At Miltown Malbay I took delivery of a C set from Joe Kennedy. This set was modelled on an instrument that was made in 1823 by the younger Kenna and is now in Ken MacLeod’s collection. I took it along to Ken’s and we photographed the two sets side by side:
I also played the old set briefly. The chanter doesn’t sound quite the same, as Joe uses a Coyne bore rather than Kenna’s. However the new set is a wonderful instrument. Over the last couple of weeks, as I’ve got used to it, my playing seems to have improved a lot
I know’s it’s not, but the wood in the top set is very similar in appearance to Tasmanian Native Olive which is what Malcolm McLaren uses on occassion - when he can get it…very rare.
It’s made out of apple wood. Fruitwood was what people used two
hundred years ago, so that’s what I chose.
The chanter tone is comparable to an old Coyne set I heard at Miltown.
Sorry about not posting the images directly at first - I had not posted
photos to this board before. (In fact I’d intended to post to the thread
on pictures of your pipes but that also didn’t work.)
That is a nice set. Thanks for giving me a go on it in Miltown.
It’s often said that fruitwood was used, but in reality I don’t think it’s really known what wood Coyne (or Kenna) used for these old ‘fruitwood’ sets (it seems that the sets were stained or shellaced to give a dark look even when new). It might have been apple, but then again it may more likely have been crabapple and quince than ‘domestic’ fruitwood. That would account also for the fact that the wood on the old chanters seems a good deal harder and perhaps finer-grained than the apple or pearwood available today (even the ‘top’ grades). Then again it could even be some other native wood, perhaps hawthorn?
Maybe someday someone with an original set undergoing a repair will be in a position to shave a bit of end-grain wood for science, there’s a piper in the wood identification/microscopy department in U Limerick who could probably solve the riddle, given a sample. But of course nobody has volunteered to shave pieces from a historic chanter.
Depends on what part of the chanter you have in mind…
I’m starting another post about old woods, so people don’t have to wait 20 minutes for this page to load.
Ken made those Kenna chanter keys himself. Horrible things, look like little tapeworms.
Do you find the drone effect to be louder
due to the straight bass drone? I was talking
to someone about my C set, and upon mentioning
that it has a straight bass drone, he said, “Oh,
nice and loud, then.” I was a bit taken aback
as he’s strictly a fiddler so far as I know. Just goes
to show that inclination doesn’t imply ignorance,
necessarily. My drones are indeed very “present”.
I’m interested in the direct bag/chanter tie-in,
especially with a stop key. Do you find this mode
of tying-in to ease up some intonation issues, as
has been suggested, or does the flow restriction of
the stp key mechanism negate this? Also, does one
have a specially-cut bag for that kind of setup?
I have straight tie-in on my JK B set. It doesn’t seem to have much effect on intonation or tuning. However, it is weird hearing the harmonics come all the way back up the neck by my ear. It is not a special bag, per se, just leave the neck longer. Joe uses a tube of flexible car wiring insulator to keep the longer neck from collapsing.
The drones are just right, and there isn’t a problem with intonation.
No doubt the stop key has something to do with this - though in the
Kenna set the air inlet to the main stock is tiny to prevent lock-in
with the drone reeds. Different ways of achieving the same effect, I
suppose.
I still haven’t figured out what to use the D sharp key for. Best idea
so far is to alternate it with ghost D in Jenny’s Welcome to Charlie.
Cleary people used to use accidentals more - look at all the slow airs
O’Neill has in G minor and D minor, or the old tutor books. I wonder
what caused that to go out of fashion? The growing use of regulators?
I’m a little unsure of what you mean here Ross - do you mean to say that the opening in the mainstock leading into the bag is small, which reduces the coupling between the drones and the chanter? I am not sure the direct tie-in argument implies this would be a good idea or not; perhaps phase locking between the chanter reed and drones would be a good thing?
I still haven’t figured out what to use the D sharp key for. Best idea
so far is to alternate it with ghost D in Jenny’s Welcome to Charlie.
Cleary people used to use accidentals more - look at all the slow airs
O’Neill has in G minor and D minor, or the old tutor books. I wonder
what caused that to go out of fashion? The growing use of regulators?
Ross
Well, looking further back at the stuff that was in the ‘tutors’, there are other possibilities. Although it’s right to be a bit sceptical of the tutors as a true reflection of what people were playing (they served as adverts after all - most authors of tutors were pipemakers ), the tutors include all sorts of music which today seems ill-suited to pipes; popular songs, show tunes, etc.
Also O’Neill was transcribing partly from fiddle players who weren’t constrained by diatonic scales. To add to the confusion where collectors are concerned, a few may have transcribed tunes into the ‘correct’ key, e.g. they may have transcribed a tune which we would notionally think of as being in C, which was played on a 17.5" chanter, into ‘B flat’ since the bell note was at the C pitch of the day (nowadays we’d call it B). If they’d been transcribing from a player on a 15.5"chanter (which we’d today call C#), they might have transcribed the key as C instead.
(Confused yet?)
Perhaps the accidentals went out of fashion due to the gradual decay of keywork
