Stupid question about tone

Uilleann Pipes
1

Ok, be gentle with my ignorance :stuck_out_tongue:

The kind of timbre that first attracted me to Uilleann pipes was, if I can poorly describe, a kind of mettalic tone and more mellow. I don’t know exactly how to describe this preference, but it’s the kind of tone like in Mick O’Brien playing, especially in the Cd The Ancient Voice of Ireland. Some people could say that I’m just another fool intoxicated by the “new agey” style of players like Spillane and some recordings of John McSherry , but I also like traditional players and a similar kind of metallic tone (sorry again for the poor miserable description) in “non-new agey” players like Paddy Keenan.

So, what do I want to know - despite the fact that I’m just a crappy beginner, the tone basically and primarily depends on the chanter and the reed, is that right(suppose it’s a good player, so let’s not talk about the necessary ability and experience)?

I have a Peter Hunter chanter and a reed by Allan Burton so it’s supposed to be an excellent combination and it is, as said by many experienced players who tried the chanter. Since my poor initial level is no parameter to measure anything about tone, let me say that I also didn’t like much the tone of it when these excellent experienced players tried the chanter. I mean, it’s not that same “magical” tone that captivated me. The present tone of it is closer (and I found this kind of tone to be pretty common in many recordings, which I’m not much fond) to , how can I say, a wooden sax(especially in the first octave and bottom D, when not played hard), grossly speaking.

Sorry for the ridiculous comparison, these are all subjective sensations, but I’d just like to know if a different reed could approximate that kind of sound or should I look for another kind of chanter that might be closer to my cup of tea? :confused:

2

Some chanter/reed combinations are designed to be loud and raw - a pretty rough sound. There are those who prefer this rough sound. Some chanters are a bit narrower bore with a mellower sound (I am just talking concert D here).

One thing you should be aware of is that your pipes do not sound the same to you as they do to your audience (if any). Try recording yourself and listening to your sound from a different perspective. This will require a decent mic or two.

Closing your existing reed down a bit (a tiny fraction) may help, but may throw off your tuning, too. The other option would be making some new reeds and experimenting until you find something that suits your tastes better. The only other option is to try as many different chanter/reed combinations as you can get your hands on.

And yes, the piper does make a difference to the tone, but only in so much as that they add to what is already there.

djm

3

Its not just a matter of reed and chanter.

I think a huge amount of tone is in the player and what they do. Take the stories about Ennis taking someone else’s pipes for a tune and sounding (not like Clancy or Flynn or whoever)… … sounding just like ENNIS.

Here’s the opening paragraph of what Robbie Hannan had to say about Eliot Grasso on his debut CD:

I first met Eliot Grasso in Achill Island, Co. Mayo in the west of Ireland in August 1999 at the island’s annual summer school, Scoil Acla. After hearing him play the pipes for just a short while I was immediately aware that I was in the presence of a master musician, despite the fact that he was still in his mid-teens. > Although he had only been playing the pipes for a few years at that stage, his technique and tone had developed to astonishing levels of excellence and richness > and his repertoire was seemingly endless. This, combined with his intuitive sense of melodic and technical variation, makes him one of the most creative and dynamic musicians in the contemporary world of Irish traditional music

So you have to WORK at getting good tone, its not an instant thing if you have the right instrument (although good gear helps a lot)

I’d say the reed and chanter you have are pretty good…go find Mick O’Brien and see what he can do with them :wink:

Seriously, just out of the box, reeds need to be broken in, adjusted and courted a bit…my best reed ever needed 3 or 4 months of playing and fiddling to get it to a wonderful place. It stayed there for nearly 3 years
When it died, I had to start over with a new reed.

Maybe you’d be better off with a sax :smiley: :smiley:

Boyd

4

Mine is not wide bore, but it’s not narrow bore as well. Maybe it’s what people call medium or normal, but it has plenty of bite and it’s quite loud.


Yep, I also thought about that and read some posts here about it and that’s why I mentioned that I heard the chanter being played by good players and all the same I didn’t like the tone of it. I also recorded myself to check if there is some difference from what I perceive and it’s about the same.

