I think that Craig Fischer´s article “Flat Pipes - Vive la Differance” is one of the most important articles on flat piping ever. Unfortunately, it is not on the internet any longer. Does someone by chance have a copy and could send me one?
Cheers,
Hans
By Craig Fischer
There is often some confusion surrounding the difference between concert
pitch pipes and flat pipes.
Here’s my attempt to unravel the mess.
“Concert Pitch” is the term used to refer to the sort of pipes which were
made and played by Leo Rowesome and his father Willie before him amongst
others. These pipes were made very prominent by modern high profile pipers
such as Liam O Flynn and Paddy Keenan. Most of these are built to play at
or near modern concert pitch with lowest or key note D, hence their title.
The term “Flat Pipes” is usually used to refer to any set of pipes at a
pitch lower than A440. They are also commonly called B pipes or C pipes or
so forth, depending on the modern pitch of their keynote.
These terms are quite misleading. The most important differences between
these two sorts of pipes are in the size of their bore, and the details of
the reed which they use. It is useful to differentiate between them with
this in mind. For brevity I will call the reed end of the chanter bore the
“throat” and the furthest end from the reed the “exit”, the chanter bore
being approximately conical between these two points. From now on I’ll
refer to the concert pitch pipes as wide bore pipes and the flat pipes, as
narrow bore ones.
The narrow bore Irish pipe chanters which were made in the late 18th
century and which continued to be made for a large part of the 19th
century had a throat bore of about 4mm and an exit seldom larger than
11mm. The reeds, which were made to suit them, or which they were made to
suit, had head widths of 9.5mm to 10.5mm and staple bores of the order of
3.2mm. They shared these features with their close relative and plausible
ancestor, the pastoral pipes. Chanters made by John Coyne had throat sizes
as small as 3.7mm., possibly to suit a slightly shorter and lighter style
of reed than those of other makers or maybe to suit a reed of the same
length but stronger.
Narrow bores were made, and are still made, in many different pitches
ranging from a keynote of modern Bb to higher than modern D. They were
made in this range from the very earliest times of their existence.
Interestingly, many of the pastoral pipe chanters have a lowest note of
about modern C, and the keynote of an Irish pipe chanter of the same size,
i.e. without the foot joint of the pastoral pipes, would be about modern
D. Geoff Wooff says that old Irish pipes made in this pitch are quite
common, often not bearing a maker’s name. This is another curious feature
which they share with the pastoral pipes, many of which are unbranded.
Before this century there was no universal pitch standard. One pitch for A
in late 18th century London used by the oboe maker Collier was about A423.
In the mid 19th century Theobald Boehm made his metal flutes at A435, and
there were many and varied standards. They varied by country, region and
town. The pipes made by Coyne, which were played by Seamus Ennis, are now
widely known as a C# set, but these would probably have been pitched in D
by their maker to a lower pitch standard than is now in use. It is
unlikely that a chanter which we would now identify as a B or as a C was
designed to play in a pitch exactly the same as modern B or C.
A common pitch standard in the early 20th century was A453, now known as
OP or Old Philharmonic pitch. The physicist’s pitch standard of C512,
often referred to in text books, gives an A of about 431 Hz. Some
instruments of the Taylors appear to be in about this pitch and some in OP
pitch, as are many of those of both Willy and Leo Rowesome.
There is some latitude in reeding up a pipe chanter. With a few
contortions in the reed department for sharpening, and the use of bore
wires or rushes for flattening, a chanter in A453 can be squeezed up to
A466 for modern Eb or down to A440 for D. Many of the designs now being
produced as “concert pitch” chanters are in fact copies of chanters
pitched at A452 and either slightly modified or not at all modified. Any
accurate copy of a 1930’s Rowesome chanter is most likely designed for
this pitch. This points out that many of the earlier narrow bore chanters
were also “concert pitch” and some of the later wider ones were not.
Towards the end of the 19th century the environment in which the pipes
were being played seems to have changed. It is hard to know now whether
louder designs of chanter were evolved to suit larger performing spaces or
whether simply, because louder designs were available, they could then be
used in this way. Whichever was the chicken or the egg, the Taylor
Brothers are credited with first producing chanters with a larger bore and
using a stronger reed to make a greater volume of sound.
