am...

I'm now playing a custom Bruce Childress chanter, which just from a blatantly, obviously narrower bell bore, and the fact that the reed he sent me is totally incompatible with either the Gallagher or any other chanter I have, the Childress bore is apparently a bit narrowed and a totally different design all-around from the Gallagher. It's not as loud but it's really smooth in both octaves and doesn't scream out the high A, B etc. I could make either chanter louder or softer, and not just by opening up or closing the bridle. Mostly by choosing softer or harder cane or how short I trim it or how thick I leave the lips at this stage of a reed design that is excellent all-round anyway. But the real consideration is that even though one chanter was louder than the other they both were playing where they both wanted to play. That's how loud they should be either of them. That's because that's the way they want to be, not because my significant other or the neighbors don't like uilleann pipes and I'd like to be able to hide in the cupboard and stop them from badgering me every time I practice.

I'll eventually probably beef up the reed/volume of my Childress chanter but not to be heard in a session or because I don't like the "narrow sound." Fact is, this Childress chanter sounds more like a narrow bore flat set than the narrow bore D's I've played and heard, and it's definitely not a "narrow" bore. I'd like to beef up bottom D a bit and make back D more bulletproof, which will probably be the result of clipping this current reed once more a very fraction of an inch, and then some experimentation with my own blades/his reeds/his staples. It actually is just a hair lighter than the Gallagher was, and I think the clip would brighten up bottom D in particular. Those are performance-related tweaks. Considerations that either customize playing behavior or response. Those are the only considerations anyone should be entertaining in learning or playing the pipes.

Either or any of my chanters would be too "loud" for those who constantly pose this question. Any of the the narrow bore D's would be "too loud" for those who constantly pose these questions, properly reeded. Any reed any maker, magic design or not, made for any of my chanters or any narrow bore chanter of any pitch would in fact be too loud for those who constantly submit here to the pissings and moanings of nookie-extorting lovers and nagging neighbors and relatives who's real desire is not to hear them at all.

Buy a good wide bore D if you want to play in D and absolutely if you want to play with others. Branch out from that if you can afford it. But before you buy another set of quiter pipes, I'd spend the ten grand on a soundproofed room where you can play your real pipes in peace, or buy a trailer to park out back.

But I'd never tell anyone to just make this or any other chanter "louder" because it can be done, any more than I'd even suggest anyone make this or my old Gallagher "quieter" simply because you think all you need to do is cramp down the bridle and that's all there is to it. I mean, I've got a Daye Penny Chanter with a reed that's about like the slightly softer Childress reed that came with the chanter, and it's louder than the Gallagher was with a bit harder reed. If I just wanted volume I'd be playing the Daye as my main chanter, and not toting it along as a backup.

(I've ordered another Childress for backup in fact.)

Regarding the tape and the wads and the string, contrary to your assertion there have been several name-makers and players who've shown locals how to do that, and the subject was just rampant on Daye's mailing list and others. It's less destructive than deliberately over-scraping and crushing down good reeds with a jerk of the bridle or clamp of the pliers because your tone-deaf girlfriend thinks it's too "loud."

As much as you guys think I'm being overly-dramatic, those sorts of lame criteria are *literally* those we keep reading in preface to those here who keep begging to find a "quieter" chanter. I don't care what chanter/pipes you play, from the oldest and flattest of sets to the newest wide bore D's, if you think *any* of them are by nature "too loud" you just aren't piper material.

Put this in a 5-10,000 US investment context, something nobody here seems capable of comprehending. If you have that much money to waste on whatever whim drives you on the day of the whim, just go buy a narrow bore D and find out for yourself. Or yours can be one of the bootload a hundred years from now all abandoned and orphaned and obscure.

You're all answering questions on the level of a novice who doesn't know any better as if what his auntie thinks about pipes has any relationship to being a piper. Odds are you'll own one set, maybe a full set in your entire life. If you're going to wash out as a piper do it on a set you can at least re-sell. What these guys are really asking for is a set of pipes that aren't so pipe-like. They want some secret, shortcut easier way.

There isn't any.

