Hello. I am a new participant. Hi to everyone.
My question: I am a flutist, and I am thinking about learning the pipes. Does finger size matter to the choice of pipes? I notice in YouTube videos that some chanters have holes very close together, and I wonder if that potentially causes a problem for a fellow with larger fingers… (and I would hope someone here could also address this with respect to Uilleann pipes).
Thanks for your guidance…
Some pipers find it a bit difficult with the higest pitched pipes of some of the types. But generally you need to have truly huge fingers to make it impossible to play. D smallpipes tend to be the trickiest ones, especially if they have chromatic fingering. But having said that, if you are familiar with recorders, it will never get any worse than sopranino recorders.
Concert pitch (upipes in D) chanters are not very close together in the finger-hole department. Tho sometimes made shorter (higher pitch), upipes are usually made in D or longer (lower pitch). Most complaints are about too wide of hole spacing when it comes to upipes.