I agree that a B chanter, by its nature, might be harder to produce tonally pleasing music on
What? Heather would not agree - she says “can’t you play on the big long one? It’s SO much more tonally pleasing!”
Seriously, I dispute this statement. Hey - what a boring world if we all agreed . . .
Also
there are no absolutes and every maker churns out the occasional lemon. The question is whether they take that lemon and throw it on the fire or try and sell it on to a punter they think won’t know any better…Things like that shouldn’t happen, but occasionally they do.
I have a friend who once put a chanter up against the wall and . . . .
stamped on it! He’d been nattered on to at length, and - job almost finished - he’d let his concentration drift towards the lass doing the nattering. Applied the jig, drilled holes, took jig off, noticed . . . .jig upside down - DAMN AND BLAST!!! Up against the wall, stamped on. I have a chanter at the moment that fits this description - it will reed up, in tune, but the throat has oddly increased with age. It will never be sold, I’d not like it out there - it’s a wierdy and the first thing I ever put a reed in. BUT - when chanters have the wrong reed in - you can’t blame the maker for that, can you. That’s why it’s hard to know - it’s not like guitars . . .
Please do not point out the unintentional double-entendre
There’s a rake of newer pipe makers in the world who may not have this ideal. What they do not yet realize, is that by putting substandard instruments out onto the market and into the hands of those who are newcome to Uilleann Piping they are not only deceiving and subsequently harming their customers, they are ultimately deceiving and seriously harming their business, their name and themsleves.
The same thing goes for those who will make reeds fit in a chanter by altering the chanter (irreversibly) to fit the reed. These are the lowest form of the scum in the Uilleann Piping world.
Mind you, I see nothing wrong whatsoever in utilizing rushes and “bore tampons” to bring out qualities like hard D’s or bringing an errant back d/e into tune etc… etc, but modifying a chanter by reeming the bore, tone holes or by supergluing bits and pieces into the aforementioned areas, is a high crime that deserves a high penalty… and I’d personally like to be there to carry out the sentence.
I think the back D hole was drilled in the wrong place
Well I’ve had it working well, so I don’t think it is
No, I think it is, it’s an easy job to move it - won’t take a sec
Look, if you can’t reed my chanter, just say so, that’s OK but I’d rather you didn’t move the back D hole
Are you sure, I know it is in the wrong place
YES
this is a true story concerning a Spillane chanter and a UK reedmaker. The chanter was subsequently reeded by Burton and has played perfectly for years. I also know of a few instances of people turning back up on the maker’s doorstep “I sawed a bit off the foot joint and now it won’t work properly” “can you do anything with this? I took it to X and they re-drilled the back D hole!”
I sawed a bit off the foot joint and now it won’t work properly"
I have seen that one a few times too, usually people who can’t play a hard D. On the other hand I have also seen a pipemaker who thought all chanter were too long because he had never heard of hard bottom D.
Some pipemakers don’t mind altering chanters to suit their reeds or for whatever reason. One of my neighbours nearly whacked someone for doubling the size of the back D hole on his Rowsome chanter, the same man, without prompting, opened up the F on a Coyne chanter and altered a Kenna set to the extend a wellknown piper considered it fecked. It Happens, there’s absolutely no question.
This isn’t all one sided -
I know of someone who turned up at his pipemaker with a chanter and reed that played perfectly, he just wanted the luxury of a spare reed.
His pipemaker took a reamer and a dremel to the chanter to get his new ‘super duper’ reeds to work in it, without so much as a by-your-leave, then asked for a fee for the job along with the new reed charge.
To add to the fun, the ‘super-duper’ cracked and died three days later leaving this someone with an unsuccessful seven year struggle to get a reed that played anything like the origional.
Only the names have been omited to protect the guilty
The thought of taking a Black and Decker to a chanter just because a reedmaker can’t adapt his reedmaking methods to that particular chanters dimensions is scary. If I can’t reed a particular customers chanter, I say so and return it to them untampered with and with an apology and no charge. Even if someone asked me to physically alter their chanter, the answer would be ‘no’.
