The Archetypes and What They Mean

Uilleann Pipes
1

OK, S-Pitchfork brought up another interesting topic.

Does anyone have any musings he/she’d like to share on what makes a Rowsome a Rowsome, or a Coyne a Coyne? Pitchfork mentioned Rowsome, Coyne, Egan, and Harrington . . . then there’s Taylor . . . and Crowley . . . and others!

In the flute world, it’s kinda easy to stereotype. Pratten == big holes, big sound, raw. Rudall and Rose == smallER holes, medium to big sound, more refined. Stereotypes, not Gospel.

But what ideas do these Big Names in Uilleann Pipemaking bring to your mind?

Stuart

2

Simple enough…a Rowsome is a Rowsome 'cause a Rowsome made it! Still, not all Rowsome chanters are the same. For example, I can hear major differences in the instruments played by Benedict Koehler and Kevin Rowsome despite rumors that they may have been cut with the same reamers (I think that’s what I heard). I suppose that some, if not most, of the differences are related to the way these two majestic pipers play their instruments. I suspect that if Kevin were to play Benedict’s chanter it would sound more like Kevin’s and vice versa. I hear major differences bewteen the Quinn and Koehler chanters…sometimes due to the human on the other end of the instrument…and I even heard major differences between two Geoff Woof C sets this past weekend. What I’m saying is that makers have enough variation, even if only subtly so, that not all of their instruments will sound the same. This is especially true as it is impractical to think that an “identical” reed could be made for two chanters. And, sometimes when you think that you have two “identical” chanters, a reed playing well in one doesn’t do well at all in the other. I guess what I really mean is that I think of chanters in terms of the maker. In terms of sound and playability, the laws of nature would dictate that each maker has a bell shaped curve with a normal distribution. Lets hope that those that fall in the realm of minus 1 standard deviation and lower below the mean are used to make lamps, table legs, donated as food for wood boring insects, or reacted with oxygen in the presence of heat.

3

Don’t mistake the differences between players for differences between pipes this thread is about characteristics of instruments. I do think each good maker has a distinct imprint on the sound, A Rowsome is a Rowsome because Leo made it but it can also be indentified as a Rowsome from the characterisics that are there because he made them the way he did. By the end of the day though it is the player who determines how it comes out.

4

This seems to me to be somewhat similar to the discussions and responses recently held on the different types of wood used for UP sets. In that discussion, the same point was brought up that Peter makes, about how the individual player has the greatest effect on the sound.

If we accept that as being the case, then it follows that to hear the differences between different makers’ sets, you would have to hear one player performing on all the different makes of sets. To that end, kindly forward your Egan, Coyne, Taylor, Harrington and Rowsome sets to me as soon as possible. :slight_smile:

Thx,

djm

5

There are a few things I’ve noticed characteristic of the sound of Taylor sets, mostly in contrast to Rowsome’s stuff. The small regulators have a “chime” to their tone, and are louder than Leo’s; or perhaps Leo’s sets just have louder chanters? Taylor regs seem a bit firey. The bass is usually quite powerful. A few of the chanters I’ve heard on tapes had a quite remarkable tone - very smooth and sweet, even though they’re (I’m told) quite loud. The Touhey chanter, or Joe Shannon’s. They Touhey sounds like that even though Sean MacKiernan uses a fair amount of open playing; he was a Willie Clancy disciple when he began piping, apparently.
Taylor drones often have a unique voice, too, woody with certain harmonics coming through strongly. The 2 piece bass drones are a factor, perhaps; but the design of the smaller drones, the length and size of bore, must be a factor somehow as well. Rowsome often (always?) used those “sardine cans” on the bass and you can hear that in lots of his sets.
As for the flat pipe makers - where do you start? There aren’t that many well recorded examples of the different sets - early Chieftains for Dan O’Dowd’s Egan, the Stone in the Field for Kenna, your various Ennis LPs and Robbie Hannon for Coyne. The new Browne/Loughlin to hear a Harrington. I’ve good recordings of Sean Talty and Geoff Wooff for more Harrington sets. Not much of a pattern to be observed except they all sound great! There are also the recordings of Willie Clancy playing that Egan set, on Pipering Vol. 2 and Seoda Ceoil 2 (?) - and they sound different on the two recordings. What kind of mic and where it is can have an awfully big influence on things, too.
If there were heaps of these things around like in the old days you could make an authoritative statement; Craig Fischer, who analyzes bores very closely, is one person trying this nowadays; he could make a guess, for instance, about what the reamer used for a missing Harrington chanter would have been like by looking at its set’s regulators (SRS CD-ROM Vol. 2). And Geoff Wooff knows a lot about the details of construction of the old sets - the different shapes of keys and keyblocks, for instance. Brad Angus has a sharp eye for these details, too - he ID’d those Ebay pipes as W. Rowsome by looking at the key shapes, and both the bass and baritone drones having recurves on their sliders, for instance.

6

Wow…I brought up an interesting topic? I had no idea.

Especially interesting as I know as much about identifying these “archetypes” as I do about identifying trends in can opener design.

I do find it interesting though that when people talk about Rowsome sets, “Rowsome” means “Leo Rowsome” unless another member of the family is specified (William, Kevin, Aloysius, “Buzz”, etc.).