Royce

[Harry]

"There you go again, first of all you make the first personal "strike." Now you pretend to be the aloof and innocent victim. It's so stereotypically highschool debate club I should know better than to rise to it."ROYCE

Royce, rise away, it's really quite simple: I think that you are a hopeless buffoon. I'm not pretending to be innocent or anything other than what I am or what I think (or what I don't bother thinking about).. wasn't that clear enough for you or are you so desparately inept in the area of human net relations that you need to have it explained to you? Now there's an opinion for you that might actually do some good. You *may* not be a bad person ( I prefer to live in hope, as I was saying), but you act like the worst sort of one here and I've observed you acting like one for a long time here and elsewhere. In my world though (not Royceworld where I too am a mighty warrior) I can come to terms and share space with idiots even if they do have a jaded history (not unlike the narrow bored D chanter, eh?). Narrow bore chanters are bringing a little joy to some prople's lives, accept it and you can love yourself a little more. Your 'inner child' is probably in need of a play on one... that and/or a good hiding.

"Secondly, you totally avoid, as I charge you, with acknowledging a confession already made that you just don't like narrow bore D's yourself, and you do so obviously as you point out here, to escape looking like you actually agree with me on the point."ROYCE

You charge me? Confessions? What an astounding act of puffed up up-your-own-assholeness. My take on narrow bore D chanters is stated earlier on in this discussion where it belongs. Go back and read it if you want. I don't really think or care about it that much but what I said differs from what you are saying and what you have said considerably. I'll paste it to an email and send it to you if you think that it will speed your recovery from your present bout of hysteria... It won't though. I don't think like you. Why do you seem to want to insist that I do? Are the confines of your head not big enough for your malign thoughts that you need to project them on an unsuspecting public to validate yourself? Domination never suited a lot of us here in Ireland. The need to do it must be a terrible burden on you. I'm sure we could find things that we actually do entirely agree on though... I like sex, chocolate milk, Johnny Doran, bunny rabbits etc... (not all at once) feeling any better?

"The very pointed subject of the post you're responding to here is strictly the matter of narrow bore D's, not narrow bore chanters or the flat sound in general. The truth is, not even you think a narrow bore D actually *has* the flat sound you're defending and promoting here. Why then, would you however coyly, or even silently allow this notion to be perpetuated here?"ROYCE...again...

I am defending the flat sound in general now? Wakey wakey, Royce. I only commented on narrow bore Ds. And I'll say what I want thanks, you'd be a lot more contented if you didn't wait for people to say what you want them to say you know. The world and people in it are not nearly as simple and reliable as the rather black and white ideas that you display.

"Not everyone, as you apparently do have the financial ability or pure luck to be littered with any various set of pipes you could want, to just pick up a whole set of pipes on a whim, again, and very pointedly and specifically, with the primary objective being to obtain a quieter practice instrument."ROYCE

More 'wisdom' plucked fresh from your anus, or somewhere equally obscure (to us). I'm skint and I (will) have two sets of pipes for which I will be forever greatful. That's all I need.

"Narrow bore D's are just that, at best, quieter versions of a D uillean pipe that are mainly quieter and less full in tone, and suitable really only for practice."ROYCE

Oh, so they have their uses... not complete failures then?

"Any time anyone is encouraged to ponder this back-door route..."ROYCE

Yes, an old school teacher warned me off pondering 'the back-door route'... especially pondering my own back-door route for hours... and hours... and hours... and hours...

Regards dark prince,

Harry.

[leremarkable]

Should have said;

"Royce, why do you use so many words [/b]to try to get your point across'

[Lorenzo]

I lack steam wheezy hiss wasted buzzers insufficient feeble rattly buzz, buzzerlike 18 wheeler bicycle horn cramp close its throat I repeat behavior sqwoze brutally jerked shut an odd noise Mickey O'Mouse, the little granny or nagging wife bitching about "loud" bass-ackwards get just a load of noise banjos scream hide in the cupboard
beef to the pissings and moanings of nookie-extorting lovers and nagging neighbors and relatives ten grand or buy a trailer to park out back the wads and the string, contrary rampant destructive over-scraping and crushing with a jerk of your tone-deaf girlfriend I'm oldest and flattest 5-10,000 US investment context capable of comprehending bootload a hundred years from now all abandoned and orphaned and obscure all on the level of a novice auntie thinks...there isn't any.

You needn't go any further if you are trying to convince me of your ignorance. I just moved the bridle on my reed to make it sound quieter than my B chanter and it lost nothing. The pitch remained the same, all notes (including the back D) were stable, and nothing was out of tune.

Get a good reed.

[Brian Lee]

Poor, POOR Bo. I hope he's not turned off entirely to piping now. When at least he could have gotten a reasonable few suggestions for a narrow bore chanter and have been playing happily as he wished.

Ah well. Hey D'Arcy, pass the popcorn...