On Friday, August 28, 1998 at 2:00:00 AM UTC-5, Roger McDowall wrote:
On Wed, 26 Aug 1998 02:15:10 -0400, Charles Kron <cek...@idt.net>
wrote:
Hi, Andrew.
When I sent those pipes to be reviewed I expected raves.
Most manufacturers would, but surely you should be open to comment or criticism.?
If you only submit to be approved this negates the whole purpose of
reviews and they become free and non respected advertising.
But in retrospect
there is no one on earth qualified to judge disinterestedly the objective >aspects of pipe making craftsmanship; anyone with enough knowledge will have an
ax to grind, and that violates your own magazine's principles of judging. No >piper who is not also a maker can possibly have an eye for the finer points of
craftsmanship.
This confuses the role of the buyer and the seller(and player)
As for the subjective aspects of craftsmanship, aesthetics, there are some >things that are preferred (or in some cases required) from an engineering >standpoint. But judging the pure art of shapes and suchlike is like judging >artistic merit in figure skating. There are accepted conventions, just as in >the playing of pipes. Some makers have very eccentric shapes, but so what? For
me, looking at their pipes is like listening to a piper who plays all his >embellishments backwards.
Now for the last important aspect of pipes: sound. This is mostly subjective,
so I'll not dwell so long on it. A few of your reviewers' comments in this area
were most distressing for me, but my many customers, many of whom are excellent
players, assure me that our pipes are second to none in the more objective >aspects of sound.
Sound is invariably subjective, frequencies and pitch are objective.
My media centre will produce pipe pitch and tone very accurately but
it does not produce the feel and sensitivity of a piper and is purely mechanical.
The results of your survey still mystify me.
-Charley Kron
Le durachdan
Roger
http://www.sagart.force9.co.uk
FU
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