"Bizarre" ???  Not entirely serious, I admit, as indicated by the winking
smiley at the end.

Yes, it is of course perfectly possible to play a tone up - I do it all the
time on various instruments, including NSP. (For trumpet, you have to learn
to sight-read much harder transpositions than this one; in a 19th-century
symphony you may be switching to a different transposition every few bars.
And Italian clarinettists play everything on the A clarinet, poor sods.)

But the fact that something is possible doesn't mean it's necessarily a
practical option, which it seemed to me was what the original poster was
asking about. If playing everything a tone up were the solution then there
would be no market for G chanters. Are there really people who consider it
practical to rattle through the repertoire - including the "big" hornpipes -
a tone up? (Assuming their chanter has the keys to do it.) It's not just
like slapping a capo on a guitar. And of course if the original poster's
chanter plays at around F#, then the suggestion becomes entirely
impractical.

I agree that people would do well to learn to transpose, but there is a good
reason for G chanters, as you yourself would seem to have discovered! 

BTW, it's confusing to say that recorder players "have to learn different
fingerings for different [instruments]." The fingerings remain the same,
although the player has to be able to read various keys/clefs. That is very
different to playing a tone up on the NSP. And if a recorder player is
called on to play at 415, 392, or 466 as opposed to 440, they will use an
instrument built for that pitch rather than transpose.

Cheers,

Paul Gretton


-----Original Message-----
From: Ewan Barker [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] 
Sent: 28 May 2007 02:36
To: Paul Gretton
Subject: [NSP] Re: G Set

This is a very bizarre response, Paul, to something put forward as a
sensible and reasonable suggestion. It is perfectly possible to play in
A. Playing in E might stretch the technique a bit, but it could be done
on slower tunes. (Of course, I do have a G chanter myself!)

Cheers,
Ewan.



Ewan Barker
School of Information Technology & Mathematical Sciences
University of Ballarat  (CRICOS Provider Number 00103D)
PO Box 663  Ballarat Victoria 3353  AUSTRALIA
ph (03) 5327 9274


>>> "Paul Gretton" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 27-May-07 5:37:05 am >>>

Hilarious John! Have you thought of doing stand-up? ;-)

Cheers,
Paul Gretton

-----Original Message-----
From: Rev John Clifford [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] 
Sent: 26 May 2007 21:01
To: Klaus Guhl
Cc: [email protected] 
Subject: [NSP] Re: G Set

Klaus,

There is an alternative, and much cheaper -- learn to play your
existing
chanter with alternative fingering -- recorder players have to learn
different fingerings for different chanters so it can be done.

John Clifford
who has a C chanter and can play it as a D chanter when playing with
other
pipers.

> As playing with other musicans I am thinking of buying a G chanter or
a
> secondhand G set. Is there someone who wants to sell a G chanter or G
set?
>
>
>
> To get on or off this list see list information at
> http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html 
>
> --
> Virus scanned by Lumison.
>
>
> ownerpageof


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