I don’t know why some people have theory’s that uilleann pipe’s are such a differcult instrument to work on with if your chanter’s are giving
you that much trouble were you have to stick wire and reeds up them I think its time you got your self a chanter from a maker that dose not need to bodge there instruments, e.g Peter Hunter his chanters are half an inch longer than a Rowsome chanter and bang on in both octave I’ve had conversation’s with Peter and some of the theory’s he’s heard has just left him standing total bewildered, you know the Arab’s have been playing doudle reeds in there instrument for hundreds of years and even they dont need to stick aids up there instruments? Well they might do shortly. 
Error to correct.
I mentioned earlier that Peter Hunters chanter was half an inch longer
than a rowsome chanter I stand corrected it is quarter of an inch not a
half.
I don’t know if Leo Rowsome even cared if his pipes were tuned at A=440. Certainly his father wouldn’t have as A=440 was not adopted until the late 1930’s. Leo’s own chanter is sharp of this so called standard, which I don’t think makes them inferior instruments at all, just tuned to a different standard. It is we that are trying to get these older instruments to play at at this modern arbitrary standard. Some of Leo’s chanters are made to a 14" standard, which makes them sharp of A=440, this is not to say that they are not correctly made. Trying to get such chanters to play at A=440 does cause tuning and behavior problems. That being said, I think what makes many of these older sticks desirable is the TIMBRE they can be to yield in the hands of a good player. This timbre is not often achieved by most modern makers, even if the tuning is good and they play at A=440. Ask Liam O’Flynn and he will tell you the same thing, as he has said it to me when I have talked pipes with him.
Ted
Stew,
I have owned several chanters that didn’t need rushing but I definately prefer the system with a metal wire(only for wide bore concert though). With a short Rowsome style chanter with largish holes and scalloping it works brilliantly. The scalloped tone holes and the wire create a wonderful feeling of life in the chanter under the fingers. In general I find that wide bore chanters without scalloping tend for me to be rather unresponsive. Alain Froment uses scalloping and a metal wire, Cillian O’Brian uses scalloping and a plastic rush usually up to the G, Dave Williams who has made many different styles of chanter, often uses this combination also. These are three well known concert pitch makers, would you say that they “bodge” their instruments? I bodge my instruments too. I am always open to change and improvement, but I’m not going to not put a wire in my chanter, as a matter of principle! If you don’t want or need a wire that’s fine, but if you do that’s also Ok, the system works and I have proved it on several commercial recordings.
I agree. Some chanters are designed to work with a “rush”. There are also
chanters from othjer piping traditions that use rushes also and they are not considered inferior to ones with nothing up the bore.
Ted
Hey all;
Although this is somewhat tangential to the topic, a friend of mine was describing a piece he saw on an old Canadian TV show called “The Nature of Things” in which they were talking about modern improvements to musical instruments. (It’s an excellent program, btw, and still running.)
The one that comes to mind here is a segment on bells, ie church bells. Some researcher had alalyzed the sound frequencies of bells from a bell tower in The Netherlands (they have lots of them there, apparently) and he’d found that there was one spike on his frequency analysis that gave the bells a specific ‘clang’ that was, to the researcher, unmusical.
So he developed a bell with a bulge about 2/3rds of the way down the bell that ran the circumference of the bell that got rid of that clang, once again through frequency analysis. He presented it to the town’s leaders and they universally loved it, enough so that they built a whole new tower with these bells.
When they were first played, they did a spot-check/instant poll and the vast majority of people liked the new sound much more. The only dissenters were the eldest members of the community who had grown used to the older sound. The question, of course is this; is it ‘better’ because it’s traditional or ‘better’ because it’s been improved? Beauty, the eye, etc.
Mark
Hi Guy’s
I’m not saying that some of the older chanters ain’t any good because they not 440 pitch some of the older chanters are all over the key of D I would think that some were as sweet as a nut a especially some of the longer flat pitch D chanters only problem is when it comes to play with other musicians but if your solo playing excellent.