See below...
Dick Hensold St. Paul, MN
651/646-6581
Traditional Folk Music, Early Music, and Cambodian Music
Northumbrian smallpipes, recorder,
Medieval greatpipes,Swedish sackpipa, & beyaw.
[1]www.dickhensold.com
On Aug 26, 2009, at 7:34 AM, Philip Gruar wrote:
Dick wrote
My D set has a high C, and if pipemakers are interested in my
opinion,
I don't think D sets should be made without a high C. It's just
too
useful, and allows much more concert pitch playing.
Probably too obvious to mention, but I guess we are to assume this
means "virtual high C", which on a D set actually sounds concert-pitch
G.
Right, and I'll continue to use "G system" terms.
As I pipe-maker, I take the advice on board. It seems very sensible,
there is easily room for it on a D chanter, and I'll always be
interested in Dick's opinion (flattery is never out of place, and this
is sincere anyway :-))
Which side is the key on, Dick? and where should the key go if all D
chanters are to have a high C as standard?
The tricky thing about a high C is accessing it as easily from high A
as from high B. If you make the high C the top-left-back key, you can
play it with either the left little finger or the right thumb, or if
necessary, both in sequence. So both B-C-B and A-C-A sequences are not
too difficult. B-C-A and A-C-B sequences are still hard, but this can
be helped by bending the keys in just the right way. That being said,
the high C is still the trickiest key on the set to deal with-- but so
useful it's worth it.
My D set has only 4 top keys, (forgoing the F# which I rarely miss
since I play more often in concert pitch than "G system") the high
B-flat being the top-back-right key. This puts the B and Bb holes very
close together, but maybe not so bad on a D set. Anyway, it works on my
D set.
I use the B-flats quite a bit but this seems to be a personal
idiosyncrasy; whereas I'm not sure that most players would benefit from
having a high Bb, I think they *would* find a high C very useful (on a
D set). And as Philip says, the more the D set is used as a concert
pitch instrument, the more useful the high B-flat is.
So to answer your question more directly, the high C should go on the
back left, and whichever other one you use should go on the back right.
The usual solution with a standard-pitch "F" set is to put a high C on
the left, paired with the A in place of the seldom-used high A#/B flat,
And this is how my *F* chanter is set up, which makes it very useful as
a concert-pitch set to play F and Bb tunes, both of which go great on
an F chanter but usually need that top note. Pauline does this a lot,
I believe. And I don't miss the high Bb on my F chanter, where it
would be a rarely-used (concert) Ab. But it seems getting a high C
onto an F chanter is difficult... I haven't discussed this with many
makers, so don't know too much about it.
but on a D chanter that little-used B flat becomes a useful F natural,
while on the right side the useful "g#" of a standard set turns into d#
- maybe not so useful if playing at concert pitch, so perhaps a high C
could go there instead? And what if there are already two keys on each
side? A triple slot on the left is
I don't have enough experience with a chanter with 5 top keys to make
any useful comment.
what I used for John Clifford's chanter, but there may be better
solutions - any input, Colin and other makers?
Philip
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References
1. http://www.dickhensold.com/
2. http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
