It has been a long running discussion as to weather the type of timber used to make chanters has any effect on tone
Some would swear that it has a huge effect where others say, other factors are more important.
So as an experiment could we compare the chanters of Paddy Keenan?
Paddy is well known for playing in the past a Leo Rowsome chanter which he used to reed himself.As far as I know he decided to change this chanter as it was"worn out" and he had it copied by David Quinn.
Mr Quinn being the great pipemaker that he is ,we can be fairly sure the chanter was a very good copy of the rowsome chanter,the only difference being the Quinn chanter is boxwood the Rowsome chanter is ebony.We can also assume that Paddy set up the reed on the new chanter the way he did the old chanter,
So,the big question, is there much difference in the tone of the two chanters
I dont have alot of recording of Paddy Keenan but what I do have I dont hear a huge difference in the tone. Paddy seems to like a more rounder tone than would normally expected from a Rowsome chanter and that is present in both chanters!
I think the reed set up and the chanter bore has more influence that what timber is actually used.
He told me that he got the boxwood because he wanted a mellower tone, and it’s nice, but it doesn’t really make that much difference. Sorry, more third party name dropper evidence.
I would agree that the wood of the chanter doesn’t have nearly as big an affect one tone than the reed & bore do, for what it’s worth.
When I saw Paddy just after he aquired the boxwood Koehler & Quinn chanter (not the last time I saw him I might add) he told me how pleased he was with it and that the boxwood was his favourite material for its tonal qualities. He reitterated this to me on many occassions after both at Willie week and when visiting my lo-cal-ity.
Paddy got the K&Q chanter at my house, it being mailed to me to get to him while he was on tour. He took the reed from his old chanter and stuck it in the new one. I can confirm that the boxwood had a mellower tone than the ebony and blended better with his regulators. He did some A/B comparisons for a couple of hours. The difference was obvious to both of us. It must be said that Paddy, in his youth, had undercut and scalloped the original with a broken pair of scissors. It had almost no chimney height in the tone holes and was quite out of tune as well as very bright in tone. The boxwood stick had a bit more chimney to it, but Paddy had Benedict lessen that later on. The new chanter was also in tune, which Paddy said would make him lazy, as he was always having to force the original into tune as he played. Paddy had liked the tone of my faux boxwood chanter, also made by David Quinn, but with a bore extrapolated from Liam O’Flynn’s (borrowed) Rowsome chanter. The bores of Paddy’s should be VERY close to the same, except the chimney heights of about 1/16" on the boxwood, and the reed was the same. A remarkable difference, due to the boxwood, was noticed. We both thought that it was an improvement.
Paddy slipped coming off the stage in stocking feet at the Burren in Somerville, MA, and fell on me, shattering my beer glass. True story. Neither of us were hurt, but he did remark on his fondness for the tone of boxwood.
When Paddy came to Toronto he mentioned to me that the drive was longer than expected, possibly because of a lengthy border crossing, but he was happy to have the boxwood chanter by his side as it made the time go faster yet mellower.
I think it’s aparent that there is indeed a noted difference between the tonal qualities of the woods, even if only believed to be the case by a handful of people (including Paddy himself).
I wish I could name drop too, but I can’t. However, I can say that I compared an ebony chanter and a tallow wood (similar to box) made by one maker. Both were identical as far as I could tell, except the ebony one was fully keyed. I can say with absolute conviction that there was a huge difference in tone between them.
I can’t say anything about Paddy’s chanters, but I was able to do my
own box vs. ebony comparison. I have a B set on order from Michael
Hubbert, and when I placed the order (at the 2005 SoCal tionol),
Michael let me play some of his B chanters. He had one in boxwood
and one in ebony, and I played both with the same reed. The
difference in tone was not subtle. Several people walked across
the room to say that they preferred the ebony. I liked the boxwood.
If you ever get a chance to do a similar comparison yourself, I highly
recommend it.
Its one of those discussions that will probably never resolved.
But the fact is and it can be scientifically proven that the actual material that woodwind instruments are made of has no bearing on the tone of the instrument..The difference that is heard between two seemingly identical instruments can always be attributed to either the reed or to tiny differences in the bore.
A good example of this is the fact that makers have been trying to reproduce the sound of the masterpieces of the old makers for years. They have come close and make fine instruments ,but the sound is not quite the same as the old sets, and this can be put down to the tiny ,near microscopic undulations in the bore that can not be measured by sticking probes up the chanter .
The wood is only important in the respect that in can be worked to a fine finish
It absolutely cannot be determined scientifically that the actual material of which a woodwind is made has no bearing on the tone of the instrument.
Here it comes . . . wait for it.
I submit that the only way would be if we could do a real blinded experiment. Blinded. Meaning the maker would have no idea which material he/she was using, the player would have no idea, nor would the judging listeners. This experiment has not been performed (nor, really could it be). I’ve turned enough timber to know that different woods work differently; who knows if the subtle (and not-so-subtle) different manners for working different timbers is what makes a blackwood chanter sound a particular way, or a boxwood one sound another way.
The oft-misrepresented experiment which “proved” the unimportance of materials in flutes has been discussed ad nauseam and I am convinced that the experiment failed to provide any meaningful insight.
And I think we’d be fools to discount completely the contribution of psychoacoustics. Our senses are inextricably linked to memory and emotion; who am I to say that boxwood doesn’t evoke something wonderful in some people, whereas others might find it dull?
Recently I’ve changed my bore design to bring the E’s and the soft/hard bottom D in tune without using rushes in the bore.
I made one in Box and one in Ebony and there’s a huge difference in how they sound. The sound of the Box version is rounder, warmer if you like.
I think boxwood emphasizes or mute other harmonics then Ebony. So I really don’t care if sience has proven material doesn’t matter, the proof is in the listening
In the testing, so same bore, same reed, same top piece, but different wood equals very different sound.
The idea that wood has no effect on different chanters of the same design is, to me, a bit like asserting that dogs do not pee on lamp posts!
I have 3 C# chanters of the same design knocking around at the moment, and only one reed, which I am swapping around. The chanters are in ebony, blackwood and palosanto. THey have the same throat, OD, hole sizes / placings and bore. They all sound different.
Yes, three different reeds would probably have a greater effect, but the wood has a significant effect on the tone. I also have box, ebony, palosanto and lignum vitae concert chanters of a very similar design, and there is a rack of difference between them.
I’d love to record them all and prove my point, but too busy to go into the studio. Sorry.
Perhaps some difference occurs due to the different ways that different woods take a reamer, but I don’t believe this is entirely responsible. The difference between a rough and a highly polished bore on the same chanter is less than different woods, in my experience.
Paddy was in town in May. He confided in me that he could use a new kidney so I said “Sure Paddy! (that’s MISTER Keenan to you, Rory)…righty or lefty?!”
None of that is true of course, but I believe (if my tionol-clouded memory does not desert me again) that he said that Dave Williams (RIP) was making (or going to make?) a boxwood copy of his Rowsome stick as well.
Paddy had liked the tone of my faux boxwood chanter, also made by David Quinn, but with a bore extrapolated from Liam O’Flynn’s (borrowed) Rowsome chanter. The bores of Paddy’s should be VERY close to the same, except the chimney heights of about 1/16" on the boxwood, and the reed was the same. A remarkable difference, due to the boxwood, was noticed. We both thought that it was an improvement.
