What notes are the key blocks for on older chanters? Have a look at this Coyne copy by Davy Stephenson:
http://www.bagpipeworks.com/this_month’s_special.htm
What are the notes of the seven keys are any there that enable notes in the third octave.? How bout some general information on antique chanters their evolution to fully keyed? early keyless- chanters w/ many, many keys?
Thanks,
Patrick
Ist the 7 keys. Fnat. G#/Ab. A#/Bb. Cnat.Dnat.Enat.Bottom D.(really just a hanging valve)as you can use cross fingering,in truth you do not need any of them.I cannot remember using G#or A# at all as for D and E nat.Anyone know of a tune for these (in the Irish Repotoire)?It is worth remembering that keys were introduced by way of experimentation to make the pipes a fully chromatic instrument which is impossible because the drones are set and therefore there would be an imbalance.However that didnae stop the keys coming along no matter how infrequently they are used.
2nd If you want to look at a real set of Coyne pop along to Thomas Johnson Site and see the restored one there.It doesnt look much like the other one you referred to.
Liam,
Isnt G# an important note in the key of A major(all those good old fiddle tunes we can’t always do justice to on the pipes)? What is the cross fingering for G#? Keys can be a bit of a white elephant indeed, but from where I’m standing it’s only 'cos you can’t ornament them effectively. Northumbrians use 'em all the time to incredible effect. But you already knew that:)
Cheers
Alan
listen to Seamus Ennis playing When sick is it tea you want, Lady Aylmer, [or Amrhan an Leabhar and Cronan na Maher] and Jenny’s welcome to Charlie and most of your key qestions in regards to tunes from the Irish repertoire are answered.
And E natural key, re-think that one, unless you mean a third octave E.
[ This Message was edited by: Peter Laban on 2002-10-07 14:59 ]
Hya Alan,sorry I was refering to Cnat and Fnat on the cross fingering(wasnt very clear)Doesnt alter the fact that you dont really need the others tho,lets not forget the balance with the drones!Ps.Your reed is still going strong so anyone out there want a reed for life he’s your man.
Peter what are you on?You dont need to play any of the tunes you mentioned with keys Seamus uses G# on Song of the Books but it sounds fine with Fnat as for Enat yes I am sure look at Rowsomes Tutor for the Uileann Pipes 1936 (his spelling by the way)pge 34 agus 35 will give you all the info you want.The point I am making is if you want to spend a small fortune on keys go ahead and I hope you will be happy ever after.
Liam,
Dammit!! Does that mean I don’t get to play G#. Hope your well and thanks for the kind words 
Cheers
Al
Dear Alan,
The suggestion you gave me for fixing the stablity of the second octave E by using the roll of cardstock also resulted in a nice G#-Ab when the chanter is held off the knee while playing A. It also makes a flattened B a bit easier by making an impolite gesture with my left hand. I sometimes want to use that more than it’s appropriate. 
Marc
On 2002-10-07 17:06, Uilliam wrote:
Peter what are you on?You dont need to play any of the tunes you mentioned with keys Seamus uses G# on Song of the Books but it sounds fine with Fnat as for Enat yes I am sure look at Rowsomes Tutor for the Uileann Pipes 1936 (his spelling by the way)pge 34 agus 35 will give you all the info you want.The point I am making is if you want to spend a small fortune on keys go ahead and I hope you will be happy ever after.
You are right about not spending a fortune on keys. Except for high C you can manage well without them, if you do have them however you can easily find use for them in some tunes.
But what I am on, Ennis does use his gsharp throughout When Sick. Cronan na Maher is the only tune I know that starts on a full high gsharp and no way around that one, it’s quite an opening statement [you can do When sick without the g sharp ofcourse]. Ennis plays Amrhan an Leabhar without the gsharp but throughout with bflats and f naturals as the does use the bflats in Lady Aylmer. And try to get hold of the recording of him playing the Rambling Pitchfork with F nat and B flat throughout.
If you pull Rowsome, quote him properly, my point was ofcourse that Enatural is your average E that any chanter has without the use of a key UNLESS as I said you have an E key for the third octave as included in Rowsomes chart. That was what I was on.
Now we can haggle over the use of High E [third octave] I wouldn’t have a use for that one now, but I suppose the old pipers did as they had a repertoire quite different fro mwhat we play today, operatic pices and all that. The high E key is very effective though when you use it to grace or make triplets on high C, I use that in the second part of [Tommy Reck’s] Stone in the field. What I am saying, if you have them you may as well use them.
I grant you you can do Jenny’s Welcome to Charlie better without the keys, using your e flat as ghost D.
One of my students wanted me to teach her the Ace and Deuce of piping, she’d been on to me about it for weeks. So last week I gave her the tune, which I play without using the key, it baffled her and there was one young girl wishing she had an F natural key. Different people…
[ This Message was edited by: Peter Laban on 2002-10-08 04:27 ]
Alan I have been footering about this morning and lo!ye can getG# Bb high Cnat agus Fnat with cross fingering as follows=
G#…3rd finger down +bottom finger(A+Bottom E note)(no cardboard required!)
