A visit to Medir, supplier of reed cane, with pictures

Uilleann Pipes
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Recently my wife & I went on vacation in Spain. We went to Barcelona, and took a packaged bike trip mostly in the province of Girona, in the north east corner of that country. Once we looked at the bike trip itinerary, I realized we would be passing within a mile or so of Medir S. L., a supplier of reed cane for musical instruments, including uilleann pipes. I have been buying cane from them for over 20 years. I relished the opportunity to visit them.

Cane (latin name arundo donax; canya in Catalan, the local language) is very common in Girona; one sees it almost everywhere. It likes wet areas and grows along watercourses and ditches, in estuaries and damp spots. This plant grows in many parts of the world but the cane which grows near the Mediterranean coast in northeast Spain and southern France is generally regarded as among the best for making reeds for musical instruments.

Medir is located just outside the costal town of Palamos, in the beginnings of hills, up a dirt road, no signage. The proprietor, Carles Medir, and much of the staff was away and Ramon was left to mind the shop. He was kind enough to show us around.

Outside a man was feeding cut stalks one by one through a machine which stripped them of their leaves. In the yard, an area where stalks were left in the sun to cure. Exposure to the sun dries out the cane and changes the color of the stalks from greenish to the lovely golden color most people expect to see when looking at reed cane. Summers are quite dry in this region, so rainfall on the curing stalks is not a problem.

Ramon told me that for the most part Medir harvests cane from land they have rented. I wish I had asked him for more detail about exactly what kind of growing conditions make for the best quality cane. I told him that in our riding around I had seen what looked like varieties or subspecies of cane, or perhaps different cane-like plants alltogether. “It’s all cane,” he said.

We went inside. Ramon demonstrated the machine used to cut tubes to length. Also the bench where cut cane is sorted by diameter. Reeds for different instruments require cane of different diameters.

Then to the storage area. Before cutting to length, cane is stored for one year for uilleann pipe cane, two years for most other instruments (more about this later). It is rough-sorted by diameter & kept in the shed. Bundles for clarinet here, tenor sax there, etc.

Here are bunches of uillleann pipe drone cane awaiting their turn:

Ramon said it was Medir’s understanding that uilleann pipe reedmakers prefer their cane on the soft side. Cane which has cured for two years will be harder than cane which has cured for one year. Hence the shorter cure time for uilleann pipe cane. When Medir sends me reed cane they include the year of harvest on the invoice. I told Ramon that I usually waited a year after receiving their cane before using it, give it more time to cure. He was bemused by this.

All in all a very interesting experience. I wish I had asked more questions. Ramon’s English was good and I believe I understood what he was saying. Any errors of fact or interpretation are my fault entirely.

Nick Whitmer

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Nice story Nick !

I’m still using cane that Ted Anderson harvested in '89 and drone cane that I bought from Medir in 1978… I Wonder what Ramon would think of that?

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Very interesting. Thanks for the post and pics… It looks like you had a lot of fun on the trip. Catalonia is also our favorite part of Spain.

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Thanks for sharing your visit with us. Nice to see. The batch of Medir I purchased last year has been the cane I have been most successful with in my short time reed making.

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Thanks as well, fascinating. Medir are very nice to do business with, too. I’ve cured the cane I’ve bought from them more I guess, what with not making reeds very often…

What did that machine do before they repurposed it to cut cane? Looks like some sort of planer.

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Likewise I still have Medir cane that I got around '97 or '98 and although I prefer the cane I got from Joe Sampson I still use some of the Medir cane now and again.

Great to see the operation Nick. Safe travels!

Tommy

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Nice pictures and story, Nick!

Now did you get a trunk load to bring home?

Hope you’re doing well!

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Medir has mostly been sending out cane too hard for UP IMHO. The latest from them is to cut cane at one year in age and cure it for a year for UP. Sampson follows what I do which is to harvest dead and standing cane that is at least four years old when it dies. I specifically harvest cane from sources that produce the softer cane prized by UP reed makers and players. Previous attempts to communicate this with Medir were met with no answer from them. They consider themselves to know all about cane and don’t want to listen to someone like me. A number of years ago, Medir shipped cane that was softer than what they ship now. I would love to travel to Spain, harvest soft dead cane near Medir and show them what we prefer. Until then, be prepared for various hardness of cane to be supplied by them. It would be nice if they were more open to suggestions. PM me if you are seeking softer cane, softer than Medir or Sampson.

