Hello
I’m looking for recommendations on recordings of flat sets (B and C in particular). I would like to hear some recordings that are at least somewhat recent. Thanks
Jonathan
Any of Ronan Browne’s recordings.
http://www.ronanbrowne.com/ Neat regulator work as well.
Rick
Darn! You beat me to it, Rick. The only person I can think of off the top for recording on a C set is Jerry O’Sullivan. Lots of B sets, though: Liam O’Flynn, Mick O’Brien, Robbie Hannan, etc. Séamus Ennis for a C# set. Most people nowadays are playing sets in more than one key, so if you take a look at the liner notes you might find you already have what you want in your CD collection.
Remember that in the end its the individual piper who makes the difference. Each can say that they’re playing a B set, but they each sound quite different from each other, while sounding similar whether they are playing a B set or D set.
djm
Brian MacNamara’s CDs, A Piper’s Dream and The Fort of the Jewels contain a lot of piping in C. Brian is a lovely piper, takes a somewhat gentler approach than the current fashion but it pays off in all the intricate detail he can work into a tune in terms of long notes, pauses, alternate phrasings, an extra cut here and there.
Robbie Hannan’s solo CD is recorded exclusively on a Kenna B set. He’s a very aggressive player but very tight.
I think Sean Og Potts has a CD with some B piping on it somewhere, he plays a slightly similar style to Robbie’s…
Gay Mckeon’s solo CD has two gorgeous tracks in C, one a set of blistering Donegal reels and the other the lovely old set dance The Garden of Daisies.
Padraig Mac Mathuna’s CD Blas Na Meala features a lot of B piping, very lovely playing well worth repeated listening.
Ronan Browne’s two duet albums with Peadar O Loughlin - The Southwest Wind and Touch Me If You Dare are largely in B and feature Ronan playing a Harrington B set. The Wynd You Know, Ronan’s solo CD, is all in concert pitch but you should get it anyway, it features some masterful airs playing.
D’OH! ( 8 (I)
I forgot to mention Mick O’Brien’s recent duet album with Caoimhin O Raghallaigh, Kitty Lie Over, all on Bb pipes and detuned fiddle. Great stuff. So is his 1996 CD May Morning Dew, there’s a fair amount of B piping on that too, absolutely great playing.
italics added for clarity. I did not claim that Wynd You Know is a flat set album, please read carefully.
Todd Denman does a lot of flat set work too, i.e. “A Celtic Peace” - not sure who his pipes are made by though; Wooff? Rogge? I’m sure someone out there knows…
Thanks for the info guys
Is 1976 recent? If so, check out Pat Mitchell’s album “Pat Mitchell, Uilleann Pipes”. Don’t know if he plays a B or a C on that album, but definitely a flat set. A great album which I never tire of listening to.
Thanks Greg
I’ll check it out
D’OH! ( 8 (I)
I forgot to mention Mick O’Brien’s recent duet album with Caoimhin O Raghallaigh, Kitty Lie Over, all on Bb pipes and detuned fiddle. Great stuff. So is his 1996 CD May Morning Dew, there’s a fair amount of B piping on that too, absolutely great playing.
B flat piping mainly. Much of the whistle-playing is on a B whistle. Only 1, maybe 2 tracks on B pipes, more on B flat…[both sets by Froment]
Boyd
I believe it’s all on the same set of pipes, in B. (Kitty Lie Over).
That’s one of the best recordings of flat pipiing in recent years IMO.
As for Ronan Browne, his recent solo album is all concert pitch - good stuff, but I wouldn’t want anyone to buy it thinking they were getting flat pipes. His recent collaboration with Peadar O’Loughlin, “Touch Me If You Dare”, (as well as his original one from the '80s, “The South West Wind”) is outstanding.
No it isn’t. Boyd had it spot on: it’s mostly the B flat and one or two on the B
Well, there goes my learning quota for the week 
Slightly worrying that I didn’t notice the pitch changes before…
Yes very 
The tunes they do on the whistles are in B natural as far as I remember. All the pipity pip stuff is in B flat.
Patrick.