Yes, I tried that some time ago and it started getting closer to what I like but with my clumsiness I ended up ruining the tuning until a good player could fix it for me. Obviously I do have to start learning about reeds :blush:

5

Nice stories!

Yes, I understand that but I wouldn’t like to mention the names of very good players that tried it when I went to Ireland and still, I didn’t like the tone of it. Theirs were better :stuck_out_tongue: , unless I was all enthusiastic about everything and didn’t really pay attention to consistent differencies.

It got better already (or my control? can’t say) but I like the tone better in the second octave. However I wouldn’t risk ruining it again with my lame tinkering. I should start learning reedmaking then I could ruin the prototypes without fear and gain confidence.

6

Are you playing the chanter with drones? They can quite often round out the sound of a chanter and complete the aural experience. Or, you’re a flat pipes person :smiley:

Peas and grubs,

Pat.

7

Could this be a concert vs. flat pitch thing? Mick O’Brien mostly plays in B or Bb (though I don’t recall which pipes he’s playing on the “Ancient Voice of Ireland” CD). You’ll be hard-pressed to find a better combo than a Peter Hunter chanter with an Alan Burton reed.

No E

8

OH MASTER, you replied in my miserable thread, oh enlighten the darkness of my ignorance

By the way, the first piper who helped me when I first got my practice set was your student, Joey Abarta. That would make you my GRAND-MASTER?
.

Ok, sorry, weak joke
. Do you know if he is still in Japan? He hasn’t answered my emails.

Coming back to the subject

Oh yes that’s a different pair of problematic shoes. The thing is that I just made the transition from a practice set to a full set and still struggling to keep the drones stable. The sound really got better with that and less “caustic” but on the other hand, I find the drones too loud! Besides, to complete the drama, the valve of the bellows is fu##ed and it’s refluxing like a noisy fart, so I have trouble to keep the air supply constant in the second octave and usually one or more drones shut. The practice set’s bellows is quite good but I still have to make some adaptations to try to fit it in the full set.

Oh temptation! the first time I heard those I drooled but it was too late :sniffle: Maybe in the future. But since I do like many players’ tones that play with the usual D, I think there is hope :smiley:

Ignorant Romulo looks up in the dictionnary:

GRUB

  1. The young form of an insect, that looks like a small fat worm
  2. (informal) food → Grub’s up (= the meal is ready)!

→ They serve good pub grub there.

:confused: Master, is that the diet that you recommend to develop piping enlightenment?

9

Oh no, despite of liking flat pitch I think that’s not the question. Mick plays mostly in D in that recording and there are other players that I like their tone and they’re playing in D.


All right. Maybe I should just pursue that tone and later on try to finetune a reed if it doesn’t come with experience. :confused:

10

Joey Abarta is alive and sinning in Los Angeles these days… don’t feel bad, doesn’t answer anybody’s e-mail. :smiley:

No E

11

:swear: He should have stayed longer and enlighten the poor mortals here!

12

Romula san… it is becoming blatently obvious that I should move to Japan - although I’m sure I would only then shatter these lofty illusions… I do what I can :slight_smile:

Peas and grubs… I think is an abstract Pumba & Timon reference. I have a three year old daughter :slight_smile:

Are you Japanese? If so your English is amazing!

Moustache, Abyssinia,

Patio.

13

Oh no, it’s Romul(O), names in Portuguese and Spanish usually are masculine when ended in o and feminine when ended in a

O COME ALL YE FAITHFUL, JOYFUL AND TRIUMPHANT
O COME YE, O COME YE, TO JAPAN

Oh Yes Massssssssster, pliz do move to Japan
and bringsss all your reedful preciousssssssss, us is gonna be very happy

What are you waiting? You have to come to establish your Marco Polo (instead of China->Japan) mission and accomplish your destiny → enlighten this side of the world with ITM. There is no piper like you here and you’d be the revered piping Supremo

And you should move to the center of Japan (closer to us, hehehe), because in the south there are already too many pipers, you need to enlighten the most scarce, "pipelyimpoverished " regions!

