J.E. Brennan Book w/ Plans

[Doogie]

The J.E. Brennan Bagpipe Book is finally available.  I have one of the very first copies and it's great. It's also quite a bit cheaper than originally estimated.  Doc did an excellent job recapturing the original drawings, plans, pictures, and much more from Brennan's personal notebook and plans. It also has some Highland piping stuff as well.

Order a copy here, and read the content list of what's in the book.

http://www.phillypiper.com/buy-brennan.html

[Kevin L. Rietmann]

Thanks for the heads up, looks like quite the artifact.

[Jeff Cullen]

I've ordered it. There appears to be a section with Brennan's reed measurements. This would have helped me immeasurably (so to speak) when I was trying to restore the 4-reg Brennan set a couple of years ago. Never could get two of the regs reeded to play well and it would have taken years to experiment with different staple and reed sizes.

[CHasR]

Thanks for the heads up, looks like quite the artifact.

It was literally rescued from the trash, at the last minute. No joke.

the original posters are made of this, old fashioned, extremely thin, onion skin blueprint-type paper. very very fragile. Brennan himself was avid about all aspects of bagpiping. not included in the book but part of his keepings were dozens of newspaper clippings of zampognari, Czech pipers, Breton piers, GHB bands, poems about piping, whatever he could obtain back in the day.

It's suspected the line of descent for this trove was Taylor(s) via Brennan, (insert unknown someone here), Robt Hutton, Tom Standeven, a student of Toms who was also a friend of Doc, and now to the world.

[rorybbellows]

I've ordered it. There appears to be a section with Brennan's reed measurements. This would have helped me immeasurably (so to speak) when I was trying to restore the 4-reg Brennan set a couple of years ago. Never could get two of the regs reeded to play well and it would have taken years to experiment with different staple and reed sizes.

Not surprising really Mr Brennan probably had trouble reeding them himself.Its well know that the taylor brothers were great mechanics but the sound quality of the vast majority of their instrument leaved a lot to be desired.So any instrument that were copied from them are going to fall into the same category . Its really not until the Rowsomes did we get decent sounding concert pitch instruments. I remember reading somewhere when Dave Quinn makes a Taylor style set of pipes its all Rowsome on the inside.

RORY

[Mr.Gumby]

the sound quality of the vast majority of their instrument leaved a lot to be desired.

Could you elaborate on that?

I have played a few Taylors and found more than a few of them have drones much nicer than your average concert pitch set, chanters, when well reeded, are fine. Even the loud ones don't shout at you. I don't care a lot for the traffic jam regs though. Putting Rowsome on the inside may well be a matter of David Quinn's taste, more than anything else.

[BzzzzT]

Below are sound samples of a Taylor set on Bill Haneman's page. They sound good to me!

http://billhaneman.ie/soundfiles/

I have made reeds for dozens of chanters. I often hear "this chanter/maker sucks!" by whomever the owner is. So much is dependent on the reed in the chanter and the skill of the reedmaker. I feel a "player" is NOT, in the position to make an accurate assessment. The only way to tell (maybe) is for someone who is skilled to try reeding the chanter, drones etc, or for the player to learn to maintain/reed their pipes. Even then, it is still difficult to judge the quality of the pipes because some part of the reed may be off. It is easy to cast casual aspersions about any maker or set of pipes, but more difficult to accurately say whether the set in question really sucks.

- Jason

[Kevin L. Rietmann]

Bill Thomas once wrote about reeding up a Taylor, something about it just made you want to play staccato. I find that true with my Patsy Brown as well, the notes just fly out the holes. A nice quality in its own right. My chanter's playing very very light, too. Helps that I finally figured out the trick to enabling it to do that - wax in the Eb hole, as it happens. So many loud chanters want a stiff reed or you get bad high Es and motorboat hard Ds. Not fun.

Always preferred Taylor drones too. Willie, Joe Shannon, O'Riaghbaigh, Bill Ochs, Tom Ennis, sort of a loud Egan approach. Swear I've heard industrial fans that sounded much like Leo's pipes. Kennedy and Angus are modern makers who've built loud CP sets that have a nice drone sound too. Bill H as well. Ditch that tuna tin bass drone sound box, guys! Although apparently that cuts through the fog better? But it doesn't do the sound any favors.

Something else I remember reading was someone coming across a Taylor set, and remarking on the tiny tiny reeds. Likely they were just used to Lambe etc canoe paddles, and even a 12.5 mm 1/2" wide blade looked like a scale model in comparison. These Taylors don't necessarily need giant reeds, it seems. And of course you might have to crank a good few out before finding what works - and even a direct copy of that sometimes just doesn't happen.

[Mr.Gumby]

I ordered the book two days ago and just received an additional invoice for $17.50 for extra postage.


Not amused and would have considered the total amount prohibitive if it had been correctly stated on the website.

