The way I approached developing the G and D chanters was as you say to scale the chanters in proportion and then try them out and adjust the hole positions to get the chanters in tune. I also made the decision to use the same reed for the chanters for simplicity in providing reeds to cover the various pitches which worked well enough for the D chanter and subsequent C and other chanters that I was experimenting with without any detioration of tone and volume. However this did not work with the G chanter as the position of the top B hole meant I had to shorten the reed more than a proportional shortening. This has lead to the ongoing problems of making a nice sounding reed playing at the 'normal' pressure which is 15" water guage. However I have found that a well made reed made from the best cane plays very sweetly and at normal pressure as I heard just this week at one of our sessions when Maureen Davidson played a solo on her G pipes. The secret of the pressure and the tone depends on the 'crow' or seagull break in sound that is acheived by careful scraping of the sides of the reed as described in my Reedmaking booklet or on Utube that was posted by Steve Douglass. Colin -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: nsp@cs.dartmouth.edu Sent: Thu, 5 Apr 2007 1.07PM Subject: [NSP] Re: c# crow
As an ex-physicist, my starting point for designing a G chanter would be to reduce every linear dimension (bore, hole spacing, reed length, reed thickness) of an F chanter by 10%, or for a D chanter, to increase by 20%. I would aim to raise the crow pitch by just under a tone or just over a minor third. Other solutions would be possible, but they would sound different. My G chanter works fine, but it has a very different tone from the F chanter, as do most G chanters I have heard. John -- To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html --
