I have a kind of begginer question about Flat pitch C chanters and Narrow bore D chanters. ( understanding C & nbD pitch & about playing them in sessions)
C chanters: I am wondering why so many players choose Concert D chanters, if they could use C or Narrow bore D chanters for playing with other instruments. My begginer logic tells me that C chanter is the same hz 440 C pitch as Grand piano, so it should be able to play with piano or guitar? Am I right??? or these 2 C’s are not the same?
Narrow bore D: Why makers don’t put more effort in making good Narrow bore D chanters (in hz 440 - same pitch as concert chanters). Then we would have sweeter and much more musical D instruments to be able to play in sessions. And volume can’t be problem - there is so many great microphones and systems out there which would make Narrow bore D’s louder. Thanks
Re C chanters: not necessarily. Some makers try to make them at “A=440”, but generally flat pipes are referred to by their approximate pitch, not their absolute one. Calmostflat is hard to say fast…
Re NBD – Some makers do. Bill Haneman and Joe Kennedy are both making narrow bore D chanters that I would love to own. Most pipers prefer the regular ones, I think.
What NicoMoreno said! Historic narrow bore sets (so-called 'flat sets) were solo instruments. Some modern makers, Bill Hanemann as noted by Nico, try to make instruments very much in the vein of the old sets, as do D. M. Quinn & Bernard Koehler. Others not so much. You will find some excellent discussions around this subject at the Sean Reid Society website.
Eric, I do play a very nice narrow bore D, which does have the sweet sound you mention, but it does play softly. I am on the waiting list for a Concert D chanter by a maker who has a reputation for chanters that have the same sweet sound in the concert D as I currently have in my narrow D. I do play with other pipers, and at Tionols, and quite honestly I can’t hear a thing I’m playing when with more than one other piper. I choose not to carry a sound system with me, although I suppose I could.
I admit I’m not an expert on their pipes, but it would surprise me if they were making narrow-bore D chanters. From what I know, they use a Rowsome bore for their D stuff. FWIW, I’m pretty sure they also favour wider-bore C sets. I believe someone wrote once that it was based on a Matt Kiernan chanter (possibly Pat Mitchell’s chanter?).
I cannot speak for D. Quinn. But a short perusal of his CD is very informative. His study of Egan and Coyne sets cannot help but influence some of his design choices. The bore data included of BK’s C chanter would be a good example. He particularly notes the earlier Taylor sets are much more like the Egan bores than the more modern ‘wide bore’ ‘D’ sets generally thought of as emblematic of ‘Taylor’ sets.
Quinn has expressed his admiration of the Taylor style of keywork, but has explicitly said he does not follow the Taylor bore designs in his own work. Along the same lines, we can look to the work of R. L, Mealy, who also liked Taylor keyworks, but rejected the whole wide bore attempts of modern makers. In short, I think the breadth and range of D. Quinn’s work, and the work of Koehler & Quinn can hardly be kimited to a few examples. These boys are hardly ‘One trick ponies.’
Just because they’ve done a ton of research, doesn’t mean they are necessarily offering these things regularly.
I for one would love to know if there are any narrow bore D chanters out there by either or both of Koehler and Quinn. Doesn’t mean they couldn’t do it if they wanted to, I just don’t think they have. I could be wrong, but that’s why it struck me as odd to put them up there as makers of narrow bore D sets.
As far as makers who regularly offer or make them, my vote for “most prolific” modern maker would be Geoff Wooff… There was one of his up for sale just a couple days ago on eBay, and I’ve personally played one as well. That’s twice as many as I’ve seen from any other maker
That’s interesting about Jerry O’Sullivan’s set. I was going on what I’ve seen of their C sets from three other players, all of whom have the Kiernan-esque C sets (measured or not, I’m not sure what else to call it). Perhaps bensdad will chime in with his information about a newly made C set…
I have a Full C set, but rarely - if ever - do I play that with other musicians. 99% of the time it is strictly a solo instrument. I guess its that most of the time trad music is played in the usual keys of G and D and their relative minors, which is best suited to the D set when playing in groups. Of course there are the occasional sessions in C but that’s another story…
The narrow bore D does have some useful niches in my experience. I have used one in the past to help out in situations where a quieter chanter would blend better with the musical goings on. Also its good for quiet practicing, and of course it does sound sweet.
Nowadays I just keep a quieter reed in my concert D chanter and keep a louder on handy for gigs that require extra volume. Unlike what you suggest, when playing on stage, the narrow bore D has been lacking in enough projection to blend well with other instruments, even when mic’d.
Thanks for nice answers Could someone explain deep in detail
the narrow bore D has been lacking in enough projection to blend well with other instruments, even when mic’d.
