Francis Wood wrote:The presence of acoustic foam is a good solution for the adverse effects of neck resonance, but only if that resonance is a problem and causing inconsistent tuning difficulties.
If I may paraphrase Francis here, "The plug of foam will alleviate a problem which is occurring elsewhere". To me this means that it is a workaround, it doesn't solve the problem but it lets you get on with playing. That is a good thing as far as I am concerned, especially when my cure for the problem would be a new bag and you can think of £50 as a minimum price for a Jackie Boyce bag + dressing and fitting.
Colin Ross' adoption of the foam plug was either during the time I was attending his pipemaking classes at Killingworth or shortly thereafter. As with many of Colin's innovations it came about from dealing with problems his customers brought to him. My recollection was that Pauline Cato was a student at Sheffield University, and along with her studies in languages

(ahem!) she spent some time playing in a ceildh band ( Rodger the Badger) and various music sessions. She found that she was having problems with here chanter reeds, and it seemed that it was due to the atmosphere in smoky bar-rooms and other such dives which NSP players were formerly accustomed to frequent

. AFAIK Colin devised the foam plug as a dirt filter. It also works well for catching the little black pebbles (bogies?) which come out of undressed bags with the suede inside. I don't think that Colin ever saw this as a way of resolving neck resonance which he always cured by keeping the chanter stock short, changing the bag, or finding a reed which would get around the problem.
More on this elsewhere
Barry