Na Píobairí Uilleann

Chairman, NPU

An Píobaire

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9 4 25 20130930 sets of pipes might be easily re-set to the for- mer status for a purist piper inheriting them some day. To my taste the look of these sets is not distorted by ugly additions. These improvements have been made by an amateur pipemaker. A professional maker plan- ning to follow my patterns could design a somewhat bigger stock which would take up a further classical d baritone to it, thus having a complete Ddd’ drone group instead of my meagre Dd’ group (which still sounds quite good). Also he might include the new drone into the stock, it being shut with a piston stop- per on the tip after the pattern of Northumbrian Pipes drones. The middle piece additions on the drones are somewhat difficult to construct, because the stepwise widening of the drone towards the mouth is not as favourable with them as before, so the reeds tend to close with pressure. A pipemaker would find a better bore conception. In my case, these drones come a bit quiet but stable and sounding fine at the same time. Talking about the music itself, first of all, the tunes in modes other than D sometimes sound completely different with their just tonic drones. Sometimes old familiar favourites are only recognized after some listening! Some ac- companiment, especially the Gd’ drone, remind one of Northumbrian pip- ing. There are tunes with changing modes, like “Johnny Cope”, in which the changing tonics can easily be made clear with the appropriate drones. But I quite often stick to the old “wrong” drones, if the tune in question has got its special character with it. Many tunes in a modes sound wonderful with the Ddd’ drone under them. So, to have all the new tonic drones at hand does not mean to use them slavishly following the tonic of the tune. The great benefit to me is the much big- ger variety of multipart piping, especially in solo recitals, not only because of these drone combinations, but also because of the regulator chords with the e’ included. They make the pipes still more attractive to listeners used to “common” music, and these are the ones I have to face all the time in Germany. My friend Frank Rittwagen, who was an uil- leann piper until he stopped playing 30 years ago, but has been given a set to start again re- cently, listened to my set and asked: “Why has- n’t this setup become standard? It should, shouldn’t it?” To my personal style, it already has. And I wonder if all the other additions that can be observed, like double bass regulator, Ddd’a’ drones, C foot joint and so on, add more to the musical scope of the instrument then my comparably modest additions. These descriptions may have been quite te- dious to read, not to be compared to listening to the resulting sound. I hope I soon shall equally succeed in the use of YOUTUBE, to give you an example of the music played on these sets of pipes. Thomas Kannmacher 25 Picture 7

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2013-09-30T00:00:00

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