Egan's Universal Chanter Reed?

Uilleann Pipes
1

I heard a theory that suggests Michael Egan was attempting to design his chanters to use the same reed. I don’t know who or where this theory came from but the other day I had the chance to put it to the test. I had at my disposal copies of an Egan “C” chanter and an Egan “B” chanter. I then took the reed from the “B” chanter and put it in the “C” chanter. Lo and behold, it actually played! Not perfectly, as the staple seemed to be a bit to long, but pretty close. Another reed made for the “B” chanter that had a shorter staple was then used, a bit of pipe cleaner up the bell, and voila! It’s alive! There are a couple minor issues I have with the behavior of the chanter, but aside from those it sounds amazing! Unfortunately, I didn’t have a reed made for the “C” chanter to put in the “B” chanter as that would be the next logical step.

Now, my quandary is whether there is more evidence (as I was unable to complete a real experiment) to either support or refute this claim (that Egan did indeed at least attempt to design his chanters for one reed design)?

Thanks!

-Mike

2

I don’t find this surprising. I don’t know for sure about Egan, but it seems Coyne was doing something similar. I find that the same basic reed pattern, and often the same reeds, will play in original B and C# Coyne chanters.

The same reeds will perform well in other pitches whose bores are based on Coyne (Bflat, narrow-bore-D), plus or minus a thin wire staple rush, they also suit O’Mealy and even a narrow-bore Taylor example. WIth a minor modification to the scrape this pattern seems to work well in a 17.5" Kenna copy as well. This suggests to me that some makers were designing their chanters around some common proto-reed. Often the same pattern works in tenor and bari regulators too, though it seems to work best if the tenor reed head is chopped a bit shorter; sometimes it works in the bass reg as well.

Egan might have been basing his designs around a single reed pattern, which would be convenient and sensible, but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t the same pattern I allude to above; the Egan chanters I’ve encountered seem to require something quite different from Coyne or the T. Kenna examples I’ve tried. This makes sense because the Egan bores are in turn quite different, and notably larger than the examples I mention above (I did say narrow-bore Taylor). [actually I do know of a Kenna whose bore resembles Egans, but it has a smaller throat and upper bore and seems closer to the Coyne and smaller Kenna bores in its reed preferences).]

The idea that different pitches require quite different reeds seems to be a recent one, as far as I can tell.

Of course wide-bore concert pitch is a different animal altogether, and so requires a radically different reed type. Furthermore, the various wide-bore designs out there seem to have been designed for quite different reeds from one another, giving rise to the current expectation that various makers’ chanters require dissimilar reeds.

3

Some would suggest that Egan chanters , like Taylors, require reverse taper staples.

4

Thanks for the input Bill!

The Egans seem to want a reverse taper staple. Is that your experience with the Coyne and Kenna chanters?

Ah! Peter beat me to the reverse taper point. :slight_smile:

5

It isn’t - the Coyne and Kenna chanters I’ve encountered seem to like either a slight “conventional” taper or a cylindrical staple (but not the 3.2 mm I.D. size that’s commonly available in tube; they seem to like about 3.3 or 3.4+ mm). The narrow-bore Taylor and O’Mealy chanters seem to like something between 3.5 or 3.55, whereas the 3.3/3.4 staples are what I’ve been using in Coyne and regulators.

Maybe Egans like the reverse taper, maybe not - Benedict Koehler tried a reverse taper successfully, and I’ve tried it too and initially concluded the same thing, but some reeds with a parallel staple (again, much bigger than the 3.2 I.D. tube) seem to work well too. Cormac Cannon is probably the expert on this at the moment, at least for Egan chanters in the 16" neighborhood, and IIRC he’s gone back to cylindrical or even ‘standard’ taper on his Egan staples (for a chanter that plays between C and C#).

6

I’ve had some success with a reverse taper, but have gone back to a cylindrical staple (rolled from a .5" x 2 1/16 " blank) with a larger eye(1/16"). This gives about the same internal volume with better tuning of the back D, which tends to be flat on my chanter, and seems to improve the internal tuning of the octaves slightly. The bottom D has a tendency to be slightly unstable with most reed designs I’ve tried, though the chequered past of this particular chanter might have something to do with that – it was in three pieces at one stage, has had some after-market scalloping and may or may not have had some other minor modifications.
With regard to the “universal reed” question, I had the loan of an Egan pitched around C for a while some time back, and it performed very similarly to my own (which is between C and C#) with the same reed design, although the back D tended to be sharper and the bottom D more stable. At the time, I was using the reverse-tapered staple - would like to have another go with the cylindrical staple. Haven’t tried it in any lower-pitched Egan chanters though.

