C# is flat?

Uilleann Pipes
1

I was trying to make my own version of “Now Westlin’ Winds” . It has a lot lower octave C#'s in it. I had noticed with some other tunes that the C# seemed a bit flat but it did not sound so bad. But with the sequence of notes for this tune it sounds too flat.

I don’t spend a lot of time using a tuner as long as stuff sounds good to me ear. I am not good enough to play in a session yet.

But I pulled the tuner out and tried two of my pipemaker reeds and about 8 of my reeds. Low D fine. High D fine. Low A good. Low C# off on all of them by about 25-30c flat.

So what do you do about that?? Any fingering to sharpen a the C#?

I suppose that I could sharpen the whole chanter and tape or rush the other notes but that seems dumb?

Can my pipemaker easily correct that one hole?

2

The C# hole also controls the C naturals ( I say that in plural because there are several variants of fingerings which produce slightly different pitches of the C note)…
so anyway it would be good if you also measured the pitches of your C nautrals.

It is possible to have the C# sharper than you have and have the C naturals in good places but it is not just a case of getting the reed ‘right’ , there are some chanter issues that need to be tackled too. So perhaps it is a job for your pipemaker.

One of the first keys to be put on chanters was the one that gives a better C#… in fact I have seen a very old chanter which had just this key only…showing that there does exist a difficulty in this area which needs some delicate solutions… or a key!

A C# note in the key of D would want to be different to a C# in the key of A… so some compromise is generally taken and many pipers try to avoid C#'s or ‘gloss over’ them because they are in sour places , in a tone height sense that is.

3

Thanks Geoff. While my back D sounded good it was sharp as well…but sounded ok. I used some tape to bring it down to where it should be. It did nothing for the C# of course, but it narrowed the difference between the high D and C#, so the C# does not sound that bad now.

But next time I visit my pipemaker I will see what he thinks.

A few good pipers have played my chanter and think its great…But I guess one of my problems is that I do not play that quickly yet so you can hear every note quite well.

4

If this is implying what it appears to be implying, that good pipers play fast and thus aren’t able to distinguish whether or not a chanter is in tune, I’ve never found this to be the case.

“Good pipers” at least by my way of thinking are good musicians, with good fingering yes but also good senses of rhythm and keen ears for pitch.

People with very good ears only need to hear a note for a splitsecond to clearly hear its pitch. Certainly I’ve seen many good players over the years blasting along on a reel and wincing because their ear caught that a particular note was a tad off.

Anyhow on my particular chanter C# x oxx xxxx is just a couple cents flat of the ET position of that note while C x oxx xoxx is also a hair flat and C x oxx xoox is bang-on to ET. For gigs that require strict ET I give C# a small pressure boost to bring it up (much as I do on flute and whistle) and I use the x oxx xoox fingering for C natural. C natural x oxx xoxx gives a more ‘trad’ sounding C to my ear.

A funny thing on my chanter is that closing all the fingerholes but pressing the High D key gives a perfectly in tune low-octave C#.

About a low C# key it’s a great idea. What I would really like is a High B key, working just like the High C key, to give a perfectly in tune high B. On my chanter, and most Concert Pitch chanters I’ve tried, there is around a quartertone to eighthtone differential in pitch between Low B and High B.

5

On a chanter pitched at A440 Hz, C# should be 550 Hz and B should be 489 Hz. Both around 1/8 semitone flat of ET. C# is a delicate note at the best of times. As for B in the 2nd octave …

6

C neutral…

7

Richard, your high D key is the one I refer to in my post above as the ‘in-tune C# key’… I believe that was its originally intended use.

8

Interesting!

It plays a perfectly in tune High D too, which has come in handy at times.

On my chanter anyhow the keyed High C and High D are so much better than High B. High B is trickier to hit and maintain and tends to be sharp. It would be so much better IMHO to have a High B key right where the High C key usually is, and have the High C key as a ‘side key’ like it is on the flute.

9

I had a flat C# one a chanter which had a hi-D key. Someone suggested that if I didn’t need to play the hi-D, I should fill the tone-hole with poster putty (blu-tac), which I did. It solved the C# problem.

I’ve had a sharp hi B on a few chanters and found that playing a one-finger B can help (x xox xxxx). You have to start the note with a regular two-finger B but then cover the A.

10

The addition of a high B key would appear to be a very reasonable suggestion Richard.

11

Which leads to the questions. Why hasn’t it been done? Did the old makers know something about high B that we don’t? Was it a note generally avoided? What can we learn here?

12

The sharp high B didn’t/doesn’t seem to be a problem with the narrow bore sets of old.

