does it matter what your pipes look like or is it only the sound that matters ? Is it coincidence that some of the nicest sounding pipes are also the best looking {woof williams froment } To put it another way if geoff produced the quality of sound but was a really crap turner and metalworker would he still have a fourteen year waiting list ?
While sound is paramount, I think that it generally follows that good sounding pipes will also be good looking pipes. The physical appearance of Geoff Wooff’s pipes are a reflection of the care and precision he puts into every part of each set he makes. I don’t think it would be possible for his pipes to sound the way they do if he were a ‘crap’ turner or metal worker.
That being said, there are certainly exceptions; we’ve all seen sets that look great but sound like crap, and I know of at least a couple of ‘ugly ducklings’ that sing like swans, but for the most part (just as it is with ships and aircraft) if it looks right, it is right.
-No E
My brother-in-law Bernie has a hybrid 3/4 set in D. The chanter is by Kevin Thompson, as is the stock and drones, all in Maracaibo Boxwood (not a true boxwood…it’s from South America and is usually used for chisel handles and such), the regulators are by Robbie Hughes in some similar looking wood (again not a true box, not sure what it is really).
The set is pretty rough to look at (the reason being, Kevin was giving Bernie a lesson in making pipes and turned it all out in just a few days and on the cheap …the regs were added much later, also on the cheap).
Anyway, with a set of Deegan reeds in they are easily one of the sweetest sounding D sets I have ever played…really nice, not too loud and very easy to play. By the way, according to Bernie, the reason Kevin used maracaibo was that a shipment of baseball bats came in and everyone grabbed them to make instruments out of (just why a shipment of baseball bats went to Dublin is anyone’s guess…unless the local bouncers used them for, er, “crowd control”???).
I’ve seen some really bad looking pipes that sounded really bad, too. So, the converse is often true.