7

I think if you are to legitimately study the work of pipemakers long dead and try and come up with worthwhile results from your studies, any experiments would really have to be carried out with original work from the maker,and even then as Cormac points out even orignal may have been tampered with so making the results void.

I also think if you are basing your theory of the universal reed only on the fact that some reeds are interchangeable (not perfectly) with chanters of different pitches is a deduction to far. The extremely experienced Geoff Wooff has published some theories on some of the working methods of the great makers but even these were just basic theories . So to suggest an insight into the thinking of these makers is just irresponsible. Plucking theories out of the air based on very flimsy evidence is not good enough. A slapdash approach to researching any historical matter is not only worthless but also dangerous ,as some people reading it may take it as legitimate research and accept it as fact.

RORY

8

For the time being, I see this formula: Universal Reed = Perpetual Motion Machine.

9

Thanks Cormac for your insight into the matter. As far as lower pitched Egan chanters are concerned, I am only familiar with the copy of the 18" chanter that Michael Hubbert copied. I’m lucky to be studying pipemaking under him and have been fortunate enough to witness the more recent progress (past 2 years) in reeding that chanter. The attempts using tubing and cylindrical rolled staples proved to be troublesome and moving towards the the reverse taper staple seems to have yielded the best results.

Rory, I agree that any real research into this matter should be conducted using original work. Seeing though as this wasn’t anything official, simply an interesting observation, the copies (very good ones at that) had to suffice. As to being irresponsible for attempting to understand the minds of past makers, I do not agree at all that we shouldn’t be doing just that. Isn’t it curious that very little innovation in the instrument has taken place in the past 100 years and that for the most part we as a community are still trying to understand fully how these geniuses made the instrument we all love? The only way one can move forward is by fully understanding that which has been done. I only began this topic to put the question out there. I had no intention of stating fact. So please do not misread my intent.

10

There are so few original chanters/sets out there from the 19th century that haven’t been tampered with that it’s impossible to form a firm conclusion. We have to do our best to compare notes; given the state of things, I don’t think these conjectures are harmful as long as it’s clear that they remain unproven (and probably always will).

I certainly agree that drawing conclusions from contemporary copies (or should that read ‘copies’, with inverted commas…) is suspect. Copies probably tell you as much about the reed design they were voiced with than they tell you about the model instrument.

Regarding the “universal reed” idea (or, more correctly, the notion of a single reed pattern that works in multiple pitches), I can report some direct observations, at least. However they are inherently subjective.

What I’ve seen is that a particular reed pattern, and specific reeds made to that pattern, perform well in a range of pitches of original Coyne instruments. The cases I referred to above concern original instruments which appear, on close examination, to range from apparently pristine to ‘relatively intact’. So far I haven’t identified any reed-preference trend with regard to pitch in Coyne originals. That doesn’t mean there isn’t one, or prove that Coyne or the Coynes did use the same pattern for different pitches. The fact that particular reeds which were tuned and finished for Coyne original chanters also perform well in (specific) original chanters by Taylor and O’Mealy was a surprise to me, but I report it firsthand. These chanters performed rather less well in my opinion with other reed patterns which I’ve tried, to date.

Perhaps this is as scientific as it is currently practical to be, regarding this matter.

regards

Bill

11

Bill,
As to un- tampered with chanters. Back in the 1970’s Liam O’Flynn was in Scotland, with Planxty, and after the show a fellow come up to him and gave him a full set of un- played Eagan B pipes. They were in the original packing along with a receipt. Here is an un- touched set, as far as I know. Someone should measure this set. I think it still had original reeds.


All the best,
Pat Sky

12

Has Liam kept the set under his bed all this time?
RORY

I’m not sure what you mean by innovation ,but you’d have to ask does the instrument need innovation ?Has the instrument not reached its limit in development or could it be that the only thing that needs improvement is its standard of manufacture and that comes down to the individual craftsmen who are making them.There are plenty of instruments out there that would be considered as near perfect as a musical instrument can be, so its just a case of making instruments to that high standard.


RORY

13

The postings on this topic have been very interesting but a little disappointing in so far as there has been precious little info. on actual reed dimensions. You would think that some general agreement on dimensions would be central to the concept of a universal reed, wouldn’t you?

