I noticed mention of airplanes. I assume it must only be natural for pipers to own a Piper Club I mean Cub, but have you followed the inlation rate of the price of the better planes?
I don't grudge the pipemakers trying to make a decent living at their trade. How many full sets do you think a quality maker can turn out in a year? Add in the overhead for a shop and a few ammenities (like being able to feed his family), then do the math. I don't see any of these pipemakers getting rich. Are pipes expensive? Yes. Are they worth it? (IMHO) yes, every cent!
No E
Last edited by No E on Fri Dec 05, 2003 11:30 am, edited 1 time in total.
I think that there are great thoughts made in this thread. I think that there are other economic relationships as well:
1) The best pipe makers are clearly those making them full time.
2) the finest pipes are consistently $7000 (or euros) +(from the maker).
3) full-time makers are presently making between 9 and 20+ sets per year (Gallagher makes nearly 30 but he has two FT employees)
4) Frommant, making about 9 sets, at 7000 per, before fixed overhead (equipment depreciation and rent or real estate cost) and cost of goods sold (aka raw mat), is not getting wealthy with E63000 (before reed and restoration revenues) less expenses, making fine quality sets. Though Seth with 30 sets per annum, would be grossing about $200,000 (though he may not actually be kicking out 30 full sets as he produces sets and delivers them piece meal generally). However, wages to his two apprentices would be a large cost as would real estate allocation, particularly for both in the lower half of New York state which isn't the least expensive part of the world by far to live and conduct business. So they also with equipment depreciation and maintenance and cost of goods sold would eat significantly into the $200k. Maybe in some parts, E8,000 is a living, but with real estate inflation in both Ireland and the US, that smacks of poverty and I would be wondering what that person would be doing spending even 3,000 on a musical instrument or even 500 on a computer to read this board when they should be spending it on an education or feeding their children or something (unless you are a character in Angela's Ashes or some dribble like that).
5) Ulitmately a maker can choose two paths: one is to continue making very high quality pipes (if they have the talent) and thereby limit their output, but attract significant demand interest, which causes him to charge higher rates to subsidize the higher quality. In this case he will likely have lower revenues but greater security and predictability in his revenue stream through the demand (wait list). Or he can turn this into a small but growing business enterprise, hiring more and more people, producing more and more pipes, but sacraficing some quality along the way. In the later, revenue is much high, but supply will outstrip demand, particulalry if there is real fall off in quality or even perceived stigma of lesser quality. The company would grow its inventory (no wait list), have bi-annual sales and would sacrafice quality and price for volume.
6) Pipers have to make the same choices in life. We all would love to own a Rolls Royce, particularly at the cost of a VW bug, but then it would be a Rolls anymore would it? Interestingly enough, though, you probably can buy a high-end Steinway piano any day of the week, so in a few rare cases you can have both quality and supply, though UPs are not as ubiquitous perhaps as a piano.
Conclusion: I would prefer to look to pay David, Alain, and Jeff (despite their wait lists and high prices) to continue making uilleann piping rolls royces any day over the alternative.
I am wondering what the real market for UPs is. Sure, there are all sorts of people inquiring about sets, but once they learn of the price and the waiting periods, how many are left who are still persistent enough to hang in there? If UPs were as cheap and readily available as, say, an electric guitar, would there really be that much of a market? I can start making music in weeks or months on guitar, and be perfectly happy with the results. How many years of dedication does it take to be able to make reasonable sounding music on UPs?
For argument's sake, let's say I come up with a very good sounding set made of cheap wood or plastic, with a reliable, well behaved reed made from some artificial material that I can reproduce in quantity. To be practical, I would imagine this would take a few years full-time and a couple of hundred thousand dollars to achieve, considering R & D into new materials and engineering the production processes, etc. Now, how many sets and parts would I have to produce to make my investment worthwhile, and how soon could I expect to see profit? I think I would have to count on selling approx a thousand sets per year to match the electric guitar analogy.
How real is it to expect that there are that many people out there willing to spend years to learn how to play UPs, regardless of how inexpensive the UP set is, or how available it is? I can't help but think that, lovely as they are, UPs can never be expected to become any more popular than the basoon that someone mentioned previously, or the oboe, perhaps, i.e. just on the edge of obscurity. That precludes mass production from ever being a worthwhile pursuit, IMHO.
but orchestral instruments will ALWAYS be more popular than the pipes. Probably even more so than GHPs. The simple reason is numbers. Worldwide, there's probably hundreds and possibly even more symphony orchestras to every one Irish piper. Most of those are going to employ at least ONE oboe and/or basoon. I know they still aren't the kind of thing you'll find at your local Play It Again Music shop or Mars Music or whatever, but still much more widely available I would have to think than pipes are at present anyway.
The Riverdance/Braveheart/Titanic "Must learn this or that Irish instrument!" craze has been gone for several years now with few individual exceptions. But u. pipe prices still seem to be working up higher and higher. The only other thing I've seen thats more than doubled pricewise in the last ten years is gas. and yet the cost of pipes in almost every case seems to have tripled and even quadrupled from what folks say they were "back in the old days" (meaning the eightys and early ninteys). It certainly does seem that while there is X amount of work, and X amount of skill and X amount of rare materials that goes into making them, that uilleann pipes aren't going to get any cheaper any time soon.
Some form of common ground would be nice, even if our dream sets (Rolls) will never be had for the cost of a penny chanter (VW Bug).
I think that in fact the common ground are the sets costing between $3500 and $6000 and there are many that are pretty good. I am sure that we could all name a few makers like that. Some may agree some may disagree (feel free).
