Ian Ketchin Smallpipes from the Small Isles
Northumbrian Smallpipes
General
These sweet-toned bellows blown bagpipes have a chanter which has a cylindrical bore and which is closed at the end. Fingering is 'closed', with only one finger at a time (usually!) coming off the chanter, producing the characteristic staccato style heard in traditional Northumbrian piping.
I make Northumbrian Smallpipes in F, G, and D concert pitch, as well as the traditional F sharp.
The simplest set I make has four drones, each with one tuning bead, and a chanter with seven keys. Most commonly, chanters have 7, 9, 11 or 13 keys. The most complex sets I make have up to seventeen keys on the chanter, and more complicated drones. But I usually try to persuade people to opt for simpler sets - the more elaborate a set becomes, the more compromises the player has to make, so less is often more, musically.
Standard or fully mounted
Whichever configuration of Northumbrian pipes you choose, any set can be supplied in two styles -'standard' ie unmounted, or 'fully mounted' in the Robert Reid style. The difference between the two styles is purely aesthetic - there is no difference in their playing characteristics, performance or quality of finish.
Materials
All sets are made using the finest materials available. I mostly use music grade ebony for chanters and drones, but can also occasionally use woods such as blackwood, box, cocobolo or mgurure. Metalwork is usually brass, but can also be supplied in nickel plated, silver plated, solid nickel silver or solid hallmarked sterling silver. Standard mounts are of imitation ivory, but beautiful natural vegetable ivory, buffalo horn, bone or tagua nut are all available to special order.
Chanters
Chanters for both standard and mounted sets have fully lined key slots and all keys are hand forged, sprung and double rivetted, with leather key pads. All sets feature a plug-in chanter stock, for ease of maintenance and to enable other types of chanter to be used with the drone set.
Reeds
Chanter reeds are made of arundo donax cane and drone reeds are normally composite with brass bodies.
Bellows and bags
All sets include bellows, and a hand-stitched hide bag, with velvet cover in a choice of colours.
Attention to detail
I pay special attention to the finest detail of all aspects of my instruments, even to the extent that I make all my drone and chanter endcaps unscrew for ease of maintenance - there are no bindings to come loose here, so no risk of the endcaps falling loose while you're tuning. Also for example, I've carefully developed my key design and layout to be as uncluttered and ergonomic as possible. Each key is fastidiously shaped and set out in every individual chanter to fall naturally to the fingers when you need them, without getting in the way when you don't. The key springs are also very precisely set and individually weighted to give a really light, fast and accurate playing performance.
click on images to enlarge
Nine key standard set
of Northumbrian Smallpipes in F
Tuning beads in standard pattern (this particular drone set illustrates an additional tuning bead on the large G drone)
Details of keywork
Drone endcaps on standard set
Drone endcap detail under construction
Nine key fully mounted set
of Northumbrian smallpipes in D
These last two pictures show a superseded version of my standard bellows. Please see the bellows page for more up to date pictures.
Nine key fully mounted set
of Northumbrian smallpipes in D - detail