I don’t understand how microphone and good sound system can’t make Narrow bore D enought projective to play on stage with other instruments ???
If feedback problems are controled, then in my logic Microphone and PA would give possibility of making Nb D as huge and as loud as I would want ! (definitly much bigger then the loudest and strongest Concert chanters).
As far as makers who regularly offer or make them, my vote for “most prolific” modern maker would be Geoff Wooff… There was one of his up for sale just a couple days ago on eBay, and I’ve personally played one as well. That’s twice as many as I’ve seen from any other maker
It was Geoff who, around 1986, introduced the ‘narrow bore D’. At least designed one and attached that name to it. Of course historically there had been non Rowsome type Ds well before that. They just weren’t thought of in the terms we use at present.
Unlike what you suggest, when playing on stage, the narrow bore D has been lacking in enough projection to blend well with other instruments, even when mic’d.
I don’t quite understand that. Different makers make different ‘narrow bore’ D chanters and even one maker can set up a chanter quite differently from the next one.
How does this work for you? I don’t see a problem blending the three instruments there.
I don’t see a problem there either, that being a more ideal stage setting and instrumentation grouping for ITM. And quite nice actually..thanks for the link.
I was speaking just from my own experience in playing tight spaces in pubs with bands with louder overall acoustic levels…drums, instruments with pickups and amps etc. I really need the concert chanter’s projection to cut through.
David Quinn told me his C chanter design was a fortunate accident. Not really knowing as much as he does now, he came up with the design years ago, loosely based on what he had seen in other chanters, but copied none exactly. It was his good fortune that the design worked very well and has only had slight modifications in the last few years.
Just going back the the OP’s original questions - and, I suspect, some basic misunderstandings …
No, it sounds like you are confusing several things here.
A440 (not “C440”) is just a pitch standard to ensure that different instruments can play in tune with each other (apart from different temperaments and intonations). It has nothing to do specifically with the difference between a D chanter and C chanter. Both or neither may be tuned to A440.
A C chanter plays a natural scale of C major, a D chanter a natural scale of D major. So a C chanter is pitched one step below a D chanter, regardless of tuning. If they’re tuned to A440, either chanter can match a concert C (say, ~523.25 Hz) on the piano, guitar, glockenspiel, whatever.
The reason to choose one or the other has nothing to do with playing in concert pitch per se. It has to do with the keys/modes they are capable of playing. A D instrument can play D, G (and A) major and related modes. A C instrument can play C, F (and G) major and related modes.
Or, if you’re playing solo, you might chose one or the other for the overall pitch and timbre. And play the chanter as a transposing instrument, ignoring concert pitch. As others have pointed out, flat sets are often played as solo instruments, so absolute tuning to A440 is irrelevant. In fact, many flat sets are not A440, and the note designation as B, C etc. is just a relative approximation.
I don’t see why a narrow bore chanter can’t work perfectly well in a proper, amplified setting. But you mention “playing them in sessions” and “microphones and systems”. And if you don’t know … It’s unlikely that amplification will be welcome in any trad session setting. Or, to put it more strongly, you may be tossed out on your ear. If you’re factoring amplification into your view, you’re piping up the wrong tree. For session playing, you pick an instrument that’s inherently most suitable. And in fair-sized sessions, that’s likely to be a standard bore A440 D chanter. The sweetness will be a function of the chanter, the reed … and you, the player.
Oh, and are not most narrow bore D chanters tuned to A440 nowadays anyway?
Nico,
New set, old bore (I mean the chanter, not me, though doubtless some would disagree)
I decided that it was cheaper to get a new set than to hire a hit man to take out Darryn Petersen, who got a gorgeous C chanter from DMQ at the Rockland tionol in 2001. So I had David reproduce that bore, as I preferred it to his more recent one. I have no clue what it’s based on, thought the “lucky accident” story rings a bell.
And it was playing beautifully until I cracked the reed…
Just to add to the sum of human knowledge (oh all right it’s a bit of a plug too . . ) you can hear one of Peter’s flat chanters in D here http://www.hunterpipes.co.uk/Sounds/FlatDChant.mp3 - I had it in for reeding.
Peter made his first one back in about 1984 or thereabouts as a contraction of the C design. They are good fun to play, quiet, and do everything you’d want. However the tone is not perhaps as interesting as a C# or C in the same design. They sound great playing with a fiddler, it’s a very nice balance of volumes. Easy for a beginner - low pressure and easy stretch also quiet.
There has never been any great demand for these chanters. Peter doesn’t think he made more than a dozen or so in 27 years. Why not? Dunno. I have found them easy to reed.