Childress
Jeffries
Angus.....
Does anyone disagree that K&Q, Frommant, Woof in particular, and maybe Roggess and Galagher should not be charging more? (I am sure that I am leaving off names like Williams as well. Forgive me).
So you don't think you should have to pay $7000 for a full set of pipes, that's easy, don't buy a $7000 set, but you've got to be kidding to suggest that builders "shouldn't be charging" whatever price they want. If maker XYZ wants to build a 24 caret gold set of pipes and charge $75,000 for it and he thinks he can get that price, more power to him. Welcome to the wonderful world of capitalism.
What's next, EU regulation of Uilleann pipe prices? Import tariffs for chanter reeds? Here in California we could probably make great headway on our budget deficit by taxing cane exports to pipemakers.
IMHO, the free market should dictate what pipemakers can and will charge.
Based on perceived quality and value, those who can afford to buy from pipemakers who are thought to produce the highest quality instruments will pay the price that the builders ask if they can't find similar perceived quality at a lower price.
Those who can't afford to pay those prices will either settle for another builder's less expensive instrument, learn to make their own set of pipes, or seek a job that pays them enough to allow them to pay the asking rate.
M
Last edited by eskin on Fri Dec 05, 2003 2:54 pm, edited 2 times in total.
No one can be objective on pipes. There is no world standard, the pipemakers do not agree on approach or tuning or design specs or materials for pipes, trim (if any), and bellows. No one has seen the latest and greatest from each of the pipemakers to even have a hope at a balanced opinion. 'Ranking' pipemakers is almost always based on rumor and second-hand information.
No one can say *with authority* where someone's money is best spent - taking into account the world's pipemaking industry.
glands wrote:I'd rather these gentlemen take the time to ensure that the very best product is on the market.
While I agree with the spirit of this statement, the phrase "on the market" is a bit of misnomer when it comes to K&Q, Alain Froment and Geoff Wooff sets. I mean, it's not as if just anybody who wants one and is wealthy enough to afford it can succeed in buying one of those sets in any given year. It also takes luck, connections, and or extreme patience. It's that combination of desirabiltiy, demand, scarcity and impatience (i.e. we're all going to die someday) that creates the perfect storm for rising prices and frustrated buyers. Socialists and capitalists alike. Are there any Marxist pipers out there?
Frankly, I think we're approaching a golden age of availability of used sets, as the "Riverdance bubble" collapses. Seems to me that more sets are coming to market over the last year, but rather than lowering prices, I think its just redistributed instruments from the hands of those less committed to playing to those players who are very much committed. Overall, I think its a good thing, I don't think that this is an instrument you take on just because "it sounds pretty"...
Of course, my Childress B set for sale does sound pretty, and you should buy it immediately for my full asking price, because, dammit, its worth it.
Brian Lee wrote:Well, some of us don't make nearly that much. Some of us are still looking for a job thanks to G.W.'s awesome economy he's built for all of us. :roll: Ah well, I still have my awesome cheap Daye set that plays like a dream! *COUGHsh*t*
Yeah, but you live in that Godless "Right-to-work" (for minimum wage) state, Utah. When I left there 20 years ago we had engineers in my pipe band working for 6 bucks and hour, a buck more than they paid at McDonalds, and I see the wages haven't risen since then as I went through this summer.
I also lunched the transmission in the family van in Rawlings Wyoming and jammed my way into Salt Lake City by figuring out how to fool the shift computer into sticking it in overdrive as long as I stayed over 40mph. I literally rolled down the summit into the valley and found a tranny shop still open at 6:00pm on Thursday eve, 3'd July--though I got the inspection performed immediately, I had to wait the long holiday weekend and come back Monday to get the change-out done but at least I got it done.
The proprietor of the shop was a Mr. Dennis O'Reilly. I asked him where the local session was and he had no idea what I was talking about. He did have lots of nice LDS literature and Church magazines in the waiting room but no idea where the nearest pub was.
But then, that was only the first leg of my "no piping content" vacation out west this last summer.
yes, and no. There are signed bows into the thousands of dollars, but anyone can run out to a music shop and get a good fiberglass/nylon bow for $35 or a good wood/hair bow for $25.
Nobody I know in orchestras uses signed bows for their violins, violas, or cellos. They all use the bows the rest of us use. They have better strings than the cheapest steel ones (tho most don't go to the expense of the $120 pirastro gut set with the gold plating), better instruments (still only $5000 tops), and far more talent than your average amateur violinist. Therein lies the sound difference. Actually, those I've spoken to where this comes up laugh at people with signed bows, gold plated flutes or trumpets - they claim there is no real difference in performance, it's entirely a status thing and those using them are regarded as pompous.
That having been said, I'd love to see the reed market look like the violin bow market. It would be great to go to the nearest music shop, buy two reeds off the shelf based on wide/narrow bore + bore length in inches for the price of one now, and take them home confident that they can be plugged in and work just fine. It works that way for oboes and bassoons, who use reeds just as difficult to manufacture - indeed, oboe reeds are virtually identical to UP reeds in all but scale.
I mean Cub, but have you followed the inlation rate of the price of the better planes?
and yet the cost of pipes in almost every case seems to have tripled and even quadrupled from what folks say they were "back in the old days" (meaning the eightys and early ninteys). It certainly does seem that while there is X amount of work, and X amount of skill and X amount of rare materials that goes into making them, that uilleann pipes aren't going to get any cheaper any time soon.
