Silly Question

[Cricket]

Other than the obvious answer of "Well, it would be a whistle then."

Why doesn't a chanter have 6 holes like a whistle. I mean if a whistle can play two full octaves/scales with 6 holes, why does a chanter need 8 for that same scale. Does it have to do with the peculiar sound of uilleann (ghost notes, etc.) or is it just made that way and noone has seen to change it. Just curious.

Cricket

Edit: After a little more thought, maybe it's just the dynamics of a reed vs a blown instrument.

[bradhurley]

If the chanter were played entirely off the knee, I would guess you could get most of a one octave scale with just six holes (though I'm not sure how you'd get the second octave D). But once you add the ability to close the bottom of the chanter on the knee, that changes everything.

[David Lim]

There are other who can probably give a fuller answer but here goes:

The Eb hole is a left over from the time when the pipes played an extra note, one tone below the key note (pastoral pipes). When the chanter was redesigned to play the key note as it's lowest note someone was loath to get rid of the redundant hole.

The back D is needed because the low D is very unhappy about overblowing an octave up and prefers to jump to the next harmonic, an octave and a fifth up (high A).

David

[John S]

As Dave points out above the UPs evolved from an earlier instrument the Pastoral Bagpipe which appeared some time around 1700, and was a kind of "gentrified" instrument intended for posh folks to play. It used the same pattern of holes of the folk instruments of the period, which have come down to us in Highland pipes, and Border pipes. This pattern is the generic medieval bagpipe form still found in the Spanish Gaita and seen in the pictures of Bruegel http://www.mezzo-mondo.com/arts/mm/bruegel/BRP011.html

John S

[tompipes]

Yes

[tompipes]

Yes

[fel bautista]

At the Seattle Tionol, Denis brooks suggested that you afix a piece of PVC pipe to the bottom of chanter to get that low C, then the next hole Eb becomes D, etc as an experiment. We were playing the March of the King of Laois at the time. Rather than play the normal Cn, play the bottom C instead. I'll eventually try that.