Here’s another of my strange meanderings, suitable for pipemakers and those who are familiar with the more bizarre features that have been added to old sets in the past.
From time to time I would really like to drop to low Cnat on my D set. It is much more suitable, especially in some airs, than jumping up to c on the chanter. I have tried going to the Cnat key on my bass reg, but there’s no escaping the difference in the sound of the chanter reed vs. the reg reed.
So here’s my idle thought: some sort of thingy added to the bottom of the chanter, below the Eb hole, a hollow extension that would provide the additional bore length required to drop down to low C as required, played by a key. This would be played with the chanter on the knee. It would be really freaky if you could cran the C as well, but that might be asking a bit much. Some sort of internal poppit or slip valve would be needed to shut off the whole C thingy without affecting the tone or tuning of the rest of the chanter.
Since there is little that hasn’t been tried by previous pipemakers, I am wondering if this hasn’t already been done before, and if someone can point to some known examples.
If you’re an experienced pipemaker and qualified to interject, I would appreciate hearing if this is doable, or why not. My own pipemaker thinks it might be possible (but he says that about most of my ideas and then goes back to work).
Nope, not the same thing. The pastoral pipes were played completely off the knee, so they didn’t have the upper octave reach that the UPs have.
That’s exactly what I am looking to avoid. I want the chanter, and especially bottom D, to be completely unaffected. Thus the need for an elaborate key mechanism that would have minimal impact on the internal bore of the existing chanter, but have a low C available when needed.
Lots of ITM tunes drop below the D, and fiddlers use this to great effect, but it is one of the limitations of the UP chanter.
I think what you are looking for is the way a normal D flute has those 2 extra keys to get a low C# and Cnat. I think they are normally open until you touch the keys and close them off to get a longer bore length going.
The problem is that in order to close off the chanter for tight playing and 2nd octaves, you would have to hit these 2 keys (i.e. close the 2 bottom holes). It would make playing regular UP rather awkward. Isn’t it already hard enough?
Wait a minute…maybe you could use one of those popping values at the end of the chanter - and make it fire the 2 keys when you drop the chanter down. There might be a way to pull it off, but it would be complicated.
You’d be hard pressed to play in the key of D on a C chanter.
Wolvy, please read the description again. The C thingy would be built off the side of the chanter, not extend the length of the end of the main physical tube. It would be played with a key, but the key would close the addition off such that it would not affect the behaviour of the chanter from a normal D chanter. You would still close the chanter off against the knee as normal, attaining hard bottom D, upper octaves, etc.
Probably no larger than the end section of my thumb. Could even have a screw on top to “tune” the C. Wish I knew enough about fabrication to try some of my own ideas out. :roll:
Sorry, Chris, I don’t see anything there from you (yet). Actually, I have received several inqueries from people smarter than me about these things. I will try to draw up some conceptual illustrations this weekend and make them available to whoever is interested.
Was looking for an e-mail address to send to drawings to you - had a similar request from another piper and looked at a way of doing it that is fairly straightforward
Do you have a CAD / drawing program on your PC and if so which one. If not can convert it to a “gif”
You are welcome to share it around modify it etc. I’d post it here but at the moment I cannot access my website.
Half hole the bottom D note by holding the chanter at an angle off the knee, with half of the D hole still stopped against the knee. With pratice this can give a Csharp below D. Only useful in slow airs probably.
I heard Joe McKenna play this half-holed bottom D on The Groves Hornpipe recently. Goes like D-C(#ish)-D. Don’t know if this will work on whatever air you are playing.
Nope. Airs like “My Lagan Love” or “Ard Tí Chuan” definitely need to go down to low Cnat. Also, if you look at tune books for fiddle, lots of jigs and reels go down to low Cnat. Singers and fiddlers use it because it is available to them, and its probably a more correct version of the original tune, whereas pipers fudge it because the note is not available to them (yet).
Kevin R pointed out to me that Colclough’s tutor of 1826 gives instruction for various tunes with low C, pointing out that one should use the bass reg C to play them. This brings me full circle to why I started this thread (above).