Identifying an instrument based on its tone is pretty hard to do some of the time, as others have already pointed out, because simply the way you play the instrument will have an effect (bag pressure/ the whole “Ennis tone” thing). Also idiosyncracies in reed design, etc. Take O’Flynn and Keenan for instance–they both play Rowsome chanters (well, Keenan used to…) but, to me anyways, the tone of them sounds pretty different.
I would agree with Kevin on the thing about Taylors having a certain “smoothness and sweetness” about them while still being pretty loud. A bit like playing a bottle of Bowmore whisky perhaps…

I would be interested in how many of you out there can identify sets by the same maker as yours based solely on hearing them. For example, I play an O Briain set and if I ever hear another O Briain set on a recording, I can usually tell almost straight away because I think they have a pretty distinctive tone (whether you like them or not…well, I do). Likewise with smallpipes, if someone is playing a set of Hamish Moore pipes, it’s pretty obvious because they have a richness about them that I don’t hear in anybody else’s pipes. Can others out there pick out the sound of pipes by the same maker as their own or am I just losing it?

7

One would be pretty frustrated trying to draw conclusions on characteristics of pipes based on CD, LP, EP, Cassette, and Cylinder recordings. All involve compromises of the recording equipment and the way they were going at the time (for instance, Tommy Reck’s great playing on the Drones and the Chanters - his bass drone kept on shutting off, so he decided to go ahead and record those pieces anyway. Modern recordings can be dubbed, etc so a drone track can be ‘perfectly’ laid down later. When Moloney recorded Rainclouds (the B side of Ebony and Ivory single by Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder), Paddy was alone and just laid the track down.

If there is one dictum from all of this, the modern ear and concert goer does not tolerate imperfection in music and/or its performance. Those canned Super Bowl pre-recorded, lip-synching performance standard have oozed into theatre performances like Riverdance, etc. NO ONE wants to pay good money to see someone pull the top off a chanter and watch the piper start praying to the Piping Muses that the two second look and maybe reseating of the reed followed by that self-satisfied look that ‘now let’s fire up this set of pipes’ will immediately solve the inherent stage challenges of an open-air auditorium with heavy stage lighting bearing down on the pipes.

8

The world awaits the release of “Paddy Moloney…Naked.”

9

Ages ago, I was out late (early AM - I was working 2nd shift at a data center) on Division St, Chicago. I looked up and saw Paddy Moloney in a rock video up on one of the monitors at Mother’s (not known for trad Irish). He did not move around much and just stood there in profile wearing a leather jacket ensemble.

Paddy gets around!

10

A topic that I have been mulling over for some time, but thought it might be to elimentary a question to ask here.. Can a set or chanter be identified just by visual inspection…This is a good place for some of the lurking pipe-makers to chime in!!!
Mike

11

All IDs are done by visual inspection.

12

Some chanters you have to cut and then count the rings.

Stuart

13

:laughing: :laughing: :laughing: excellent!

14

About chanter make vs chanter played. A few years back, Isaac Alderson was in town at a session. He played my Rogge chanter for a few tunes. It sounded nothing like the chanter I had known and played for years! It sounded much more akin to his Kirk Lynch chanter. Two very different styles, these two chanters. The key was how Isaac played them. Both chanters had this full, rounded sound in his hands. I’ve been trying to recreate that sound ever since.

t

15

The old makers can be identified visually. Kenna sometimes (always?) put these lovely zigzag edges into his/their regulator keys - see the cover of the Drones and Chanters Vol. 1. Coyne and Egan usually made the regulator endcaps out of a single piece of ivory, although I believe there are a couple of exceptions to this. The shape is very distinctive with each:

This is an Egan set; note that the ring in the middle of the reg cap is right inbetween the two on the ends, and that the front of the cap is dead flat instead of being rounded. The “teardrop” regulator keys are another characteristic feature; Egan may have pioneered this, or the Moloney brothers. Also, note the gap in the wood between the tenor reg endcap and the base of the F# key.

This is Coyne. Note the two decorative rings in the endcaps instead of three, and that the end of the caps are rounded - the shape of the caps are reflected in the drone endmounts, also - the narrower regulator keys, forged in their own distinctive shape; and the lack of a ferrule on the small regulators at the stock end, a simple ivory mounting being used, instead of Egan’s mount - ferrule - mount. Also that the gap at the end of the small reg is much smaller than with Egan, who perhaps lengthened the bore here for tuning reasons.

This is Harrington. Note the very fancy three piece regulator end caps, with an ivory end socketed into a metal ferrule, which meets an ivory mount which is on the end of the regulator (I THINK! That how they’re put together, Peter?). Only the bass regulator’s endcap is intact in this picture. This is unique to Harrington; I wondered at first if the Ebay Willie Rowsome set wasn’t a “budget model” Harrington or something, but it’s just Willie imitating him, it seems. The shape of the endcaps is, again, reflected in the drone end mounts. The tuning rod’s mount is also much fancier than Coyne and Egan’s simple spheres. Very fancy stuff here. The standing piece of the drones is encased in a long ferrule inbetween two mounts, another feature unique to Harrington. I’m told that the face of the stock of Geoff Wooff’s Harrington set has a silver cover soldered to the stock ferrule, with holes drilled in it for the pipes (of course); I can’t tell from these pictures if this set has this feature, do other Harrington sets have these stock faceplates? Also note the square section guide block on the longer regulator keys. Coyne and Egan’s are rounded on the top.



Tommy Reck’s Kenna set. Note the zigzag regulator keys, and the sliding mounting on the bass regulator bar, which fits into a wedge shaped plate on the mainstock, allowing for the bar’s removability. All the old makers used this style of bass bar, I believe. The Taylors were the first makers to solder the bar to the stock plate itself, since they almost always used their distinctive “wrap-around” style of bass bar which didn’t need to be removed.
There are many more distinctive features to each of these pipemaker’s styles; this is just a sampling of what is most obvious in pictures.