Tuning Question

[fiddlerwill]

Absolutely . Without drones tuning is very flexible, any scale at all in fact will work. But with the drones.... A very different situation indeed.
Fair play though to Richard for such a pragmatic approach to playing with ET instruments, sounded lovely.

[pancelticpiper]

On this topic, just yesterday I played at a church service. I played preservice and postservice music on uilleann pipes along with piano and string bass, and during the service played uilleann pipes along with piano and choir.

It was completely irrelevant whether or not my chanter sounded good over a set of drones. The situation meant that I must play in tune in ET.

Since these are the situations I'm nearly always playing in, ET is a must.

[macwarner57]

This thread has turned out quite fascinating. I came to uilleann piping via the highland route, and assumed all pipers used J.I.

Now I understand why one of my D chanters always has trouble playing with the drones without wads of tape on the F# and B. Perhaps I should leave it for E.T. playing (sessions, ensemble, etc) and use my narrow bore chanter for solo performances.

I feel like this is all stuff I knew all along, it's just been put together differently now. As usual, the pipes continue to amaze.

Edited this image (without permission) to be more useful:

5/17/11 EDIT: Removed pic since the one below is even better.

[highland-piper]

I'm the one who originally put the image together (part of it is cribbed from the Korg instruction manual). Your edits are cool.

[macwarner57]

I printed out a copy on stiff card and threw it in my pipe case. Let's see if it comes in handy some day.

[straycat82]

I printed out a copy on stiff card and threw it in my pipe case. Let's see if it comes in handy some day.

You had the diagram labeled "Key of D" but there was no indication for C#.

How's this?

[macwarner57]

Touché, and bravo!

Gesundheit?

[pancelticpiper]

Very cool, that chart, though I wonder if in practice uilleann pipers play the C natural all the way down to that -32 Harmonic position. It would be interesting for somebody to get recordings of various famous uilleann pipers and do pitch analysis and see how they're acutally tuned.

[highland-piper]

It would be interesting for somebody to get recordings of various famous uilleann pipers and do pitch analysis and see how they're acutally tuned.

That would probably be interesting. Sometimes we (musicians) don't do things exactly the way theory predicts. In the pipe band I play in, we actually tune our high G about 13 cents flat, instead of 30, and we always get good comments (in competition) on our tuning.

My smallpipe chanter has the low-g at 40 cents flat, and it sounds really good. I'm rather curious to hear what it would sound like at 31 cents flat. Maybe I'll tune the drones sharp 9 cents and find out.

[Driftwood]

One problem with the very flat C natural (-30 cents or more) is that it does not make a very good 5th or 4th with the Gs on the chanter. As quite a few tunes in ITM are based in G Ionian or G Mixolydian (either as "written" or transcribed) I think that a tuning closer to the 16:9 ratio (-4 cents) or perhaps a little lower at around -10 cents to make a good fourth with the G is sometimes more useful.

[highland-piper]

Wouldn't the regulators be another consideration?

[karl]

Once again, thanks to everyone who has contributed to this thread, it's fascinating. The image of the tuner needle positions will be very handy!

[Mr.Gumby]

Stating the obvious but apparently it is not taken into account no decent piper will use one and the same C natural all the time. C natural is a note that needs to be humoured, tuned into the drones, tuned into the regulator chords and pitched as required by the tune at hand.

[benhall.1]

Stating the obvious but apparently it is not taken into account no decent piper will use one and the same C natural all the time. C natural is a note that needs to be humoured, tuned into the drones, tuned into the regulator chords and pitched as required by the tune at hand.

Thank you.

Kind of put into words (nice, succinct ones) what I was muddily thinking. (Not that I know anything about piping, but that C is a tricksy beast on any instrument in this music.)

[pancelticpiper]

In the pipe band I play in, we actually tune our high G about 13 cents flat, instead of 30, and we always get good comments (in competition) on our tuning.

Is there a YouTube video or some such of your band where I could hear the tuning you're using?

In competitions I've been to, here and in Scotland, all the good competition bands of all levels had their High Gs tuned to the Harmonic 7th tuning, -32 cents. (That is, bands tuned decently enough to where the intention of their tuning could be perceived. I recently heard a number of horrid Grade 5 EUSPBA bands many of which had their High Gs screaming sharp, closer to G sharps than G naturals.)