I was at the NPU on Saturday night, Ronan Browne & Peter O’Loughlin – wonderful music from two superb players. During the course of the night Ronan mentioned that he always likes to have an ‘edge’ on others, his latest one, which he is happy to share as he hopes to start a fashion trend, is having the chanter tied directly into the bag – no t-piece or swans neck. He maintains that previously flat notes now play in tune without effort and the balance of the chanter has improved overall.
There’s nothing new about this. Having the bag go directly into the top of the chanter was how it was done 150 years ago. Joe Kennedy has been doing this for a few years (my B set has this arrangement).
djm
djm - I’ve seen photos of your B set. Very nice.
Also, any chance you could post some more photos of the B chanter? I recall you mentioning it has 7 keys. I’d love to see that.
PJ, ever since I loaded WinXP Service Pack 2 I have been unable to activate ftp. Once I figure it out I’ll add some more pics to my page.
djm
I respect the livin’ heck out of Ronan’s playing and person. I am, however, skeptical about this neck arrangement/intonation issue. Any views on this?
t
I don’t know if it carries to the audience, but from the piper’s perspective it is very noticeable. I can hear the overtones right up the neck by my ear and into the bag on my B set. Perhaps this is what got Ronan all excited (?).
djm
What “views”?
Maybe he tried it both ways and it was more in tune with the chanter tied straight in. Ergo “previously flat notes now play in tune without effort.”
I was told about Ken McLeod discovering something similar with his old Kenna chanter. Some of these old sticks may simply have been designed to work this way.
This effect can be explored by anyone with a little ingenuity.
The bernouli effect can and does affect a reed to a certain extent. You can experiment with this my simply making yourself a few differnt chanter tops of differing length, and thus internal volume. I’m not sure if anyone has quantified* this effect with any sort of published research, but I know it has been observed by many makers. Tieing a chanter top directly into a bag can be found to have an effect on the tone and tuning, but if one’s chanter top has a stop mechanism installed, the effect is completely negated.
Anyone want to / have the time to ? do some scientific studies?
Speaking of Ronan Browne…
I was driving to a session listening to an Indigo Girls CD last night (one of my rare moments of not listening to trad) and swore I heard pipes accompanying them. But I wasn’t sure if it was a synthesizer or electric guitar with an uilleann pipey sound or if I just play and listen so much that I’ve fallen to hearing pipes in my head. To be sure I was or wasn’t crazy, I googled it and it turns out Ronan Browne played with the Indigo Girls on the CD in question.
Did I hear someone say Riverdance?