[NSP] Tuning/pitch
Francis wood wrote today: There's no reason to suppose that Robert and James Reid were careless about the consistency of pitch of their products. No doubt, they would be extremely surprised to know of the latitude in pitch (and indeed tuning) of many of today's pipes. Hello Francis, John and others with the stamina to keep reading this, The puzzling thing is that we have had two reports in recent postings of Reid sets happy to play up near F# (for example Billy Pigg) and yet Andrew Davison's Reid set are said to be happy at F+20. This degree of variation would make it impossible for these sets to span the gulf by pressure adjustment. Add to that the modern trend to play as near to F (A=440) as possible, with the resulting move away from the Reid pattern, and here we find ourselves. What would be interesting, Francis, is to see the figures for Reid's scale length (say top g down to bottom D) and compare that with Ross/Nelson figures. Cheers Anthony -- To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
[NSP] Tuning/pitch
On 7^th Feb Colin Hill wrote: What I can never understand is WHY the pitch changes. Thanks Paul (Gretton) for a full & entertaining reply from an orchestral point of view. From the point of view of pipes we need to remember that in the 20^th century professional Northumbrian pipe makers only came in around 1973/4. Before that David Burleigh was still stuffing animals at the Hancock museum and Colin Ross was a lecturer in sculpture/fine art. When, in 1967, I first asked about getting a set for myself every reply was based on the same advice, 'find some lignum vitae mangle rollers and make your own'. Occasionally it was 'find some ebony ledger rulers and make your own'. I would guess that well over 50 people took this advice and made sets at night classes following (more or less) the plans in the Cocks & Bryan book. The result is that there are a fair few sets around which are (to put it kindly) approximations to the plans but many people still stick with these sets they or friends have made because they are dear to them. I have 8 "F" chanters here at the moment. 4 by professional makers have dimensions & hole spacings with 1mm of each other so could be regarded as standardised, but the 4 "garden shed" examples vary by up to 5mm over the single octave G to g spacings. I well understand the frustrations caused by the variations in pipes pitch but I suspect the same is true wherever there has been a living tradition of people making their own instruments on which to play their own music. It seems to me that any change towards full standardization to say concert F pitch could only come about by destroying 80% or more of instruments in existence (perish the thought!). Perhaps we just need to accept the situation as it is and make the best of it. To be honest I find it all rather wonderful and challenging. Cheers Anthony -- To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
[NSP] Tuning
Chris, John, Dru & others In no particular order: * I set my Korg DA 30 to 446 using the calibration button and take it from there * I've got a chanter in for overhaul at the moment and have just seen the top B rise in pitch bt 20 cents by moving a plunger in from 10mm to 25mm * My solo pipes are happy playing at 458 which is well on the way to F# but when I do Em tunes I tune drones to a reasonably happy compromise between fingered B and bottom E. To keep in acceptable tune with these drones I find I am playing at 454. I keep it all as relaxed as possible and "Bonny at Morn", "Peter Bailey's Pig" etc sound good to my ears. * When I retune my small D drone from the 5th its G drones postion to the tonic for D tunes I find that it needs sharpening a tad for tunes like "Flowers of the Forest" & "Top It Off" but flattening a tad for softer tunes like "Water of Tyne" & "March of the King of Laoise". I don't necessarily advise this as a general principle but for me it works in these differing situations where the nature of the tune being played asks for a different amount of attack. Can I add that these adjustments/observations hold true well after my pipes are well settled down, have had a good 30min play in and reached that alive, buzzing and and "up for anything stage" beneath the fingers. Cheers Anthony -- To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
[NSP] Tuning chanter notes
I saw the post for raising the pitch of a note that is flat on a chanter. How can you lower the pitch of a sharp note. The rest of the chanter is pretty well in tune. Thanks Jack Rawlins - USA To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
