double chanters

[Celtpastor]

So finally got registered as well...
Except for all the Oriental and Caucasian doublechanter-sets (which Baines stupidly called "hornpipes" - You might better call them "mediterranian-caucasian-type", since many of these instruments, from Georgia over Turkey, Near-East, Greece, Balcan and, if You will, even the French Boha, have the same typology: no drones, mouthblown, idioglott singlereeds and, well - doublechanters ) and different Zampognas, I have a very simple copy of the early Italian sordellina made by Steffen Fischer (Germany), a kind of doublechanter-smallpipe. It's not the late, bellows-blown, keyed type, but the early, keyless, one-droned mouthblown type. Two same-lenghted chanters, (recorder-) chromatic fingering in C. Veeery easy to play. Since one octave + 1 tone (high d) are split onto two chanters (bit like Sicillian "Zampogna a paro"), You can begin by playing any recorder-melody as usual, then, when more courageous, try to accompany Yourself on the chanter not needed for the part of melody You play at that moment. I did quite some Breton and Scottish stuff this way, some churchhymns as well. The bad thing is: Being very quiet and in C, it's useless if You want to play with others - and used to "normal" bagpipe-fingering, having the Tonic on the pinkie always gets me out...

[pancelticpiper]

I play a Julian Goodacre Cornish Doublepipe in D. It has a huge long drone.

As for what I play, unlike a lot of people who use their Cornish pipes for generic Renaissance music, I mostly play Cornish tunes, plus a number of Irish and Scottish tunes which I already happen to know from playing the uilleann pipes and the GHB.

I used to have a double-chanter Northumbrian Smallpipe. It was pretty cool. The advantage of the NSP is that it uses closed fingering, so that a double chanter sounds identical to a normal single chanter when played normally, but you can play both chanters simultaneously at will. There's a photo in the "photos of your pipes" thread.

I've often thought about having a double Scottish Smallpipe made. What's great about GHB fingering is that either one hand or the other is always fingering low A, that is if the chanter for the upper hand lacks the B, C#, and D holes and the chanter for the lower hand lacks the high A, high G, F#, and E holes. Whenever upper-hand notes are being played the lower hand is fingering low A, whenever lower-hand notes are being played the other chanter would be sounding low A, so that such a chanter-pair would sound a continuous low A drone without the player having to think about it or alter his normal fingerings. Then, at will, both chanters could be brought into play at once for harmony. I'm very close to having somebody make me this thing. My idea is that it would have no drones at all, like Julian's normal Cornish doublepipes.

[CHasR]

So finally got registered as well...
Except for all the Oriental and Caucasian doublechanter-sets (which Baines stupidly called "hornpipes" - You might better call them "mediterranian-caucasian-type", since many of these instruments, from Georgia over Turkey, Near-East, Greece, Balcan and, if You will, even the French Boha, have the same typology: no drones, mouthblown, idioglott singlereeds and, well - doublechanters ) and different Zampognas, I have a very simple copy of the early Italian sordellina made by Steffen Fischer (Germany), a kind of doublechanter-smallpipe. It's not the late, bellows-blown, keyed type, but the early, keyless, one-droned mouthblown type. Two same-lenghted chanters, (recorder-) chromatic fingering in C. Veeery easy to play. Since one octave + 1 tone (high d) are split onto two chanters (bit like Sicillian "Zampogna a paro"), You can begin by playing any recorder-melody as usual, then, when more courageous, try to accompany Yourself on the chanter not needed for the part of melody You play at that moment. I did quite some Breton and Scottish stuff this way, some churchhymns as well. The bad thing is: Being very quiet and in C, it's useless if You want to play with others - and used to "normal" bagpipe-fingering, having the Tonic on the pinkie always gets me out...

WOW!!
Clergy with a bechonnet!!!
Nice looking inlay, celtpastor!!
Who made your instrument???

[MichaelLoos]

WOW!!
Clergy with a bechonnet!!!
Nice looking inlay, celtpastor!!
Who made your instrument???

