I know a couple of people here have talked to Paddy Keenan about his pipes over the years from his Crowley set to the more recent, does anyone know what type of drone reeds he uses, cane or composite maybe ? Thanks
The lore I’ve heard is that he still plays all cane. Pretty impressive to still be playing all cane and doing his amount of travelling nowadays.
He told a story of how the original bass drone reed from when Garech de Brún owned the Crowley pipes fell out of the socket at a session and got stepped on and damaged. Paddy managed to get it resuscitated and it still plays to this day.
I heard someone say he was on the late late show onceand his drone fell off whilst playing. The only performance I can find is of him playing with paddy maloney and conal o grada and it all seems to go smoothly.
A friend asked Paddy if he could have a gander at the drone reeds in the Crowley set back in the late 80s or early 90s. Paddy said sure. They were, as you’d expect, black with age and smoke.
My friend also said Paddy played tough reeds - but paradoxically, the pipes were on the soft side. All those guitar strings up the bore did the trick.