Uilleann Pipes - Tuning

Tuning

The instrument most typically is tuned in the key of D, although "flat" sets do exist in other keys, such as C♯, C, B and B♭, and a few sets in E♭ have been tried. These terms only began to be used in the 1970s, when pipemakers began to receive requests for pipes that would be in tune with Generation tin whistles, which are stamped with the key they play in: C, B♭, etc. The chanter length determines the overall tuning; accompanying pieces of the instrument, such as drones and regulators, are tuned to the same key as the chanter. Chanters of around 362mm (14¼") length produce a bottom note on or near D above middle C on the piano (where A=440 Hz, i.e. modern "concert pitch"). The modern concert pitch pipes are a relatively recent invention, pioneered by the Taylor brothers, originally of Drogheda, Ireland and later of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in the late nineteenth century. Concert pitch pipes typically have wider bores and larger tone holes than the earlier "flat" pitch sets, and as a consequence are a good deal louder, though by no means as loud as the Highland pipes of Scotland. They were developed by the Taylors to meet the requirements of playing in larger venues in the United States; today they are the most common type of uilleann pipes encountered, though many players still prefer the mellower sound of the earlier style narrow-bore pipes, which exist in pitches ranging from D, through C♯, C, and B down to B♭. Pipemakers before the Taylors had, however, built concert pitch pipes using the narrower bores and smaller fingerholes of the flat pipes. Some of these instruments seem to have been designed with lower pitch standards in mind, such as A=415. The Taylors also built many instruments with higher pitch standards in mind, such as the Old Philharmonic pitch of A=453 that was commonplace in late 19th century America.

The D pipes are most commonly used in ensembles, while the flat-pitched pipes are more often used for solo playing — often a fiddler will "tune down" his or her instrument to play with a piper's flat set, but the inflexibility of other instruments used in Irish music (accordions, flutes, etc.) does not usually permit this. It is noteworthy that Irish music was predominately solo music until the late 19th century, when these fixed-pitch instruments began to play more of a role. Like pipe organs, uilleann pipes are not normally tuned to even temperament, but rather to just intonation, so that the chanter and regulators can blend sweetly with the three drones. Equal temperament is almost universal with the fixed pitch instruments used in Irish music, which can clash with the tuning of the pipes.