As I happen to know that our clergyman is rather busy at the moment, I'm answering in his stead....
This instrument was made by Reinhard Zielonka from Rixdorf in the north of Germany. The workmanship is superb, and the sound of theninstrument is excellent, although a bit on the quiet side (for my taste).

[Celtpastor]

Thanx, Mick! Yep, it IS a bit on the quiet side, mostly the drones. But the bassdrone somehow wonderfully consonates the fifth as well, I just LOOOOVE that sound
@pancelticpiper: That's just about what I am searching for as well - but why would You want to have it without drones?

[Yuri]

Well, guys, have a look on my website. There are some sound samples of genuine mediaeval music played on a double-chanter bagpipe. That's polyphonic music, not an ostinato bass with a melody.
The website: http://www.wood-n-bone.co.nz
Go onto the bagpipe/reeds section (as if I needed to add this)

[Celtpastor]

You know I did - still waiting for the invoice...

[CHasR]

Well, guys, have a look on my website. There are some sound samples of genuine mediaeval music played on a double-chanter bagpipe. That's polyphonic music, not an ostinato bass with a melody....

that's very 'Notre-Dame' of you , Yuri!
(or should I say..organumical ? Perotinish? Leoninish?)
Is this you playing?

[Yuri]

On the double chanters, yes. On the Scottish, no. I don't play Scottish fingering.

[pancelticpiper]

...about what I am searching for as well - but why would You want to have it without drones?

Because the Scottish double chanter thing would have a continuous "virtual drone" already, so a drone is not necessary.

And at times you could shift the tonality by having the "drone" go up to B or down to G without the interference of an A drone.

And it would make the instrument more compact for playing at sessions.

But perhaps a single bass drone might be OK...

[Celtpastor]

The sordellina ha a single drone, in a common stock with the chanters, curved, so the sound comes out on the front side, VERY close to the chanterbells. That might be the right historical inspiration for You.

[sean an piobaire]

I don't think Baines(RIP) was stupid to call most double Pipes Horn Pipes, it's just some of them
"Lost" their Horns. The Horns do make the whole Pipe Louder than those without Horns,
so some Pipers in some traditions, took them off, to play indoors, perhaps ?
My Collection List of Double Horn Pipes with Horns:
Tunesian Mezoued
Turkish/Lazburi Tulum
Georgian Gudastviri
Serb Gajdy from Sokobanja
Betwixt and between:
My Magyar, Paloc Duda, and the Horn is there on the Kontra as a decoration.
Double, Triple, and Quadruple Bore Pipes, without Horns:
Croatian Diple
Bandari (Iran) Ney Anban
Polish Zakopane Koza
Croat-Magyar Podravine (Drava River) Dude
My Italian Zampogne and the Croatian Surle have
separate Chanters in a main stock:
Sicily, Scapoli, Napoli, Calabrese, and Campagna models.
I don't have any of the re-constructions of
Western European Separate (or side by side) Double Chanter Bagpipes
from Flanders, England, Cornwall, etc. Back in the 1970s, Bob Thomas (RIP)
made a Flemish Double Chanter Bagpipe with one Chanter
having a Scale up to the 4th, that is, the lower
right hand holes, and the other Chanter had all the Holes,
for use as a Solo Chanter, or for the Top 4 notes of
the rest of the Scale. In addition, it has a Bass Drone
over the shoulder. My friend Alan Keith has this
Bob Thomas Bagpipe in his collection. I think there's
a photo of it on Alan's web-site.
I've been working on a friend of mine, to make me an
Irish Double Chanter in "D" to "finish-out" the Normal
style equipage on American-Irish Pipes of the 19th
century, where you would have 2 Chanters, one Single,
and one Double Chanter to carry through to the Back of a
Large Music Hall, a crowded Bar, or in a Street.
Yeah..... we have all those same venues in use today, but we have
P.A. systems (Amplifiers, Speakers) turned all the way up !!!
We are so ADVANCED.........
Sean Folsom