Some of the chanters produced by the Taylors were of similar type to the
earlier ones, having throat bores of 4.25 mm. They are almost identical to
the early narrow bore “D” chanters. They also produced chanters which were
monsters alongside of these, with throat bore sizes of 5.2mm and exit
sizes of 13 to 15 mm. I have heard the massive regulators which were built
for these sets described as car horns, and I can’t help but wonder if
pipers of that time who were used to the narrower type of chanter, thought
similarly about the noise that these chanters produced.
Rowesome wide bore chanters typically have throat sizes around 5.4mm and
exit bores of 13mm lending weight to the idea that they were originally
copied from the Taylor’s larger bored design. Up until the time of Willy
Rowesome, it seems that there was nothing as large as this made in
Ireland.
This development is reminiscent of the transition from the earlier simple
system flutes to the Boehm system flutes. Boehm made a double assault with
the development of his instrument. Not only did he take a lead from the
experimental flutes of Nicholson, which had much larger fingerholes and
mouth holes than their immediate predecessors, but he also introduced a
very sophisticated chromatic key system appropriate to the art music of
his era. Players of the older instruments were slow to abandon them,
mostly on the basis of superior tonal qualities and in spite of the fact
that they had to struggle with a key system which was inadequate to the
musical demands of their day. There were many elaborations of the key
system for the simple system flutes before the end of the 20th century.
Fortunately for those who appreciate traditional Irish music, nobody has
yet successfully grafted Boehm system keywork onto the Irish pipes and
despite the widespread availability of Boehm system flutes, simple system
flutes of a type made from about the 1830’s to the 1860’s are still the
flutes of choice for this music.
To further confuse the terms concert pitch and flat pitch, since about the
time of Willy Rowesome some lower pitched chanters have been made with
wider bores. These are commonly known as “broomhandles” because of their
unwieldy proportions. Due to the wider bores, the larger fingerholes have
to be further apart than those of an older design to play in the same
pitch. The outside diameters also have to be greater. I have seen them in
pitches as low as Bb. These might be known as concert pitch Bb chanters to
make the situation even less clear.
A C chanter by Harrington made in the middle of the 19th century has a
throat size of 4.1mm, a length of 411mm, an exit bore of 10.9mm and an
average fingerhole size of 4mm. This plays close to modern C.
A C chanter by Willy Rowesome made early this century has a throat size of
4.4mm, a length of 408mm, an exit bore 12.7mm and an average fingerhole
size of 5.3mm. This plays sharp of modern C. A comparable wide bore C
chanter designed for A 440 would be about 420mm long.
The Rowesome chanter is superficially louder than the Harrington but the
Harrington, having a reedier tone due to the smaller fingerholes and
brighter, lighter reed, is more pervasive and has greater carrying power.
The wide bore chanters of the late 19th and early 20th century. have come
to be the most common type due to their volume and availability. They are
played in crowded places where Irish pipes would never have been played.
But in line with the current preference for earlier types of instruments
in other musical fields, it is worth examining the cost of this
adaptation.
The changes from the earlier design to the later one are those of
“vertical magnification”. It is as if a graph of the bore were drawn and
then magnified uniformly along the diameter axis. To match the larger
throat size, the fingerholes are also increased in diameter. This gives a
bore with generally lower impedances and so a stiffer reed is needed to
match it.
All of this makes an instrument with more fundamental and less high
harmonics in it’s overall spectrum. The sound produced has a tendency
towards that of the Highland bagpipe, a famous example of a wide bore
larger fingerholed instrument. Unfortunately, because the fingerholes on
wide bore chanters are larger and often more uneven in size than those of
their narrower bored counterparts, the cross fingerings do not work as
well. Since the sound has relatively weaker high harmonics the tone is not
as piquant and the possibilities for harmonic shadings using various cross
fingerings are reduced. Some other more subtle differences involve a shift
in what is known as the cut-off frequency of the instrument, a property
closely related to the way sound is radiated from woodwind fingerholes.
The price for greater volume is a rather heavy one to pay, and in this day
of widespread amplification and good pickup and microphone technology,
maybe the disadvantages of less acoustic power from the narrow bore
chanters are not great compared to the benefits of the increased
expressive capability which they offer.
Thanks, Peter! That was quick!