I recall reading (maybe it was on this forum) that the term “regulator” may have some link to church organs on the basis that many of the old pipemakers were also organ makers. Can anyone throw light on this subject?
part of Sean Donnelly’s article in SRS journal vol 2 deals with this
William Audsley’s two volumes on organ building (reprinted by Dover) have a little section on “regulation,” meaning evening out the volume of a rank of pipes - each key on the organ controls one pipe (generally), you don’t want one of those pipes unduly louder than the rest. Another English text on organs mentioned regulation as well, it was at the library, I forget the title.
So perhaps the regulator was intended to swell the volume of the chanter’s notes here and there. Originally it was just the one tenor regulator.
But it’s the baritone that closely matches a chanter (reeds seem to work equally well in each). Isn’t that the one that gets stopped up, added to the stock, and now plays in unison (union)?
I’ve come across old posters, although I cannot remember the piper (Touhey?), advertising a concert on “The Irish Organ,” meaning the union pipes. Incidentally, I think the “union” refers to the uniting of the drones and regs into the stock, not a corruption of “unison.”
(resoponse amended:)
There is a discussion of the Chff board (http://chiffboard.mati.ca/viewtopic.php?p=361132) mentioning “a musician in Aberdeen, Scotland advertises “Lessons for Flute,Hautbois, and Irish Organ pipes” circa 1780,” (posted by sean an piobaire in 2005) so I guess the reference is well older than Touhey.
Union and Unison - basically the same word - probably a ‘corruption’ - not to say that it a bunch of Irish guys who determined that.
An other piper came up with this explanation (to himself) of the word: This older older text mentioned a set with “three drones and one regulator” - so he thinks it means a “regulatable drone”. Has anyone of you heard of this somewhere?
Cheers,
Hans