[Ciarameddaru]

"The way its been related to me is that after WWII there were less than 10 craftsmen making zampogne in Italy + Sicily; the instrument underwent a redesign in the 50's-60's (after all those horrible out of tune historical recordings by Lomax) + the current generation is reaping the benefits of that. Kids are really latching onto it, so I hear. Even so, researchers are still finding 'one-off' regional types of zampogna. For instance, they're talking about a single-reeded 1 or 2 droned keyless Molise-type in the current Utriculus, endemic to just a few towns south of Isernia."

Charlie, who told you that there were only 10 craftsmen making Zamognas after WWII. I have never heard this and I highly doubt it. In fact what I have heard anecdotaly from my Zampogna wanderings is that there were many more players and presumably makers in the 1960s than there were today - ie the zampogna was a much larger part of the lifestyle. This has to do more with economy than anything else. When the economy of Italy changed in the late 60s and 70s the culture changed. The Zampogna became less relevant. As a TRADITIONAL instrument played as a "way of life" the zampogna is dying. However there is a large group of impassioned people that will prevent the instrument from dying out. But from the standpoint of players and makers there are less today than post WWII. Particularly I think there are less instrument makers because it is no longer a sustainable enterprise like it might have been 30 years ago. The production of the instrument is being more centralized. In the past when Italy had a traditional "sustainable" economy every little mountain town had a pipe maker just like they had a cobbler or a blacksmith etc. However, there are several regions where the instrument died out over the past 30-40 years of Southern Italy's modernization where it is making a big comeback thanks to cultural organizations and the INTERNET. This would include Northern Calabria in the Pollina, and Reggio Calabria in Cardeto (my new favorite playing style - ask me if you are interested) as well as of course, Scapoli (the scapoli zampogna culture is diff than the rest of italy and reflects where the trend is heading).

Also, what Alan Lomax recordings are you referring to? The two recordings on the Sicily CD are excellent and I have heard some from the Calabria CD as well which is also good quality. All are in tune as well. Regarding Alan Lomax's impact on reviving Italian folk music, I think his largest impact might have been with the trallalero singers in Genova, not so much the zampogna.

Your Ciarameddaru in Kansas City

[Celtpastor]

@Sean: There's no prove, that, historically, all droneless doublechanterpipes had horns and some lost them. Without horn, most of them still aren't quiet enough to comfortably play them indoors, so (cf. the "NeyAnban-Thread) it would absolutely make no sense to leave the horn again after having discovered its advantages...
Since they are an improvement, and also, since oldest historical double-chanter reedflutes had NO hornbells (yet), it's much more probable the other way round: They started off hornless and then some discovered the sound- and volume-improvement by fixing a horn to them!
So the term "hornpipes", at any time in history, would have only be implyable to SOME of the instruments described by Baines (those WITH horns, haha! ), by far not ALL of them. The expression "hornpipe" the way used by Baines simply makes no sense...

[pancelticpiper]

Back in the 1970s, Bob Thomas (RIP)
made a Flemish Double Chanter Bagpipe with one Chanter
having a Scale up to the 4th, that is, the lower
right hand holes, and the other Chanter had all the Holes,
for use as a Solo Chanter, or for the Top 4 notes of
the rest of the Scale. In addition, it has a Bass Drone
over the shoulder.

That's cool Sean! I fondly remember Bob Thomas but I dont' remember seeing this particular bagpipe.

To me the trouble with some double chanters is that one will drone on the 4th rather than the tonic.

That's why I want to have made a Scottish thing where the two chanters will be set up as follows:

o= where there is a hole in the normal position
x= where there would ordinarily be a hole but the hole has been left off

o ooo xxxo
x xxx oooo

Thus, using normal partially-closed GHB fingering, one chanter or the other is always sounding Low A, creating a "virtual drone" as Julian Goodacre calls it.

But you can play harmonies whenever you wish.