“I must say that pipes, unless they are unplayable, don’t belong in museums. They should be in the hands of great players…period!”
I think this a very important argument and agree with it. It keeps reocurring and therefore I´d like to open a new thread. Museums however, momentarily are the best way to preserve untampered, complete sets. We talk about “Frankensets”. We moan about sets with non-original chanters but what about non-original bellows? It is legitimate for a player to change parts in the gear to guarantee for the best playing but from the historical long-term point of view it is a catastrophy. An old Harley Davidson with a (refurbished) Honda seat is drivable but it is a pain in the ass anyway.
How can we keep good sets being played by good players and guarantee that they are not tampered with or parts are changed (and lost over time)?
You can’t. If people want to mix and match a set of pipes, then that’s what they are going to do. I doubt most pipers are concerned with the “historical preservation” of their instrument. They’d probably rather someone play the thing anyway.
Look at the links I posted in the museum thread. There are less than half dozen complete sets. Everything else in the collection are just pieces of sets – chanters, the lonely regulator, a drone stock, bellows, and so on. I suspect there is a long history of pipes becoming “frankensets” as needed. In the 19th century, like now, it was probably more economical and easier for some players to cobble together bits and pieces of pipes.
ask any 1st chair string player in big orchestras…
they mostly own 400 year old strads, guanieri;s, etc.
Vienna philharmonic has winds brass & timps that go back, 125, 150 yrs.
plenty of ‘period’ pianoforte’s harpsichords, clavecins, virginals, organs…
somehow they manage to keep their ‘stock’ intact.
bagpipes, I guess, havnet had that kinda clout
I would say most of them play a ~400 year old strad owned by a collector or investor
And I guess that if you are a good enough pipers to play 1st chair, you will have some offers of historic (and new) sets to play, owned by others.
Best way to preserve an instrument is to play music.
I support pipes being donated to NPU and then loaned out to pipers who agree to
keep them maintained rather than locked away. I would also support
Museums letting them out to pipemakers to reed and work from and then offer evenings of
guest pipers to play them if feasible and if it could raise money for the institution
I would pay a very good fee to hear all those old sets. Governing all this and making it
worthwhile to all those involved is the problem though. Maybe a lot of stuff ends up in
museums that is unplayable anyway.
I think Silver Spear is right. Players will play what they prefer. How many great pipers have you heard of
that own a historical set but play a more modern chanter perhaps for pitch or reedability
or the original was hacked or they just prefer another chanter. Sometimes one just needs to
sell a more desirable piece of a set for economic reasons. I kept one chanter over another because I
didn’t need two d chanters and liked one better than the other. The one I kept did not match the rest of the set.
The other was traded for a nice flute.
You can’t tell people what to do with their property. Is it a good
idea for someone to buy a historical set and hack it up or enlarge bits or change bit? no, but who are you to tell them not to.
Also it may be a bit contradictory to want sets out of museums and be played but then expect them to
not change.
I wouldn’t do these things to an important set but I can’t see there being some type of body
governing what is done to people’s personal property whether pipemakers lamenting what has been done
to sets want that or not. I can also see the view that pipes are part of all our piping heritage
and therefore sort of belong to all of us and messing them is detrimental to the whole body of pipers.
Perhaps the key is education and sharing knowledge a la the Sean Reid Society so
would be pipe makers, repairers and nere do well’s think twice before damaging pieces of
our collective piping history. Education on the value and importance of not messing this stuff up
for the next group of “hacks” who come along.
Comes to that to expect perfect playing in spite of maybe some minor imperfections, like (maybe)
slightly inefficient chanter, bag, bellows … etc., pp…
This is a bit typical of bagpipes: Parts can easily be changed
(I mean in comparison to guitars, lutes, fiddles, pianos …)
Communication nowadays (internet) is much better. I´d like to try
to “reunite” a set. This seems to be another big advantage in comparison to the (generally) slow and “initiative-paralysing” museums. I have this what appears to be Maloney set (B). The set is out of a brown varnished wood (like a fiddle) with brass ferrules and bone trims, while the chanter (also Maloney alright) is Ebony with Silver keys. I think the chanter originally did not belong to the set and therefore would like to swap it for a brown wood / brass Maloney B - if someone should have one and would be willing to do so (I´d be willing to pay any difference). Pics: http://yfrog.com/jqimg0278cfj http://yfrog.com/5zimg0279ej
The chanter´s lower part has been repaired. The repair has been carried out well and the chanter plays absolutely excellent. It possibly was done by Willie Rowsome because
the bellows are Willie Rowsome
bellows cover and bag cover match
trim and (brass) ferrule seem to have Willie´s design
