Hey,
Just saw the illustation on the cover of the Le Rowsome Irish music collection, the chanter looks very like a Froment chanter. Does Alain base his chanter design on Leo’s? I heard in Liraman’s interview with Cillian O Briain that Cillian bases his work on Rowsome sets, but Alain and Cillian’s work are very difernet. Which maker comes closer to replicating Leo’s work?
Alain based his work on a set of Leo Rowsome pipes that is now in the hands of Kevin Rowsome.
Alain also used Leos work to design the external “look” of his pipes.
While Cillians pipes don’t look much like a Rowsome set the sound a lot like them. In my opinion, a lot sweeter and brighter than Froment stuff.
Tommy
I’ve seen photos of several Leo Rowsome chanters and no two are alike.
The set that Leo is pictured playing was his personal set.
I’m not sure but I suspect that when makers say that they base their pipes on Rowsome’s work, they’re mainly referring to the bores, hole spacing, etc., rather than just the external aesthetics.
Alain used LR’s turning. His chanter turning is identical to LR’s chanters except for LR’s student chanters which have a behive style, which Benedict Koehler also uses for many of the chanters that he makes. I have never heard of a LR set made of stainless steel though, and AF uses SS exclusively.
Neil
Cillian may be searching for the Leo Rowsome sound, as he said in the interview, but his bore design is in fact quite different from Leo’s. It seems that Cillian used, at most, Leo’s tonehole spacing as a starting point; his current chanter designs are very much his own invention, to the best of my understanding.
I’m not sure but I suspect that when makers say that they base their pipes on Rowsome’s work, they’re mainly referring to the bores, hole spacing, etc., rather than just the external aesthetics.
From what I’ve seen, many makers use this sort of terminology quite loosely. Often it means “similar throat and bell diameters to a particular Leo Rowsome chanter”, possibly with a straight conical bore (instead of Leo’s typically more convoluted profile). Sometimes perhaps it means almost nothing…
A few makers may be attempting to closely emulate the details of a specific Rowsome chanter, or at least making a composite design that incorporates a number of key bore and tonehole details, but I believe this represents a minority of makers who invoke Rowsome’s name and reputation.
(To clarify - in Cillian’s case, he does not claim to be basing his designs on Rowsome in any way, from my reading of the article - he only says that the Rowsome sound/performance is a source of strong inspiration. I don’t think there is anything misleading about that, so I am in no way intending to criticise him; I reckong it’s much harder to re-invent a new chanter design than to try and replicate an existing one)
Bill