World's Oldest Highland Pipe Chanter

[projektio28]

Firstly, I gather from photos that there were[are]
in fact three drones. Secondly The chanter is not in playable condition due to wood shrinkage and old damage. However a copy can be heard here;
http://siubhal.com/promo/audio/IainDallChanter2009.mp3

Sounds rather GHB like to me

some further reading;

http://triplepipe.net/media/06PipingToday.pdf

http://pibroch.net/articles/bjb/2009-1.pdf

Thanks for the MP3 link. I didn't realize they'd made a copy of it! I had no idea posting a simple link to a short article would create such a buzz, but I'm glad for it. Everyone is bringing something different to the table, as it should be!

Matt

[iain beag]

I think fiddlerwill has covered most of the links but if you fancy a full set then they can be ordered here;

http://www.goodbagpipes.com/goodbagpipe ... pipes.html

Unfortunately I can't afford a set at the moment

Maybe I can order a set, then sell a few surplus instruments and save a bit.........

Anyone for an old set of Lawries - German keyed flute - various whistles?

Iain

[fiddlerwill]

the photo of the chanter and drones IS an old gaita. I presume the poster was comparing and suggesting the common heritage.

[bogman]

Ah, that makes a lot more sense now, the pipes pic was a red herring. There's now doubt whatsoever that the Iain Dall Chanter is GHB. The hole spacing is obviously compensated by hole size. Quite interesting that the chanter plays a semi-tone sharp of A, whereas most modern pipes play sometimes as much as a semi-tone sharp of Bb, even though they can quite easily be set up in concert Bb. You would have thought there'd be good business for a pipe maker who made chanters designed to play concert as their natural sweet spot. It's often been suggested that old chanters played in A, but, as the Iain Dall chanter suggests, that's highly unlikely, piping being mainly a solo tradition with the materials probably locally sourced and the chanter being entirely hand fashioned.

[fiddlerwill]

A440 only became the standard 50 odd yrs ago, funnily enough it was Goering who pushed for it. previous to that A could be for example A452; British Army standard.
A432 was another standard, possibly French?

So our Pipers A has risen from 452 to 466 and above 474 etc! The chanter photo I linked earlier is a H Moore A440 chanter, MacHarg does one and MacLellan too.
My Old Henderson chanter is happy around A 452 Hz.

[bogman]

Yes, I agree with that. What I was trying to say that I've heard folk suggest that pipes was once made at 'our' A, it's possible but if they were it's unlikely they were A440 by design, partly for the reasons you've posted above.

[fiddlerwill]

Interesting that the Dall chanter pitches around 450....... yes as you say bogman, highly unlikely that old Highland chanters were made to conform to a German standard! A440
Even today, I gather, the American standard is A442.

[CHasR]

the chanter & drones picture is that of an Italian Piva Emiliana;
probably mid-late 1800's.



"Do we just say pipes are pipes or do we accept that each established variant is an instrument in it's own right?"

yes. both.

"this chanter silently speaks volumes about the true origins and nature of the pipes" would be just as accurate a statement"


as would: "this chanter silently speaks volumes about the improvements to / corruption of / liberties taken with (depending on how one looks at it)... the Scots Highland pipe in the ensuing centuries".


please, continue....

[Yuri]

I just would hint that in my post I in no way implied that since this is not a Highland chanter as we know it, it is of less value. I myself do not even play the GHB.
Both Ford T and a Lexus are cars, how true. Point is, a Lexus is not a Ford T, that was my point. It is naturally a chanter. (Not the Lexus, you know what I mean.) Just not a Highland one as we know it.
Thanks for the sound clip. It sounds to me considerably less strident than a modern GHB. In fact, as far as my ears are concerned, more pleasing. (dodges the rotten tomatoes suddenly flying his way.)

[fiddlerwill]

I just would hint that in my post I in no way implied that since this is not a Highland chanter as we know it, it is of less value. I myself do not even play the GHB.
Both Ford T and a Lexus are cars, how true. Point is, a Lexus is not a Ford T, that was my point. It is naturally a chanter. (Not the Lexus, you know what I mean.) Just not a Highland one as we know it.
Thanks for the sound clip. It sounds to me considerably less strident than a modern GHB. In fact, as far as my ears are concerned, more pleasing. (dodges the rotten tomatoes suddenly flying his way.)

Fair enough Yuri, I didnt think you did, value is relative after all.

