What ever happened to the Coyne Bb set Leo Rowsome played “The Dear Irish Boy” on, on the Drones and Chanters LP? It is definitely my favorite recording of Leo playing an air, even though it’s somewhat out of tune in the regs (for once!). The most beautiful sound! He should have cut a whole LP with those babies. The liner notes mention that the set has a double bass regulator, and it can be heard, rather faintly, here and there, playing low Ds and F#s. Letters from old time piper Brother Gildas to Sean Reid mention that Leo’s uncle Tom played an 18 inch Coyne set-a set with an 18 inch chanter, and everything else made to suit, this being the way old sets were made in some cases. An 18 inch chanter approximates Bb, or flat of modern B, anyway. Maybe this is the set we hear on this track. You can read these letters in the archives of the uilleann pipe mailing list, just search for Gildas.
The Stockholm museum Coyne set has a double bass regulator, but its chanter is 17.4" according to the fellows who examined it, which would give close to B for pitch. One of the articles in the Sean Reid Society Journals - I think written by Jimmy O’Brien-Moran - mentions a deluxe Coyne set owned by the descendents of a gentleman piper, Lord Rossmore or one of them, a set not in working order. Anyone know about that one?
Makes you go 
There are several big Coynes around, I know of reputedly massive one in a private collection, in most cases of working instruments the bass extentions have been discarded [e.g the Busby Coyne Nollaig Mc Carthy plays. the extention was taken off during the restoration]. There is still an attic full of pipes in the Rowsome family or so I was told by someone who was exploring with Kevin R. fifteen years or so ago, maybe that B flat still there.
“Kevin R.”? Wait a minute, when was I ever in the Rowsomes’ attic…oh…uh…
An ATTIC? Not that I’m SURPRISED.
I’ve written an article for the American Pipers’ Club about the bass regulator extensions and double bass regulators the old flat set makers built. Quite a few of those extensions vanished from famous player’s sets - Ennis, Clancy’s Coyne B, Brother Gildas’s Egan C (see pic in the liners of Jimmy O’Brien-Moran’s CD). Not a popular accesory, it seems. Interesting that Phil Wardle’s Bb Woofe had one and the whole set was later “destroyed in an accident”! http://www.concentric.net/~pdarcy/photos/bil_phil-wardle_1.jpg for that one.
Geoff did a few of these yokes, the sister set of my own, no 69 owned by Rolf Knusel had a big extention which Rolf, sensibly, has taken off since [a pic of that set is in the Ozzie article Pat D’Arcy has a link to plus some sales pitch about the making of my own].
Then there was this monstrosity, the double bass of which has disappeared around the time of Ronnie’s death.
Ronnie Wathen! I’ve seen another photo of him with the big set, in color. NPU’s website had it. Craig Fischer once wrote me that the set, being one of Geoff’s early ones, wasn’t the most sophisticated, but definitely “looked like £100.”
Ken McLeod has it now, right? B flat. Actually just flat of B, Craig said. A copy of an Egan chanter in Perth, Australia; my Bb’s a close copy of that, and it’s happiest inbetween B and Bb, in their modern values.
Did Geoff have to retune that Egan chanter to get modern Bb, make the bore smaller etc.? Or did he find a more suitable role model?
[ Revival. - Mod ]
Does Ronnie’s old set ever get played these days?