This has been touched on frequently, but never, that I can find, in a specific manner. I keep hearing that flat chanters (narrow bores) are capable of more expression than wide bores because they have more tonal variability. I presume this means that you have more fingering options to produce the same basic note.
Would someone enlighten me as to specifically what these options are? For example, I am looking for answers like “to play a first octave B on a wide bore, here are the two fingerings, but to play the same note on my Maker X narrow bore, I can use these 4 fingerings. Fingering 3 produces a bit flatter pitch and louder sound, fingering 4 produces closer to pitch and a ghost D sort of tone”. All the fingering charts I can find seem to be devoted to wide bore chanters only and I have so far only really played wide bores.
Also do these different fingerings hold true across all narrow chanters or do they all vary considerably?
I am getting a narrow chanter soon and want to dive right in, opening up these new possibilities as soon as possible!
Maybe these answers could get into the FAQ at some point too.
There is no straight answer to that question, at least not as straight as you’d like it. Good chanters will allow you t ochange the tone of a note considerably using different combinations of fingering, vibrato and on/off the knee playing but things may vary quite a bit from one chanter to the next and some will do less than others. It’s up to the piper himself to work out the nuances I suppose.
Peter’s right, there are no hard and fast rules. When I first learned to play it was on a GW Bflat set (a copy of the Wayland Egan, now in the Perth Museum in Oz). I was astonished at just how many combinations of fingerings (on and off the knee) I could use to play some notes…all with subtle and not so subtle variations in tone colour.
Basic finger charts are just that, a basic guide for the beginner.
There is simply no substitute for experimentation and fooling about to hear what does what…on your chanter. Let your ears and, just as importantly, your heart, be the guide when expressing a tune (especially airs)…that way we will all have a new flat pitch piper to listen to, with his own distinct style and sound.