Sorry if this has been covered before, but didn’t find via search. I was for no particular reason wondering how the ghost d hole came to be. Was it simply ergonomically unfeasable to make a 1 hole E, or is there more to the story?
i don’t know the answer to that - however, one thing i have recently discovered is that you can pop ghost e
another thing is that you can go from e to ghost e to d in the lower octave - listen to the second part of the humours of ballyconnell on paddy keenan’s first album
The pastoral chanter played D with the little finger off the bottom hole. With the hole hole covered you get the leading tone below D. Without the foot joint of the pastoral chanter you are close to the uilleann pipe chanter. It is made so all holes covered gives you the D. Two bottom fingers off gives an E. One bottom finger off is not quite Eb. Some old UP chanters had a key for the low Eb.
On my chanter (a 1970s Quinn) Eb/D# is precisely in tune in both octaves. No need for a key!