I too like the tone of the chanter and in fact out of my 4 sets of pipes a full size and a 7/8th size are A440 a full size at A452 and a 7/8 set at Bb466. All my modern chanters are in the drawer
? Do my 7/8th size pipes come under this definition? I call them reel pipes to distinguish them but they are the same instrument scaled down a touch.


External and internal dimensions, number of drones, chanter tone, pitch and scale . External design, etc are all facets that need to be considered. Do they need to have 2tenor 1 bass to be considered GHB? Who judges anyhow?!?

[AaronMalcomb]

The GHB is as much a product of its martial use and the competition system as the music that is played upon it. The modern instrument is an adaptation of the pre-existing instruments like the Iain Dall MacKay chanter. Check out Iain MacInnes' thesis linked here: http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rja14/music/index.html.

[sean an piobaire]

There was an article about an old Scots Chanter in "Piping" (or was it "Piping World"),
a friend sent it to me as it was about Julian Goodacre in Peebles making just such a
copy of an Antique Chanter for Barnaby Brown. I sent the article on to Brad Angus in Vancouver, Washington, and he did his own version of it, and sent me one copy complete with the broken but repaired Bell end....it looked more like a Dudelsack Chanter with the very small wood flare.
Look it up with Goodacre and Brown !
All the Best Holiday Wishes !
Sean Folsom

[Celtpastor]

...what I really liked about Goodacre is that he declares, the Iain Dall-Pipes - drones as well as chanter - have more in common with Galician Gaitas than with modern GHBs. You may add: Also, it's closer to northern Italian Pive than to modern GHBs. Does that mean it is no GHB? Yes and no. It is a GHB since it seems to have been a native instrument back then. And it is not a GHB, since it seems to have been in almost every detail the same as almost any other Western European 18th c. bagpipe. Btw - GHB reeds, even entire Chanters are still sometimes used with German Market pipes, I myself happily interchange my chanters of Shepherd's Pipes, Cornemuse, Gaita and Borderpipes, depending on which pitch combined with which drone-sound and which fingering I prefer at one certain moment...

[pancelticpiper]

I've often heard that the bagpipes are thought to have originated in the Middle East or India.

Yes one often hears that. Trouble is, there's no evidence of a Middle Eastern or Indian origin. The earliest evidence is all European.

Now, if you throw out the bag part of a bagpipe, yes there have been various mouthblown things all over the world. But I require a thing to have a bag if I'm going to consider it a bagpipe.

In any case, the origin of the GHB is an extremely interesting topic, one which has had much more imagination than scholarship applied to it.

The similarities between early GHBs and Spanish gaitas cannot be denied. Indeed Baines put the gaita, biniou, and GHB into a family, and offers reasonable-sounding support for his choice.

What I find very interesting is the drone pattern. Across Europe, bagpipes tended to have a bass drone as their first drone, with a tenor (or in some cases baritone) added later in some traditions, giving a total of two drones. (Most bagpipe species still have a bass only, and even today it's common for gaitas to have a bass only, or if a tenor is present the tenor often has a shutoff switch.)

From the scant evidence, the Irish warpipe followed the common European pattern.

But we encounter some early GHBs with two tenors and no bass. Then I came across Julian Goodacre's Danish pipes, based on an early illustration showing exactly the same drone setup. It makes one wonder about possible Scandinavian influences, not far-fetched when we recall that over half of the old Highland clans had a Scandinavian, not Gaelic, origin.

[Yuri]

I'd just like to split a bit of hair.
The bass drone was indeed the only one for most if not all of the Middle Ages. With the beginning of the Renaissance (whenever, say the mid-15th century), there are two drones on a lot of pipes. Now, saying that this is a bass-tenor combination is actually very incorrect. In practically all instances the lenght of the two drones is very strange, but rules out the bass-tenor pattern. For this, you need the large drone to be roughly twice the lenght of the short one. Which is very far from the case with these early illustrations, and there are heaps of them. The lenghts tend to be something like 10/8 or so. It is anyone's guess just what they really were, as no originals survive. There can be a few explanations. One is that the shorter drone is simply a differently voiced one, sounding at te same pitch as the other, but with a different timbre. Another one is that perhaps they are two alternative drones, giving two different tonics, perhaps a tone apart. (Never to be used together, of course). Which would give you essentially two bagpipes built into one instrument.
In Sweden thre is a, I think 18th century sackpipa that has two drones. One of them is a dummy, plain and simple. Just why go to the trouble of making one is anyone's guess, but someone has.
Anyway, my point is that bass-tenor is a rather rare combination, all in all.