Does anyone know why the regulators are called regulators? It seems like every other part of the pipes is called by a name that is fairly descriptive so why regulators? Maybe they should be called the “Rythm Section” or “The Harmonic Section” - any other suggestions.
It mostly has to do with the particular portion of the wrist and edge of the hand that is used to play the regulators. A major meridian connected to the large intestine runs through this area. Playing the keys stimulates this meridian, therefore the large intestine, and thus helps keep you regular.
Hope that helps,
djm
Thanks DJM very enlightening. Obviously you are a great regulator player yourself but don’t over do it your only a chord or two away from verbal diarrhoea.
“Regulator” is short for regulate-you-later, which is why most go unused and out of tune.
No one really knows.
Maybe they should be called ‘Relegated’s’ !!
Mr Cannady says no one really knows, does he just think no one knows or does he know know one knows. Because I know someone knows but I don’t know who it is!
To quote the master,Seamus Ennis from his tutor ‘The Master’s touch’ (NPU),“The three pipes lying across your thigh with the drones are called regulators,perhaps their tuning can be adjusted to a varying degree by the regulating pins fitted at the end of each,or perhaps because their judicious use in dance music will add verve and rhythm to the tune,thereby regulating it’s speed and consistency.”
Well,it’s as good a theory as any!
…
Been reading Wittgenstein lately? Hmm, it’s up to me to provide the straightforward answer…
No one is sure why they are called regulators. The earliest mentions of them in print call them “a second chanter,” so possibly they provided a form of polyphony. The earliest regulator added to the pipes was the small one, with only 3 keys, and this was the only regulator added for a long time; two-note harmonies from two regulators would come later.
“Regulate” is a term from English pipe organ building meaning to even out the volume of a rank (grouping) of pipes across its scale: to modify the various pipes so that the loudness does not vary. Kenna is known to have built an organ in a chapel in Mullingar early in his career, so perhaps he borrowed this term, intending the regulator to swell the corresponding notes on the chanter. Also, “Irish organ” is used as a synonym for the pipes from very early on. This is just a pet theory of mine, by the way.
Others have tried to figure out what the regulators regulate. Tuning, tempo? Seamus Ennis says: “Whatever the origin of the name, it is the only one.” English or Irish. Nothing in the books about “rèannagùiabhlòtor” or some such Gaelic League monstrosity. Read Denis Brooks’ two part article “Irish Bellows Pipes,” printed in the Pipers’ Review of the American pipers’ club; and Sean Donnelly’s “A Century of Pipemaking,” which is on one of the Sean Reid Society’s CD-ROMs.
Interesting theory, but we all know that they’re named thus because the fairies ordained it so.
Until solid proof is produced to the contrary the fantastic option seems the most obvious explaination to heathens such as myself.
Regards,
H.
Anything between this and the way the word “regulated” was intended in the term “well regulated militia”?
hm, interesting thought about the organ regulator name being transferred to the pipes, but would there really be a need to swell a note…there’s not that much volume difference between the notes as there would be in an unregulated organ.
my absolutely unqualified, barely-educated guess was always that originally the regulator (singular) was “pumped”…that is, hit on the up beats of the measures (using an off the knee style for the chanter), and thus “regulated” the time of dance tunes. if, at the time, everything was written for the pipes in one or two keys, a single regulator with three or four keys would be plenty enuff to turn the upbeat notes into interval chords, stressing the time even further figuring that the upbeats would be a return to the root or something closely related to it.
I’ve read the usual theories, which are at best very informed guesses that seem plausible, and yes, I’m willing to entertain them and I personally think the organ regulator theory sounds as reasonable as any. However, no one can prove their theories, and without the ability to travel back in time and interview James Kenna, Robert Reid, William Kennedy and their contemporaries it’s all speculation, albeit educated speculation.
I never thought the term “regulator” referred to the sticks or volume, etc., but rather to the valves with levers that regulates the air that comes out of the stick. I don’t think it so uncommon to call a valve a “regulator.”
In gas stove, the yoke that controls the gas burner is called a regulator. It lets gas through.
Certainly pressure is what regulators regulate now. Maybe if you took the reed out you’d get that effect! The Donnelly article has a very interesting newspaper advertisement from Kenna, printed in 1802, which I reprinted in the article “Regulator Extensions” which was in the last IPC Review. It’s about as close to getting a direct quote from Kenna as you’re going to get.
I read somewhere that Kennedy originally designed the regulators as a drone which could have its pitch regulated. It’s in an article on one of the society sites, I forget which.
It’s about as plausible a reason as any.
Cheers,
Calum
question…related to regs but not the name.
why put key-of-G regs with key-of-D chanters? It struck me early on that it would have made more sense to have the regs play C# instead of Cnat
so maybe we should call them sphincters instead.
hmmm… I had some nice reeds in my tenor and Bari sphincters but one day I tried to adjust them and rectum instead.