If you are serious about it and I know you announced to be retiring from a straight job, if worst comes to worst, I could recommend you for a job as an English teacher for kids and you’d have to teach basically 4 lessons a day and would have around 40 days of summer vacation, 2 weeks of winter vacation and 2 weeks of spring vacation. You wouldn’t get as much money as a job like Joey had at Disney, but it’d be piece of cake and you’d have lots of free time, besides having lots of fun with the children. Jobs like Disney, Universal Studios, etc. are well paid but usually they are quite abused and don’t get any holidays! (they have to work even during the weekends, it’s when there are more people)

Oh YES MASTER, come and shatter all the illusions that enslaven us to the Reedy Matrix
and unveil the raw reality of piping

Ah, I see. “Slimey and satisfiying!” Funny that both me and my wife like them and were nostalgicly watching some episodes at Youtube just this week. I find the brazilian dubbed voices funnier than the original.

Oh no, at least not in this life :stuck_out_tongue: . I’m brazilian.

14

Geez what’s with all the smileys?

I think the answer is simple - you’re listening to recordings of pipes with lots of reverb, aka echo, giving you an unrealistic impression of what pipes sound like. Listen to Jimmy O’Brien-Moran’s CD for a quietish B set with no echo, or Leo Rickard’s or Jerry O’Sullivan’s for loud concert pitch. Or the piping solo on Pat D’Arcy’s MySpace page. These are all well recorded and have a good dry sound.

15

If you haven’t been piping very long, don’t try and play the entire set - you can find it a bit overwhelming. Take the stock out and plug up the stock cup. Or if you have to have some drones, just use the tenor drone - block off the exits of the other drones. Great pipers like Liam O’Flynn and Paddy Moloney played practice sets for 5 or 6 years when they started, and it shows.

16

Just to break the monotony of plain text. I’m on vacation so, for the moment, have plenty of time to waste looking for those. :stuck_out_tongue:


It might be that. Gosh, that’d be sad, if I really prefered the fantasy than the reality :blush:

17

Thanks for the tips. I keep practicing with just the practice set and just bought the full set - it might have been precipitated for my level, but it was a good deal, anyway I didn’t want to miss the opportunity.

Usually I can keep all the drones working until around high E but above that they start shutting. Even if I try with just the tenor drone, usually it shuts with the higher notes. I’ve read about why it happens, but can’t put into practice yet :frowning:

Well, it can be better to stay just with the practice set for a long time, but many teachers emphasize you should start with the drones as soon as possible, no matter what sort of problems one might have.

By the way, is it common that in CDs pipers shut the bass drone? I can’t hear it in many recordings.

18

I haven’t heard of too many teachers rushing the drones into play. I’m primarily self taught, but the tips and semi-lessons I’ve received emphasized getting a lot of chanter work under the belt first, I still rarely use the drones at this point. As Kevin said, O’Flynn and many others (Rowsome students) only played the chanter for several years. On the flip side though, O’Farrell’s tutor recommended starting with drones after a MUCH shorter period, I think he even said days if I remember right. Of course that was a different time, and according to what I’ve read, the technical bar wasn’t as high in O’Farrell’s time. Sean Potts says that Ennis brought a much higher technical standard to piping. So, I guess it all depends on what you want to get out of it.

19

That’s the kind of tone I was talking about :The Wild Geese.

It’s a recording by Liam O’Flynn with an orchestra. Can anyone tell if effects were added?

20

REEE-VERRRRB!!! (are you kidding?)

i.e. there’s massive reverb added to that recording. Try playing your pipes in a tile-lined bathroom (or a stone cathedral) and see if it sounds more like what you’re looking for!
:wink:

O’Flynn does get a special tone, part of which is the chanter. He also does several types of vibrato/etc. which contribute to the overall perception, so in this case tone is influenced by chanter, reed, player, and effects processing…

Bill