Visiting the picture of your pipe page recently I was amazed by all the different styles of pipes out there.
Were these one off designs by the maker himself or were they designed by the buyer? It would be really nice to have a one off set of pipes made to your own specifications and a more personal connection with the instrument.
hm…i suppose it depends on what you mean by “designed by the buyer”.
pretty much every pipe maker i’ve priced offered options, antler or imitation ivory, brass or nickelsilver, rosewood or blackwood or something else, B, C, or D sets, two regs, three regs, four regs or no regs…etc
there are limits however…for instance, a maker couldn’t offer engraving or intricate carving if they don’t have the training or tools for that. to make a chanter in, say, F (for whatever reason you might want to do that) would require a retooling and new set of measurements, or to make it out of knotty pine or some other unsuitable wood, the maker would have to say “no”.
what kind of “designs” do you mean?
I had that in mind when I ordered mine but material selection was about as far as I wanted to go. I figured that any of the actual design should be decided by the folks that make them.
I always approach such projects in that manner and am most often very pleased and more often than not pleasantly surprised with the results. I usually tell them to do what they think is best and take their time.
The image of Uilleann pipes that pops into my head probably from when I was a child is black pipes, brass metal and ivory mounts. Probably from seeing Ennis, Clancey, Rowson and the like. All these players pipes were the same looking, black, brass or silver, ivory.
But it is good to see the likes of Davy Stephenson and some other makers offering all these different woods and design options (wooden sound boxes, trumpet style sound boxes of different woods and different turning designs on chanters).
I think Froment offers no options at all, you take what you get and that’s it.
But looking at the pictures of your pipe pages I was just curious of some of what I would call differently styled pipes (turnings on chanters and mixing and matching different woods on the same set). Were these asked for when the pipes were commissioned or did the maker make them to his own design and then say to the buyer you can take them or leave them.