Values of notes on my Roberts chanter

Uilleann Pipes
1

Last night I checked with a Korg tuner the notes on my Roberts chanter. My chanter is tuned to A440.

This is what I found;

Cnat = 0 cents
C# = -20 cents
B = -15 cents
A = 0 cents
G = +20 cents
F# = +15 cents
E = +15 cents
D = 0 cents

Only Cnat, A, and D where dead on.

Could be the weather conditions, but I was curious if this is typical. I will check again over the next few days.

Playing along with other pipers and with piping tracks on CDs is fine. Everything seems to be in tune with the other pipes.

Just curious is all.

Cheers! Richard

2

Your Cnat seems a bit sharp. To blend well with the drones my Cnat needs to tune flat of 0 to at least -15 cents or flatter. Although depending on how I vary my combinations of fingering and chanter position (on or off the leg) my Cnat ranges from minus 25 or thereabouts to + 15 or thereabouts.

3

That’s a weird set of numbers. If you are in tune with others, your tuner must be screwy. You want D 0, E +4, F# -14, G -2, A +2, B -16, C# -12. Cnat varies: -22, piper’s C; -4, C in G scale; +18, C for just minor third above A.

Cheers, P.

4

That’s a pretty crazy test to do, as I bet you could easily bump every note further up, or lower with the bag pressure, which changes anyhow when your playing. (Crazy as in, you’re going to drive yourself crazy)

Weather, chanter, bag pressure, fingerings, etc. it all affects tuning. Unless you have someone there to assist, if A1 to a2 are good, back d is good, Hard D is good, (good = dead on!), AND your chanter has been built right (built right= all the other notes are where they should be within reason), then you should be pretty damn good!

5

I agree with all said.

No…I am not trying to drive myself mad. I am already mad just playing the things!

It was just a curiousity and you are correct in that it could be weather, tuner, or pressure related.

It took me a while to settle on a cents factor because of the variance I can exert with pressure on each note.

Tried to figure out where I was comfortable playing each note while actually playing a tune.

So…thanks for the comments.

Sometimes you just gotta play around with these things and see if you are actually in tune. on that particular day.

Geez…the tin whistle is a whole lot easier isn’t it?

Cheers! Richard

6

You could try Flutini. It analyzes your intonation while you play, then gives you a graph. It helps give a more objective view of your tuning in an authentic setting: while playing a jig, for example.

To be honest, though, it’s really just a more efficient way of driving yourself mad.

http://www.novasession.org/Flutini/

7

For an even more objective impression, play with drones. It’s quite interesting just how much the Cnat can vary and still blend nicely with the drones. The best blend occurs at around -15 to -20 cents if I remember rightly off the top of my head, but even sharper or flatter it still seems to blend well. Other notes don’t seem to be as tolerant for some reason.

8

I believe the complex tonality of pipes makes flutini a little less than ideal for our purposes. The wealth of harmonics generated by a well reeded and pleasing chanter will 1) require excellent mic’ing to collect usable data for flutini. It has an averaging feature that may not be ideal for the interplay of the chanter and drones. and 2) This complex mix of harmonics allows our ear to pick out multiple pleasing tones between the note played on the chanter and the chord on the drones.

I’d trust my ears when playing against the drones before I would trust a tuner.

Bob