Bb…2nd finger down+2nd finger up from bottom(partB+partE)
High Cnat…grace note the C open the 2nd finger up (part E)
Fnat.. Open bottom 2 fingers+ slightly curl the 3rd finger off the knee.
This could be a litmus test to see how good your chanter is as you would need a good one to start with.(plus of course a good reed!!! yours for example.)As for the High Dnat agus High Enat I still dont know any tunes in the Irish Repetoire that would use it.(Seamus played a flat set which would make a difference)The above notes apply to Concert pitch D.Anyways on with the day.
Slan go foill
Liam
Peter apologies profundum etc.
Seamus does indeed use Bb( I’m getting my notes mixed up, in song of the books(on his flat set)You seem to have missed the point I was making re High Dnat and High Enat can you name any tunes in the Irish Repetoire that will use these particular notes and would it justify the expense?(I dont mean grace notes either)As for the other notes /keys of course there are countless tunes that COULD utilise them.Horses for courses as we say.How important is this anyway?.The original question was what were the keys and that has been answered .
Justifying the expense I suppose that’s a personal decision, as I said above the D and E key come in handy for the odd grace and triplet on high C, if you have them. I have no use for high Es
High D is easily obtanable if you have a half decent reed, Queen of the Fairies springs to mind as one tune that extensively uses that note, but you can, Ennis like, through the odd high D around for a bit of extra flavour.
Cnat is sufficient for me, all the rest is just hardware. I suspect that the reason why the ace and deuce is seen as a test piece is that one should be able to play it without the key that makes it too easy. Admittedly it’s easier on a narrow-bore than on a concert chanter, but I don’t want to get Peter started again
An PluiméirCeolmhar
[ This Message was edited by: Roger O’Keeffe on 2002-10-08 12:33 ]
Peter what is your source for “QUEEN OF THE FAIRIES”?
I learned it off a recording Ronnie Wathen made at a tionol in Termonfeckin. Ennis playing it. I made a transcription of that whihc went into the Piobaire sometime during the 80s. Liam Flynn recorded it since. I’ll be happy to send you an MP3, it’s a great tune.
[edited to insert Seamus Ennis]
[ This Message was edited by: Peter Laban on 2002-10-09 05:27 ]
Peter,yes please cos I cant find it transcribed anywhere you can get my EMail from the profile.
Slan go foill
Liam
ps. Ive checked with na Piobaire Uilleann and they dont have it in their archive file?
[ This Message was edited by: uilliam on 2002-10-09 13:17 ]
Technically the only necessary keys are the high c and d as the scale becomes out of tune on these overblown notes.
Except on practice sets I now fully key my chanters on the Taylor (square) style there are four - Fnat; G#;Bb & Cnat. Block mounted chanters have in addition a high d.
The practice set chanters have the blocks in place for the additional keys.
The F nat (minor third) is paticularly useful
[ This Message was edited by: Chris Bayley on 2002-10-22 17:58 ]
[quote]
On 2002-10-22 17:57, Chris Bayley wrote:
"Except on practice sets I now fully key my chanters on the Taylor (square) style there are four - Fnat; G#;Bb & Cnat. Block mounted chanters have in addition a high d.
The practice set chanters have the blocks in place for the additional keys.
The F nat (minor third) is paticularly useful"
This looks like a back door self advertisement to me especially as we have covered the subject!Why is the Fnat “especially useful” you can get the note easily enough without it.
No more self advertising please.Liam
[ This Message was edited by: Uilliam on 2002-10-23 05:15 ]
liam,
well said, I second you on that one!
With all the talk about Key Blocks and variations of Keying , sometimes leaving me behind!,is there any comparative Charts showing these same variations of Chanter Key Additions .
I would like to learn how the different key additions on Different Types of Chanter would approximate in sound to which modern music Scales .
For someone like me who doesnt know much music theory? I know that a D Chanter will, like a Tin Whistle ,play in A, G and D.. so what about the variations of key Blocks on all the diferent Concert and Flat Chanters ?
An interesting mention was made in these .
pages already about the Earlier Pipers perhaps requiring Different keys on a Chanter so as to play other music of their Day , "operatic "! . is this just surmising or a known fact.
I would imagine that at all times Traditional musicians in ireland responded to outside developments in music and external inluences on the tastes of their home audience.
Big Subject!
Anluain
Peter Said
‘I learned it off a recording Ronnie Wathen made at a tionol in Termonfeckin. Ennis playing it. I made a transcription of that whihc went into the Piobaire sometime during the 80s. Liam Flynn recorded it since. I’ll be happy to send you an MP3, it’s a great tune.’
I got that tune from Andy Conroy who got it from Tommy Reck. I asked Tommy about it and he assured me that he had a number of tunes with the third ‘D’ but that he now found them hard to play (this was during his resurection period). The version from Tommy is slightly different.
On another note I heard Gaybo playing ‘The Tipsy Sailor’ at full tilt in a sesion recently. Another tune filled with quare notes and such.
Cheers
John