Old style left hand position for the Uillann pipes

Uilleann Pipes
1

Frinds,

In his tutor published in the early 1800’s, O’Farrell describes that the proper way to hold the chanter is to use the first digits of the left hand to cover the holes on the chanter. Today, of course, we cover the A and B hole with the second digits and the G with the first digit. To my knowledge the only ones to carry on this old method was Joe Shannon of Chicago and the McPeake family of Northern Ireland. Look here from the Jean Ritchie collection:

http://www.library.nuigalway.ie/Pickow/viewphoto.jsp?filename=P104410

A quick examination of the pipers in O’Neill’s "Irish Minstrels and Musicians reveals that a number of the old pipers hold the chanter using this method.

Any theories as to when the change came about? I believe that our presant hand position was taken from bagpipers. The old method was more like playing the oboe or recorder.


All the best,
Pat Sky

Old style of holding the chanter
2

Pat
You’re always one to produce more cerebral posts. :wink:
[thanks]
Dunno if this reply will just confuse the issue, but…

Anatomy books would have it that the first digit is [and always has been] the index finger…
the 2nd digit is the middle or long finger
the 3rd digit is the ring finger


the bits that an individual finger can be subdivided into are not called digits [either in modern day anatomy books or in the really old ones that were written in the 1800’s]

Now, how the correct anatomical terminology can sit with the picture of Mr McPeake… :confused:

Boyd
Boyd

3

edited
see post below

digit-smigit :roll:



Boyd

4

How would that sit in with Liam Walsh’ position is the question now :smiley:

5

I just KNEW I never should have started reading this post…(reaches for the handy bottle of Ibuprofin). :smiley:

6

Besides, the 5th digit is the smallest most medial finger…that means the ring finger is the 4th and so on counting down laterally…least it was that way when I was in medical school. And, I agree with Peter. A pic tells a thousand words and Pat’s point and question are well taken. Only an astute observer would point this out. In over 7 years I’ve never heard this point raised. It is enough to really mess with a guy’s mind!

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..

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Alan
That’s exactly why we were taught NOT to number digits in the hands…too confusing and open to misinterpretation

[although some folks do number digits in the feet…whether they are fingers or toes :astonished: ].

“If its a thumb, call it a feckin’ thumb” as my old anatomy prof used to say.

B

9

There’s a picture of R.L. O’Mealy holding the chanter with his upper hand using the first finger segment on the upper two notes as Pat describes. I am wondering how long highland pipe bands have been popular amongst the Irish. Perhaps the highland fingering method became popular along with highland piping. I am guessing somewhere before the middle of the twentieth century.

djm

10

I did also have one anatomy prof who insisted that the thumb be called the thumb then the “fingers” labeled as you indicate…the other wanted them all to be called digits with the thumb as the first digit…why digits you might ask…my understanding is that they were, and still are, used for counting…and we use our thumbs…then again, a digit can be any appendage as the toes, and who knows what else, can be referred to as digits.

I’m interested in trying that old style just to check it out.

Re the use of the 5th digit of the top hand, otherwise known as the 4th finger, I once saw Al Purcell use his to reach down and cover the g hole, while keeping all other tone holes closed, to play an F while getting regs with the free hand…amazing really.

11

There are still pipers who hold the chanter in that way.
With most of the pipers today who hold the chanter in that way, it is just how the learned to do it. A lot of them would be self taught. Donncha Dwyer has his left hand positioned in such a way and it certainly works fine for him.
Tommy

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it is my understanding that the thumb is not a finger, but that is not to say that only fingers are digits (8 fingers + 2 thumbs = 10 digits)

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It is how you learn, I’d guess. Most of the old pipers though try to keep the digits straight.

Joe Shannon had a lot of top hand strength; he was right handed in everything but playing the whistle and pipes. Joe also had a powerful handshake; shake hands with Neilligh Mulligan to get the idea.

A local whistle player, an excellent player, has short stubby fingers. It is great watching the playing as the hand really fits the whistle perfectly. The mechanics of playing are perfect.

14

Pat,
Based on the photos in O’Neill and his descriptions, I’d be inclined to think the differences are regional, and not chronological.

A couple of John Wayland’s students (Denis O’Leary, May McCarthy) in the Cork Pipers club use the finger ends. So does John (Shane) O’Neill, described as the “foundation” of the Cork club.

RL O’Mealy of Westmeath, uses the finger ends also. His father and grandfather, both pipers, came from Mayo.

Turlogh McSweeney from Donegal appears to use the finger ends.

But all the Rowsome boys and the Dubliners under Nicholas Markey (who was a student of Billie Taylor before he emigrated) use the “modern” style.

There is a 20 year (or so) gap between O’Farrell (who may have been from Limerick?) and the Taylors (or at least Billy and Charley’s dad) and also Jem Byrne (Senior or Junior can’t tell which) who taught the elder Samuel Rowsome, who seems to have been born around 1830s (same as Billie Taylor). The Byrnes are from Wicklow, the Rowsome crew from Wexford. The Taylors made “Highland” pipes while in Drogheda, but there is no mention of war piping in the background of the southeast coast pipers.

Many of the other photos, particularly emigrants to America, don’t match this regional scheme, but on closer look, these guys learned mostly after leaving Ireland (as far as I can tell).

It’s a thought anyway.

Eric

ps. Not that it adds anything to my hypothesis, but O’Neill mentions Grogan of Wexford as first performer of record on the “improved” pipes, and drawing of pipes in a collection in Carlow, dated about 1760ish. Perhaps the modern method IS the old style, and the finger-tip approach of O’Farrell, Wayland, McPeake, McSweeney, et al a more recent development. Heck, maybe O’Farrell got it “wrong” and his tutor spread the mistake.

15

What is interesting is how the top hand fingering adopted limits or enables the kind of C natural you can produce. It’s nigh on impossible to produce the Ennis/Clancy “enhanced” c natural we all know and love (but can’t quite play right yet) using the “tip of the fingers” grip.

I had a chat with Robbie Hannan about this, and about the O’Neill pictures, and he pointed out that O’Neill has a number of photographs/illustrations of pipers using the second pads of the fingers, among them Micí Cúmbá, John Kenny, J. F. Flanagan, Willie Rowsome, John Kenny, Sporting William Kelly, Patsy Tuohey, Barney Delaney, James Early etc.

Interestingly enough, Micí Cúmbá’s C natural is, I think, the earliest recording of that kind of wailing C natural.

16

Except there are a number of the old Highland pipers who played with the “full gibbon” upperhand grip too, and a few around even today. It’s rare but considered acceptable in various schools/regions.

Royce

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I’ve seen a picture of Cape Breton GHB players from around the turn of the century in which some Pipers play with the bag under the right arm and one even has his left hand uppermost on the chanter.
I think things were less regimented in the 18th century Gaelic piping world.
In Cape Breton they also sit down to play if they feel like it.

John S

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Fogot to observe that the picture with the McPeake grip of the upperhand isn’t related to anything vaquely GHB if that was the impression anyone was getting.

Royce