In the Sean Reid Society Journal, Craig Fischer describes some very old reeds found with a Coyne D chanter:- they are very small, about 72mm long with 46 mm staples, and 10mm wide at the tip (full details are in the SRSJ). Craig says that “the best reed works not only in Coyne/Kenna chanters at this pitch but in many others pitched from D down to B.” The emphasis is mine because I’m thinking how many working Coyne chanters are there to choose from?

However, elsewhere in the SRSJ, John Hughes describes a reed made by Sean McAloon for Robbie Hannan’s 17.5 inch B chanter (presumably the Kenna) which looks very different:- length 81.3mm, staple 51mm, tip width 11.3mm. Mr. Hughes does not claim “universality” for this reed.

Meanwhile, the late, great Alain Froment is said to have identified “the Coyne reed” which “will play satisfactorily in most Coyne and Kenna narrow bore chanters of various lengths”. (This is from Dave Hegarty’s reed making book.) Details are 47mm staple, 10/11mm wide tips, overall reed length 76/77mm. This looks to be between the other two. Could it be the true magic reed or are there some more claimants to the universal crown?

I’m left wondering what’s going on here. I’m not trying to rubbish the concept of universal reeds. I know they exist and very useful they must be. But could it be that these Coyne/Kenna chanters are tolerant beasts and that all the parameters that go to make a reed can be varied to produce a range of successful solutions?

14

I reckon that’s at least part of it. That said, they won’t take just “any” reed, and in fact individual reeds seem happily transplantable between Coyne pitches. So I think that, while there’s a range of reeds that will work, there doesn’t seem to be a strong trend/variation as one moves from, say, C# to B, as many might expect. In other words, the reed preferences of many of the old chanter types seem to be more tightly grouped than reed preferences of “recent” instruments (i.e. last 100 years, with the exception of O’Mealy who seems to have been a throwback :wink: ). This is a subjective impression, but one that I seem to share with a number of other people with hands-on experience of these instruments.

Regarding the MacAloon reed, I believe the chanter in question was heavily rushed when the reed was fitted - which of course complicates things; also no claim has been made that these various reed styles tune the chanters to the same relative pitches; some may produce a much flatter chanter overall than others. Craig Fischer has reported that the best of the “old” reeds described in his SRS article has proven “very hard to reproduce”.

As for dimensions, I personally feel that there’s only so much that dimensions can tell you, where reeds are concerned. For a more familiar case, think of the many reedmaking styles and dimensions that are used, successfully I might add, to reed concert pitch instruments nowadays… hand a chanter to three different accomplished reedmakers, and you’re likely to get reeds of three different dimensions. They may all work “well”; on the other hand, for each of those reedmaking methods, there may be a particular set of dimensions that work, and arbitrarily varying one dimensions or another might produce disastrous consequences. In other words, dimensions are important, and dimensional accuracy may well be critical to success, but the “right” dimensions seem to depend on the maker.

I guess what I am suggesting is that the seemingly dissimilar reeds described as working in “many” Coyne/Kenna chanters may have more in common, behaviorally, than their measurements suggest. It’s a bit puzzling, I agree, since on the one hand evidence suggests that dimensions are all-important where chanter bores are concerned, yet just where one expects the required accuracy to be greatest - the reed staple - experience suggests that we have wiggle room. It may be that, as some have theorized, the reed acts more like a valve and less like a waveguide - in which case the primary variables in the reed are stiffness, mass, and aperture (which helps determine the imaginary point where the “nodal end” of the chanter lies, outside the reed).

Back to specifics - to take another example: one chanter in particular, the Rowsome currently played by Liam O’Flynn; widely (dare I day wildly?) varying dimensions have been reported over the years for “working reeds” for this chanter. They may well have all played satisfactorily, depending on one’s taste; does that mean this chanter is “easy to reed” ? I doubt it. There must be countless reed designs out there that would fail to make the grade.

Possibly things like the pitch of the reed crow would be more reproducible, or possibly the staple (provided the head width is agreed upon).. but I suspect that even these things can be compensated for. Perhaps there is a “family” of reed designs that would fit a particular chanter design, rather than a single set of dimensions, but describing that would seem to be beyond what anyone has attempted to quantify in reedmaking.

Bill

15

Thanks Bill, a brilliant response as usual! This forum is very fortunate to have you as a contributor.

16

Yes, it truly is!