It can be fixed with the correct combination of bore diameter, hole size, position and scalloping.
Unsuitable staples can highlight the problem too.
I think some reed makers neglect the staple design and put too much effort into making sure the head is scraped and sanded correctly. The head has to be right, of course, but a staple with proper tapering and flattening will and should take the pressure off the blades to perform. Having a suitable rolling mandrel and a flattening mandrel are some of the most important tools for any reed maker.

But a high B key would be nice. I often wonder if the pipes hadn’t waned in popularity in the mid 1800’s would makers have continued to experiment. Look how the flute and oboe developed in those times. They’re different animals entirely because they’re not drone based but still one can wonder.

13

Why not done before?..; perhaps it was not considered to be such a big problem that needed a special key, after all the Oboe, which has the same problem, has its high B sharpness cured by an automatic mechanism which shuts the G hole ( something similar to the XXOX XXXX fingering) when the upper octave speaker key is held down. Many pipers were happy if their chanter and reed would reach that high!

Did the old makers know something about High B ? Probably!

Does not look to be a note generally avoided if the collected répertoires are anything to go on.

What can we learn here ? : Much has been learned since the making of No.7 ,Patrick, ( as suggested by Tompipes)… such that I don’t think I will be adding a high B key to my chanters any time soon.

Richard,
I note that you play on an older chanter from your maker… perhaps you might enquire to him for an improved version or chanter with that extra key ?

14

The old makers probably realised that a sharp high B with in reason doesn’t sound to bad.

RORY

15

Within reason yes… most upper octave notes sound best when they are ‘slightly’ sharper than those in the lower register… slightly in this sense does mean only a very little, just enough so the notes ‘over achieve’ the octave and don’t sound flat against a drone that might just rise in pitch with the increased pressure.

A B that is too high will give your fiddle playing mate a hard time… if ,that is, they are a sensitive musician who is trying to play ‘with you’ and not one of those who turn up to a session and tune their instrument to an electronic device and expect the poor old piper to play exactly 440hz Equal Temperament!!! :poke:

16

Ah to be sure isn’t it the sworn duty of all pipers to make life difficult for the string scratchers.

RORY

17

Ah yes the sharp High B of Concert Chanters.

About my old Quinn, it’s high B is better (less sharp) than the high Bs of practically any other Concert chanter I hear. If there’s a group of pipers my high B is usually the lowest. Mine is only a few cents sharp, while many pipers are playing it as much as a quartertone sharp.

However I do ‘legit’ gigs, that is, church gigs and orchestra gigs and soundtrack gigs for which the tuning must be exact (close doesn’t count). I try to avoid high B. Oftentimes if a piece has high Bs it won’t have any low Bs and I just put tape on that hole to fix the high B. I’ve also got pretty good at shading the hole to keep the pitch down.

About the one-finger high B, on my chanter high B is touchy anyhow, requiring much more pressure than any other note, and tends to fall the octave unless the pressure is maintained quite precisely. The one-finger high B is even more unstable on my chanter and besides I can’t ‘do’ anything with that note: I can’t bend it or play vibrato on it. It’s “just there”. But I do use that one-finger high B when I have no other option.

A perfect example of the trouble an uilleann piper can get into is an album I was hired to play on. The composer had got it through his noggin that the pipes like playing in G, good so far! (Usually composers don’t understand such stuff, and will write the uilleann pipe parts in unplayable keys, no matter how clearly you explain it beforehand.)

Well, B is the Major 3rd in the key of G, and this composer had me ending every piece on a long held high B! There was also a violin on the soundtrack and it sounded fine, the violin playing a very sweet soft ephemeral high B, with a lovely diminuendo, the note getting more and more quiet and ending with feathery softness.

I had to explain and demonstrate that the pipes aren’t like that, that High B is not only the loudest note, and that I can’t adjust the volume, but also is has a more ‘shouty’ timbre than the rest of the instrument, in fact screaming out more or less. When the composer heard it he understood completely and switched to me ending on high G, the tonic of the pieces, letting the violin to the B.

Perhaps if I had had a high B key that note would have had a more civilised sound and been more stable.

18

Back many years ago I was dating a ‘classical’ violinist (her specialty was Baroque, actually) and we would go to Irish concerts and listen to Irish albums and she immediately noticed that Irish fiddlers tend to play their B up on the E string too sharp. Considering that B is the Major 3rd of the key of G, one would expect B to be played a bit on the flat side to sweeten it (what’s called Just Intonation) or if nothing else to be played at the Equal Temperament location. But why play it sharp all the time? I had to explain that that note was always sharp on the pipes and oftentimes sharp on the flute too, and the fiddlers had probably got used to B sounding like that. These fiddlers never played their B on the A string as sharp as they played the B on the E string.