I was at the Willie Clancy week and the conclusion is clear: must have a practice set. The sooner the better.
-Does anyone have one they want to sell or can point me to a maker with a not too long list? My finances are not an overwhelming forte of mine.
Makers that I know of who are supposed to be good and hence would interest me; are:
Patrick Murray
Andreas Rogge.
Any other suggestions are welcome, but these also represent a price range that is interesting for me. I live in Europe (Norway).
I have to disclose that Pat is a friend of mine (but I don’t get any percentage of sales or anything like that). Pat’s just a great guy with a wealth of knowledge and experience in pipemaking and reed making. And he’s recently come up with a budget practice set configuration for people like you, who would like a decent set, but fast and inexpensive.
Mickey Dunne now has a wait of nearly a year, a new student of mine was talking to him about a quick fix. Won’t harm to enquire though. (he eventually lent her one of his chanters from the loan set stock from the Limerick piper’s club).
Options are a bit limited. Do shop around and listen to pipes yourself, a lot of people here will recommend the pipemaker they had their pipes from, which will give a slightly distorted image of what is good and what is not so desirable.
Thanks all, for the good suggestions.
I will be surfing around for a while.
Marcus Coulter’s sets look good and sound nice; but the price is a bit stiff.
The sets of Patrick Sky have a better price; but there no sound samples etc. Nevermind the aestethics; I just want a set thats is as well in tune and as playable as possible. It will be used in sessions eventually.
Nobody aching to get rid of their used practice sets, then?
Eivind
BTW Laban; were you able to lay sufficiently low during the entire Clancy week?
Take a look at David Dayes website. http://daye1.com/pennychanter.html
I got one of his practice sets and am pleased with it. I got the ‘easy set’ where he built the chanter and I assembeled the rest (bellows, bag ect.)
You can also assemble the whole chanter yourself if you are brave enough. His wait time is around 6 weeks and it is relatively inexpensive.
Aah, so I probably saw you then, Peter. Can’t tell what you were doing, though. It was a great week anyway. This saturday’s session in Mullagh really was the icing of the cake to us…there was an incredible piper…yipes…
The challenge still stands. You mail me that Daye chanter of yours and I’ll have a reed in it and a sound file playing your arse into the ground within a week. Unless you built that yourself, and did so poorly, or got it off someone else who botched it (well the reed-wrecking cap thing aside…) that’s a perfectly well behaved and decent sounding instrument.
If it’s the piece of crap you say it is, David Daye Himself will tell you I ought to be the first one on earth to shout it too the rooftops, but I have yet to see one that didn’t play very very well with either a reed of my own make or one of the ones David sent me personally when I got mine. I don’t know why you don’t just put-up or shut-up and let me have a look and listen to it.
Having said that, don’t anyone buy a Daye set just yet, because I think I’m going to put together a Gallagher-based practice set I’ll probably want to sell soon…or immediately, depending on the price it’ll fetch, and it won’t be a desperate giveaway.
I’m with Royce on this one.
Those David Daye chanters are bang on!!
Of course all the pipe-makers mentiones on this thread make great stuff. Actualy I saw a Mark Van Daal set for the first time recently and they’re great too. Really nice work! And he’s in not too far from Norway.
Keep in mind that there are lots of good makers out there that don’t have websites.
Have a look on www.pipers.ie Theres a list of pipe makers there with phone numbers and regular address’. Drop them a line and you can find a maker with a good price and a reasonable waiting time.
Best of luck!!
Tommy
Oh yeah. Sorry. Forgot to mention: Royce is in fact God’s gift to…er…something I’m sure. And he can play any piper’s ass into the ground who’s been playing less than him cause well, that’s just what he does. He’s also quite good at getting old table legs play entire symphonies and can fix a busted transmission with bubble gum, a bit of kite string and an old rusted nail.
Brian n’ Royce
C’mon guys there’s no need to start old arguments in this thread. Why don’t we all agree that when someone recommends Daye’s stuff or asks for opinions, we just post a polite note to do a search. I’m sure everyone’s opinions are well documented already. Also, Kerryman’s post was a good example of a helpful post which gave some actual info. Name of a pipemaker, opinion of his work, link to more info. We’ll be doing well if we could all follow his example. But hey, I’m not the board police, so do what you think is best.
james
I have a practice set by Martin Preshaw that I will sell for $950 plus shipping firm. I assure its a mighty fair price. I will provide details on request. A real good chanter.
Don’t let Peter fool you. This guy is ubiquitous.
