I got the oportunity to play a couple of B and C chanters this weekend at the SoCal pipers club and what struck me was the ease of playing. Sean Potts makes the statement (Kevin’s posting) about going straight to a concert pitched practice set rather than a flat set. Why would that be? I would think that it would be easier to concentrate on the music, once you figured out how to keep air to the chanter, the bag topped up and your bellows working correctly.
Also, with the flat set being relatively quiet, how was it heard over dancers feet when playing for parties??
Comments???
NoE was right- play a flat set and never go back!!
Well, I can’t speak for Sean but there are perfectly good reasons to begin with concert pitch instruments. The number one reason is that they are most often used in the face to face teaching scenario. Another great reason is that it affords one easier opportunities to learn how to play with fiddles, flutes, and boxes.
Flat pipes would have been played for small, intimate gatherings of not more than eight or ten people at the most. And they wouldn’t be doing Riverdance-style hard shoe numbers, either.
Flat sets are a bit easier to blow, but can be tricky. Sometimes they require a lot more contol over pressure to get all notes to play in tune vs a concert D which is pretty much level pressure within each octave. Some find the wider finger spacing on flat chanters to be a problem.
Playing for parties? UPs were solo instruments, and it is still debatable how many there were in circulation at any one time, and who or what venues they were used in. You are correct that they are quiet. It is speculated that this was the driving force to develop the louder concert D (to be played at concert halls) and thus the name.
Today, most people want to play with other instruments, and most of those other instruments can handle the keys of D or G much easier than C# or Bb. Playing a set in a flat key may possibly become a limiting factor unless there is another instrument there who can play in, or retune to, your flat pitch.
All the flat sets I’ve played including a Wooff B have been markedly harder to blow than my concert set. Actually, rephrase that - all the flat chanters only have been markedly harder to blow than my concert 1/2 set chanter and drones together. So that blows that statement out the window
I’d say it depends on the reeds. I tried one C set (don’t recall the maker but it was lovely) that played so easily it was startling. Then again, it was quiet as a mouse; too quiet for my liking, and I’m not a fan of loud sets. My Ginsberg C set is louder than the one I mentioned and can play hard or easily depending on where the bridle’s at.
Dave, that’s entirely reed dependant. If sonmeone has closed the reed right down, or left too much on the scrape, then it will be hard to blow. But that is not a matter of the basic design. My B chanter will practically play with just the weight of my arm on the bag, but it wants a good hard squeeze to play and sound well, and more so to keep the drones and regs steady. I am told that most people in Ireland have their pipes (in all keys) set up to play much harder than what we do here. Again, a matter of the reed set-up.
In general, good flat sets should be easier to blow than the vast majority of concert pitch sets. Contrary to what djm says, a well made flat set has a more even pressure up the scale in both octaves, and a much easier second octave, than most concert pitch sets.
Many people report that flat sets are much easier to handle, control, and play than concert pitch sets, and that would be my opinion as well. However I have encountered flat chanters that were poorly set up, or possibly suffered design-wise. It’s probably mostly a matter of reeds though.
Lots of assertions have been made about flat chanters on this list with which I disagree, including ease of playing, blowing pressure, tonehole spacing, etc.. It makes me wonder what kind of “flat chanters” people are playing??? Certainly the characteristics I associate with the old historic makers and with close copies of 19th century chanters don’t match what I am hearing on-list.
Perhaps we need to get some manometer readings for various sets published, so that there is at least some data against which these assertions can be tested.
The old sets need not be that quiet. Of course the world was a quieter place in the past, even during house parties. A flat set of pipes is plenty loud for a house dance, but not for a dance hall.
That’s why you can’t make general statements that flat sets are easier to blow than concert sets
I thought I might have to eat my words today when during practice I found my pipes to be unusually difficult to blow. Upon further inspectin I found that I have a newly developed leak at the seam Did a rough patch-up just before with the leather glue but I think it’s time for a new bag. :roll:
Cheers,
Did a rough patch-up just before with the leather glue but I think it’s time for a new bag. :roll: