Cormac Cannon was kind enough to let me put a quick sound snippet of himself playing his Egan online, since some of you have been asking about the Egan sound. There’s still plenty of restoration to be done on this set, but I hope the soundfile gives some idea of the set’s potential.
Unfortunately he was running out the door, and hadn’t really had a chance to put the drones and regs into proper tune while in Dublin - so please excuse the squeaks and tuning problems. The bass drone cuts out partway through the tune as well. So, I’ll probably take this soundfile down after awhile, since it wasn’t intended as a public “performance”.
I also quite like his version of Jenny’s Welcome to Charlie! Thanks Cormac…
That set has a really nice tone… albeit, out of tune for that recording but the chanter especially has a nice “bubble and snap” (as I like to put it) to its intonation. The playing, of course, brings it out nicely, well done Bill. Give us more of your piping please.
The recording is of Cormac playing, I had edited the post to refer to “his version” of Jenny’s Welcome but am afraid it wasn’t quite explicit enough, oops!
The majority of the clips on my website are of me, all right, but I’m afraid I can’t take credit for that one, except for operating the recorder. (And even there, I had the levels set too low and had to renormalize the recording later, with some loss of quality, sorry!)
Set is pitched a bit flat of Csharp (unusual pitch for Egan, too - more often you see C or Bflat Egans, seems to me).
Quite a crack from the chanter (even given the fact that it was a pretty live room). BK made the reed, kudos to him for figuring out that Egans (at least those of C-ish persuasion) require a reverse taper staple!
I used to have a copy of a Bb Egan. I don’t have much experience with many different flat chanters so I can’t compare. The Egan seemed to have a bit more volume and more bite. The chanter also had a really nice fat bottom end and a crisp bottom D.
Solid (and stamped M.EGAN). The set has a bass reg which isn’t currently attached. I don’t know of any (M.) Egan hollow stocks but there may be some. It probably was originally a left-handed set (the chanter keys are certainly left-handed), but the tenor drone may have been moved. The stock definitely shows evidence of things being moved around, including an ‘extra’ air feed hole for the bass reg, opposite the current one.
So if it is solid, is there any difference in the quality (resonance) to your ears (vs. a hollow stock)? Are the drones still good - or could they be better…is there anything to complain about?
And is there any know reason(s) why M. Egan used a solid stock for his sets - were there any known complaints? Was he the guy who stabbed a customer with a reamer or is that just a story…maybe someone who complained about his solid stocks?
It’d be foolish to draw too many conclusions from a sample size of one.
Drones sound good but could still be a bit more stable. possibly the hollow stock would help there - in my experience drones in a hollow stock do phase-lock better than the ‘average’, A/B comparisons with the same drones and quills are really required, and I’ve only done that with a Coyne-derived stand of drones. In that case the drones did sound better in a hollow stock to my ear and were more stable.
And is there any know reason(s) why M. Egan used a solid stock for his sets - were there any known complaints? Was he the guy who stabbed a customer with a reamer or is that just a story…maybe someone who complained about his solid stocks?
Well, solid stocks are easier to make… and a hollow stock with a bass bar attached presents some difficulties (although Coyne did it, for sure).
The reamer story is the stuff of legend but yes, Egan is the one that story is told about. He did leave Liverpool sometime around/before 1850 and ended up, eventually, in New York (by about 1851).
