Hi,
does any body know if the Howard chanter is a good buy ???
John
love mine, three out of ten students on this years floating tionol had howard sets, probably as Brian was tutor for previous events. One student was impressed, he ordered a chanter off Brian as soon as the tionol finished!
Hello,
I have a Howard concert chanter on long term loan from a friend of mine who is working for the VSO charity in China for a couple of years teaching English.
I have used the chanter extensively (I couldn’t resist the temptation) and it is very sweet sounding and very much in tune with itself. It reminds me of an Oboe type of sound.
It isn’t the type of chanter for a noisy thrash, bash session but it is lovely in a small session of half a dozen musicians (minus banjo’s and piano accordion’s) and ideal for solo piping or just with a couple fiddle players.
It would be ideal IMHO on stage if it was miked up.
It also has a strange type of ferrule on the bottom for bringing the soft and hard D into tune with each other. I only found this out by accident but it certainly works.
Micheal.
Hi Micheal,
The “thing” at the bell of the chanter is what Brian refer’s to as the “iris”, its basically two metal tubes that have been capped and the hole to let the note out has been drilled “off center”, as the two tubes swivel on each other the appature gets larger and smaller and thus will tune the bottom note of the chanter. Its quite a smart piece of engineering to solve an age old problem concerning the tuning of the bottom D. However its worth noting that is not the same as placing a piece of paper in the bell of the chanter as it wil not make the hard D and easier to obtain if the reed will not permit it. As it does not reduce the volume of air in the bell of the chanter like the paper will.
Conerning the original topic of the post is the chanter in question a newer model or one of his earlier pieces eg 1970-1990. Ihave found the earlier chanters to be much more “distinguished” than the newer more “oboe” type ones. Listen out to some of Finbar Fureys stuff the later material is all Brian Howard pipes (Full set)
In reply to what era the B.Howard chanter is: My mate bought this as a practice set a couple of years ago from someone in the Manchester area who had tried but failed to make the transition from Northumbrian to Uilleann pipes. I’m assuming the set is probably no more than 3 years old so yes, of the new design I would think. The sound and tone reminds me of a Dicky Deegan CD I heard some months back.
micheal
I have had one or two of Brian’s chanters in my work shop for reed adjustments and they play OK, Brian is a nice enough Fella and will see you OK. all the best. 
I purchased both his Chanters. The early version and the new fully keyed version. Both have an excellent in tone. I purchased the fully keyed one as part of a half set and the drones are always consistent. And I’ve just recently purchased two regulators and they’ve been well worth the wait.
Mick Wilkins a piper from Bradford once said to me. “Pipes are like wives, …You always want some else’s!!!”
Bye the way, just for the record, I’m very happy and love both my wife and my pipes. But sometimes I do confess, like all pipers one of them gets neglected. 
HELLO,
I contacted my mate in China (usually several weeks wait for a reply owing to limited www down time restrictions out in the sticks: done by small window of satellite availability) and mentioned my reply to the first post of this thread.
Response was thus: Brian is a very helpful man (and also his wife Dorothy) and was/is very friendly to owners of his pipes regardless of whether or not they were purchased from him directly. In short, if you own a set of his pipes you can be sure of on going maintenance.
Conversely, I own a chanter from an established Northern Irish maker who is not prepared to fit keys to the mounts on a chanter he has made because in his words “once it has left my workshop, I am not prepared to fit keys that should have been done at the point of purchase”. Really! I for one will not be turning this set/chanter into either a 3/4 or full set if that is the level of after-care I can expect.
Regarding the original thread, if you are considering a Howard chanter then from what I have gathered, you are in pretty safe hands.
Micheal
Addendum. I must point out that in fairness to the N.I. pipemaker, I did not buy my chanter directly from him and I bought it from another piper. Even so, the chanter has not been altered in any shape or form and all I required was the fitting of an extra key onto the existing mounts.
IMHO after sales service is obviously not one of his strong points. Unless of course I am being unfair.
Fitting keys after the fact can risk the chanter, no matter how skilled the maker. The maker likely does not want to risk potentially trashing the chanter even though they might be able to pull it off. I don’t think this an unreasonable response.
Hi,
hpinson wrote: “Fitting keys after the fact can risk the chanter, no matter how skilled the maker. The maker likely does not want to risk potentially trashing the chanter even though they might be able to pull it off. I don’t think this an unreasonable response”
I did wonder if that may be the case so thanks for enlightening me to the fact. I can see the sense in that if that is the case.'Tis a pity the makers in question didn’t enlighten me. It would have made me feel more tolerant instead of feeling “fobbed off” because I didn’t buy directly from them in the first place.
However, correct me if I am wrong but I was under the impression that the key holes and slots are cut AFTER the chanter is bored.
Regards,
Micheal
Hmm. If the keyblocks are already in place it should be quite doable. I would involve drilling the hole, and getting the tuning right is the tricky part (right location and right size), but that should be a known by the maker. Matching the key style should not be a problem.
Perhaps there was a miscommunication with the maker? The maker may have assumed that the key blocks were not in place and you were asking to add keys to a chanter without proper blocks, or not the needed blocks. Maybe send the maker a digital photo of the chanter, rephrase the question, and ask for a cost and delivery-time quote.
I’m going out on a limb here, but I seem to remember that Howard uses modern key assemblies on his chanters (much like a modern flute or saxophone), which do not require blocks, just the addition of metal support pins. That would perhaps make after-the-fact key retrofitting easier? Can anyone confirm that?
– Harlow
Adding a hole after the fact does alter the bore, effectively. This can perturb the tuning or performance of an otherwise good chanter, so perhaps the maker in question knows that adding said hole is likely to spell trouble. On the other hand a maker may know that adding a particular tonehole on a specific design will work fine and require only the smallest tuning adjustments, in which case the key could be added… but this is not always the case. It is certainly an activity that carries some risk, as Harlow mentioned previously, even if the blocks are already present, unless the holes for the keys are already bored and covered/capped.
Bill
Bill, that is an excellent clarification. Thanks.
A local piper just ordered a full set from a respected west coast US maker, who apparently stated to him, in no uncertain terms, that all keywork requests should be made up-front.
What I find really interesting is that one of the best pipers that I know much prefers an unkeyed chanter. I feel that after playing for a while that I can really appreciate his viewpoint.
Billh & hpinson,
Thanks for the input. From a personal point of view I can manage quite well without keys on the chanter except for the ‘C’ key. I find that hitting ‘c’ in the second octave by half covering with the fingers a hit and miss affair. Hence my reasons for a ‘c’ key.
Having said that, your comments have now given me second thoughts, especially if the process is fraught with potential tuning problems. However, it may all be academic as I am expecting another stick this week and my keyless chanter sounds good enough to have stimulated enough interest for at least one offer from a couple of people I know. So in short, it may soon be going to a new home.
Thanks for the input and I think I should now hand this topic back to the original forum member or I may be accused of high jacking his post.
Regards,
Micheal