[rorybbellows]

The way I see it is that WBCP is still an instrument in development .Much more so than flat pitched pipes which are still based on the Coyne’s ,Kenna’s and Egan’s. When the first WBCP pipes came out everyone thought they were the bees knee’s ,and they were,all of a sudden the piper had pipes that could be played in large halls and could be played with other instruments. The sound quality wasn’t great but because there was no frame of reference for WBCP pipes it was accepted and all the Taylor style makers of that era didn’t improve them.
Not until Willie Rowsome developed his pipes did we see any significant improvement and then of course Leo carried on and IMHO there has been a steady improvement since then with the likes of Froment, Williams ,Quinn and O’Brien producing some great pipes to the present time.
So now we do have a frame of reference for WBCP pipes and The Taylor style of pipes (inside only) fall down the ranking..Not that the Taylor’s don’t deserve a huge amount of credit as they got the ball rolling in the first place.
I know there are pipers out there that love taylor pipes but I see it as the vintage car enthusiasts who loves tinkering around with his pride and joy ,spending hours of work just to get the thing running for five minutes and then spends more hours and hours readjusting because everything has gone askew. But of course when he’s driving to work he jumps into his nice modern and reliable car.
If you like tinkering around with reeds, sticking things up bores and putting tape over holes all to get the thing just to play to an adequate level , Taylor’s are great, But if you like to play music get your self a good modern made chanter preferably by one of the aforementioned WBCP makers.

RORY

[PJ]

If you like tinkering around with reeds, sticking things up bores and putting tape over holes all to get the thing just to play to an adequate level , Taylor’s are great, But if you like to play music get your self a good modern made chanter preferably by one of the aforementioned WBCP makers.

I don't think I've ever seen a chanter without some form of adjustment (rush, tape, etc.). Even brand new Froment D chanters came out of the shop with a wire rush up the bore.

[tommykleen]

If you like tinkering around with reeds, sticking things up bores and putting tape over holes all to get the thing just to play to an adequate level , Taylor’s are great, But if you like to play music get your self a good modern made chanter preferably by one of the aforementioned WBCP makers.

I don't think I've ever seen a chanter without some form of adjustment (rush, tape, etc.). Even brand new Froment D chanters came out of the shop with a wire rush up the bore.

Indeed: you would change your tune (if you will) if you piped a year in my local, Rory!

[RLines]

Something else I remember reading was someone coming across a Taylor set, and remarking on the tiny tiny reeds. Likely they were just used to Lambe etc canoe paddles, and even a 12.5 mm 1/2" wide blade looked like a scale model in comparison. These Taylors don't necessarily need giant reeds, it seems.

I have to agree with Kevin here. I have an old Taylor style set from the early 1900s. Alan Burton put a new reed in my tenor reg a couple of years ago, and remarked that the design that worked was actually the smallest reed he had ever made in his career. It is indeed very tiny compared against more modern reg reeds.

[CHasR]

Something else I remember reading was someone coming across a Taylor set, and remarking on the tiny tiny reeds. Likely they were just used to Lambe etc canoe paddles, and even a 12.5 mm 1/2" wide blade looked like a scale model in comparison. These Taylors don't necessarily need giant reeds, it seems.

I have to agree with Kevin here. I have an old Taylor style set from the early 1900s. Alan Burton put a new reed in my tenor reg a couple of years ago, and remarked that the design that worked was actually the smallest reed he had ever made in his career. It is indeed very tiny compared against more modern reg reeds.

yet another thing to consider is that 4-reg sets were more common then, or so it seems.
Who wants to be pumpin all that stuff, worked up with great big honkin reeds? geez.

3/16" brass TUBING is indicated for staples. Rolled staples are not in mention.
Perhaps the most interesting page of the Brennan book is the one with 15 comparative measurements of chanters: 8 alone by Taylor, 2 by Brennan, the Taylor double chanter,and one each by Cahill, Colgan, Boyle, & M. Egan.

[RLines]

3/16" brass TUBING is indicated for staples. Rolled staples are not in mention.

Interesting that. As I have mentioned on a previous threat, like Kevin I also play an old Patsy Brown Taylor style chanter. I am fortunate that when it was discovered about 15 years ago it still had the original reed, so I have the original staple and have used that to make new reeds. The staple is rolled, not made of tubing.

Like Kevin and Peter, I have to agree that these old Taylor and Taylor style chanters can be real gems if well reeded. Far from being a beast, my Brown chanter is quieter and sweeter than most modern CP chanters I have owned. No the tuning is not spot on as one might expect from the best contemporary makers. But that doesn't prevent me from playing decent music, as one can learn to play the instrument in tune with practice.

It can certainly present tuning problems for an individual piper picking it up at a session or tionol for the first time. But if you play it every day you learn the pressures and fingerings needed to play in tune. It's just part of the character of the instrument. In fairness, I played an early O Briain prototype chanter for ten years or more which, while a great chanter, required similar attention to pressures and fingerings to play in tune.

All this presents an added challenge I agree. But I prefer the tone of my Brown chanter over other CP chanters I have owned by top modern makers. But of course it's a matter of taste I suppose. I would also choose to drive a vintage car over a new one, so maybe Rory is correct and this just reflects a general personality trait/flaw