Hi all,
I have been watching any videos I can find of pipers, and I have found some great vids…McSherry’s “Doinna” is my fave, but also Massimo Giuntini, Seamus Ennis, Davy Spillane, and lots of talented people at home. My question is, I don’t think I have ever seen any of them play a keyed chanter. (or at least not seen them use the keys) Is my untrained eye just missing it when they do play it, or is it a rarely used thing? Wanting to know both for curiosity’s sake and for future learning.
Have a look at this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0YwcqhGy5dw
During the slow air, Mick O’Brien regularly plays a 2nd octave F natural and uses the key (ex. at 10 and 26 seconds). To sound the Fnat he plays an E and also presses on the key with his thumb. It’s subtle and easily missed.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aF3fW4Nox9U
Several times in the first minute, although you have to listen for it rather than see it. Once the angle of the vid shifts to a close up of the back of Seamus’ chanter you can see him work the key at 1:42 or so.
Good point…but he might not be doing that at all!!
Mick stayed in my house with me a few years back when I brought him over for my festival.
I asked him about his F naturals after he played something or other and told him his use of the key was so subtle I almost didnt see him doing it.
He then demonstrated several times over, saying “there’s the key” as he did it. I think it was 3rd or 4th time round that I realised he was half holing to get the F nat and wasnt touching ANY key to achieve it. He played the note off the knee with pinkie still attached. He had to hold the chanter up to me and turn it this way and that to let me see, because I didn’t believe him (the note was perfect in pitch and rock steady, I was sure he was using the key).
That haunting other-worldly F nat he gets is achieved off the knee and without a key.
You CAN do it with the key, of course…Mick didn’t/doesn’t!
Robbie Hannan and Sean Potts have each said to me that the F nat key is very handy for fast tunes such as reels. They are both fond of tunes in D minor (where the F is natural) for instance Eliot Grasso’s version of Bear Haven Lasses, or Robbie’s famous take on The Tempest.
Gordon Galloway, years ago, told me he didnt put F keys on his chanters because the note can be half-holed. Nowadays he does put the key on, and clearly the influence of the faster players has been a factor in that decision. (he’s friendly with the likes of that fella Blackie)
There is a school of thought that more keys can mean more holes in the chanter and thereby a potential loss of tone. Gordon tells a good story about an argument around whether a stop key also “stops” tone…ie some of the buzz and tonal qualities of a chanter may be lost with the addition of keys, particularly stop keys.
As with everything in uilleann piping, life is a compromise.
And let’s face it, only a real piper will notice the difference 
Boyd
Yeah…try putting five “real pipers,” in a room and they’ll notice something different! I enjoy having the choice of whether or not I want to use a key. Obviously, their is a literal price one pays for this luxury. Too, one can make amazing music on a no key chanter. There are many work arounds for this scenario.
The only key you have to have for your average session is a C natural. This will allow you to play the common G tunes that is is needed for. I consider the C key to be essential. If you play with a lot of fiddlers that frequently play in A major, you will probably want a G#. G# is hard to half hole with both speed and accuracy, but it can be done if you work at it. The F is handier, and the pitch will be easier to control. Half holing the F is so much more effective and emotionally evocative than the key for most tunes, however the F key is arguably quite useful in some situations for fast contemporary playing. The B flat is not particularly useful for 99.9999% of trad music, or any other music you will find yourself playing for that matter. For the most part, keys do not help a modern concert pitch chanter play better. If anything, they can and do cause an otherwise perfectly good chanter design to tend to misbehave, probably due to the added perturbations of the bore.
Much agreed Uillman. I do use my Bb, but I’ve found it only in about 2% of what I play. There specific spots and one has to be quite careful, or it’ll sound like a gimmick. I believe too, the Air Amhran na Leabhar uses a Bb key (?).
I wasn’t going to put a Bb key on my chanter, but I was asked to record “Style Musette” with Karen Ashbrook and it was needed for that. I installed the key before I went into the studio and that was the only time I’ve ever used it.
Here are some (certainly not all) Bb key applications that I’ve found to be challenging and rewarding:
Occasional tune in G (there’s a Jig whose name I can’t remember, Kevin Crehan plays it in Gmin), that I’ll hint a G min. tonality. Also, there are Some Paddy O’Brien (Tipp.) variations, and Some Tommy Potts versions.
Perhaps, that might be considered a little left field, or “a little field that was LEFT! 
,” but i love the music from those musicians, and I’m willing to take chance a field that isn’t so populated!
Eliot Grasso is a great man for variations using the keys…eg a G roll played G G# G
or a B roll played B Bb B
and I remembering that he used the C key on an A somewhere or other.
Executed well, its quite cool.
Try it !!!