A little while ago, another piper played my pipes. I was pleasantly surprised: sitting in front of, and a few feet away from, the tone holes of the chanter, it sounded different. I could hear tones which I can’t hear when I play the chanter myself.
I take care to make sure my pipes are in tune and that the tone is pleasing. However, I’ve come to the conclusion that when I’m playing the chanter, I’m not in a good position to judge its tone.
Is there something I could do, apart from having someone else play my pipes, to be able to get a better appreciation for the tone of my chanter? For instance, what could reflect the sound back at me?
have you tried recording something when you play? It helps a great lot perhaps to hear how your pipes sound and if you make any mistakes/what could be better etc. In my opinion recording is nice to reflect upon but also to hear how your pipes sound maybe?
Pipes sounds can vary depending on who is playing them. A piper will make a set sound in a particular way.. so perhaps the other piper made tones that were specifically his/her own ?
We have this conundrum often; Customer arrives to collect a new set, I play the set, so as to demonstrate that they are ready and willing , then the Customer takes up the yoke and often as not makes quite different sounds.
This can be due to the use of different blowing pressures, fingerings, attack (commencement of the note by finger articulation) , height of finger lift, size of fingers and hardness of skin and muscle etc etc. as well as the clothes a piper wears and how curved and soft is the belly… subtle but true
My practice room at home. Wait that sounds rather fancy! The room I practice in at home which also happens to be my home office is acoustically pretty dead. So I often try playing in different locations around the home that have different acoustics. I find that helps me to hear different aspects to my playing. Tone and articulation can sound very different. What sounds muddy and indistinct in one space can sound quite tight in another.
I’ve also found playing into a microphone, (perhaps closer to what you experienced sitting in front of the other player) and listening back as I play live through headphones gives me another interesting perspective. The headphones can feel like your slightly disconnected from the experience, but I find it really helps to focus my attention when trying to route out problems with my playing… of which there are thousands!!!
Sometimes I like to sit by the corner of my room by the window, where the sound of the chanter bounces back right to me, I also experiment, and turn my head or body to certain positions on the chair, and the tone can change completely.
It sounds really nice, other than those annoying Harley riders, airplanes, and a neighbor with a loud mustang! Not to mention I live on a bus route, one of the many reasons I am wanting to live in a humble small town, or in the country!
Maybe that’s why Seamus Ennis moved in a small caravan!
I know exactly what PJ is talking about. I have played my pipes in all sorts of situations - crowded pubs to fully resonant water closets, and recorded them with a wide variance in technology, and yet, when I’ve had my piping friend over at my place playing tunes, and when we swap sets (he plays a Froment purebred, and I play an Ausdag Mongrel), we both comment on how so much different our respective sets sound from the front as opposed to from behind, when we hear each other play them and we sit in front of the tone holes.
When I test a new chanter, voicing the tone holes etc, I often find myself playing while leaning as far over to the front as I can, without somersaulting off the chair, to get my ears as far to the front as possible as there is a marked difference in tone from the front compared with behind. I find it helps me to develop an impression of what I like in the tone of a chanter from both angles.
Many years ago Robbie Hannan had a go on my Hunter chanter because of squawks and squeaks during a lesson he was giving. He sounded like Robbie Hannan.
Pipng styles of individual pipers aside, there is a difference between the tone from the back of the chanter and the tone from the front of the chanter, regardless of who is playing the thing. Of course, individual piping styles have an influence, but even if you get someone to play one note and hold it there, you can tell a differnce between the tone of that note from behind the chanter and from the front.
Yes, I myself wondered if a chanter would sound different at the front. I fact hear the overtones much better when I play by the corner window of my room.
When I lift the F# hole while giving an A note, I can hear the ‘R’ tone from it much better that way, and then when I play Jackson’s Morning Brush, and I hear the overtones really well, it at one point sounds like it’s saying “Oreo”.
Corners and tiled bathrooms are a quick way to hear things you can’t normally, but it’s good not to get too hung up over it. Neither recording nor someone else playing really picks up what you sound like.
I got a friend to make this little piping robot.You can programme it to play exactly as you do by playing it a few tunes, which by means of micro processors and other gizmo’s it can then play back the tunes on any set of pipes you strap on to it. I could loan it to you if you like. Otherwise you could take a trip to some canyon where there is an echo , play a short tune and then listen to the echo.
If you want to hear an accurate image of how your your pipes sound, you need to sit facing a flat hard wall (sheet rock, wood, stone), or perhaps a large closed window. This will reflect a single image of the sound projected from your pipes. When you play facing into a corner, or in a highly resonant room (like a loo), you are hearing multiple images of your sound which are likely arriving at your ears at slightly different times. I, myself, like the sound of uilleann pipes in a resonant room, but it is not the best location for listening for tone, intonation, and articulation.
