I recently saw Paddy Keenan in a small venue concert and was frankly mesmerized. It’s one thing to listen to his CDs; another to be five feet away from him while he plays the pipes in person.
The one thing that struck me was how he holds the chanter. It is almost parallel to the ground. As a former Highland piper, I hold the chanter perpendicular to the ground. Has there been any past discussion on this? Ergonomically, it seems as though Paddy has better “access” to the regulators by holding the chanter in this position.
Yes, there has been lots of discussion. It has ben reported here that Keenan has his set sized so that his chanter pretty much stays in place by itself - one of the reasons he prefers vinyl bags - the stiffness holds it rigid.
Watch any of the good pipers and you will see that they almost never vary the position of their chanter, although they each have their own preferred position. I don’t think this is one of those situations where everyone must conform to one position, but rather find the position that suits you best and learn to stick to it.
This is not going to be the same for beginners, as once you move from a practise set to a half-set, you will probably find you need to change positions, and again, once you start learning to play regs you will have to find a new position again.
Whether your final position is exactly the same as someone else’s strikes me as irrelevant - as long as it suits you. An experienced piper can guide you towards something that will be in the ballpark, but from there its totally up to you.