I’ve noticed that certain pipers will often hold down regulator keys for a long period of time, usually during slow airs. This made me wonder if regulators were partially designed to serve as alternate drones originally? Do any of ya’ll experiment with this, perhaps using a rubber band or other material to keep regulator(s) open for entire tunes? Does this work or even sound pleasant? I have only a 1/2 set right now, so no experience w/ regs. Thanks.
Tom Klein has done a lot with this idea, quite successfully in my opinion.
You can read about it in his article “Regulator Drones: a non-invasive Hack” in Iris na bPiobare (The Pipers Review)
Vol XXVIII No 2 -Summer 2010
If you’re a member of said irish Pipers’Club (and you should be), you can access that article at http://uilleannforum.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=1712
To subscibe to the club, go to www.irishpipersclub.org
Yes, Tommy did a “demo” at the last SoCal tionól concert. Very impressive.
And I had a great time with Tom at the last East Coast tionól, playing outside and swapping ideas about slightly out-there harmonic possibilities.
To get back to the OP, I suppose you could say there are two basic ways of using the regs, one which is chiefly rhythmic (c.f. Leo Rowsome) and one that uses them as temporary drones as the harmony changes (Liam O’Flynn). Not a hard-and-fast distinction of course, even within a single player’s style (c.f. early recordings of Liam doing the Rowsome vamping). I would venture the opinion that the latter method is the easier way to start, though beware getting stuck there. You have to put in the time developing the independent wrist (insert juvenile joke here).
Ronan Browne is yer man for creative and fluid reg. work of all kinds, though my all-time favourite is Ivan Goff doing 3 against 4 rhythm in the reel Kitty in the Lane here: http://source.pipers.ie/Search/SearchResult.aspx?searchTerm=ivan+goff&mediaId=4594&startRowIndex=0&pageSize=12
Could it have been that the temporary-drone-style once had coined the word “regulator”? - a “regulateable” drone? (Some say so, at least).
Leo Rowsome , in “Castle of Dromore” cops some serious zampogna licks with an almost Alberti-like reg acccomp. (had to be using one hand on the chanter at some points (0:27 - 0:39 for ex. 
). ‘Chiefly rhythmic’ is an adequate description of his (and many predecessors) preference; but Rowsome’s particular pallete of regulator genius incorporated plenty of held tones, ‘swaying’ comp patterns, and (dare I throw the word around 
) a highly contrapuntal approach to regulator accompaniment. in my humble opinion.
‘Movable drones’ is the current buzzword for reg use. I hear it a lot these days.
Tom Klein has written another article on “Using Regulators As Drones” in the latest edition of “An Piobaire” (February 2011). Interesting stuff.