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So did Ramon mention how long he lets the ‘green cut’ cane dry in the sun? They harvest in summer then, not just the dead of winter under a full moon or something?

…and Ramon is wearing a Mexican ‘Day of the Dead’ t-shirt?

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Green cane is harvested mid-winter. The stalks are stripped of leaves and set in the sun until they turn golden yellow. They are cured further then cut into tubes and sorted.

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Thanks for the information. I’ll give it a try in a few months.

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Off topic, but also celebrated in Ecuador, Guatemala, etc. and even the desert southwest… :thumbsup:

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Once you go CA cane, you never go back! The batch of Medir cane I received was much harder than CA cane. I ordered my batch nine years ago, so I cant comment on their recent stuff. The Medir cane was still nice cane, just harder than what I would prefer. The local arundo that grows where I live is way too hard.

To me, the cane that Ted and Joseph harvests in CA is some NICE stuff! I love making reeds with it!

http://www.sampsoncane.com/

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  • Jason
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Nick- great pictures and write up about Medir. Always a lot to learn when it comes to cane and other’s operations.

I wanting to add my own two cents to this topic a week or so ago, but have been busy with getting things done before summer is over and I go back to work.

Ted and I have discussed cane at times over the years. He has been doing this quite a while and is a wealth of knowledge about anything cane. When I first starting harvesting cane, he was kind enough to sit down with me, take a couple hours and explain in detail “the cane”. I learned more in those hours than I could have in years on my own.

So as Ted already said, he and I both harvest cane that is dead standing 3-4 years (completely brown) specifically looking for softer cane. When I harvest, I don’t like to actually “cut” cane. I’ll do it if I have to but I like for the cane to be dead standing long enough for the cane stalk to just pull free from the earth with a good tug. That’s how I know it’s been “dead” long enough. However, once home, I still usually end up giving it another year to season cut into tubes in plastic tubs (not exposed to any sun). My first 3-4 years harvesting, I traveled around Southern California quite a bit looking for soft cane but now I pretty much only harvest in one spot. It is on private land (the owner hates it taking over her land) and produces per capita the softest I’ve found. What I mean is that instead of yielding 1 good soft tube out of approximately 10-15 tubes harvested (the rest being to hard, not cylindrical enough, or to weathered), I believe I’m getting 1 out of 6 that are up to the standard of “soft”.

As far as curing the cane for a year or two years, anytime you put cane in the sun to dry/cure it is going to harden. My very first time harvesting cane, I cut dead-standing and green cane thinking I could sun dry the green. But although after a few weeks of direct sun the cane turned brown, I was already incredibly hard and continued to get harder with time even after taking it out of the sun. With my normal dead-standing cane, I do everything I can to keep it out of any sun light because it to will get harder if only left for an hour in direct sun. So I can understand Medir sending cane that has been stored for a year because it is probably softer than cane stored two years. However, because both types had been dried/cured in the sun, they are both still going to be way to hard for Uilleann pipe reeds.

I’ve heard through the grapevine a few reed makers say they like Medir because it is “consistent” where as my cane or Ted’s cane is not because it’s harvested wild. In this day and age this makes sense that people want cane to be the same every time. Here is my analogy, people don’t go to McDonald’s for an amazing burger, they go because they know the food is always the same or “consistent”. IMHO, both Medir and McDonald’s is not that great but you can get by on it.

Finally I will say this: every tube of cane is unique and has it’s own opinion (just like people). I’ve had tubes from the same stalk be totally different in softness, weight, texture, and ultimately reed quality and playability. You have to listen and respect both people and cane because if you try to boss either your results will not be what you wanted.

I hope this adds to the discussion.

BTW, here’s an action pic of me harvesting. My buddy who was helping me harvest took. Plenty of green stuff but I was searching for the “gold” to be cheesy.

all the best

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I like hard cane.

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Do you want fries with that?

RORY

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I like hard cane too, but not for making reeds with the tone I want. For that, I want softer cane; softer than Medir ships and softer than the hard Sampson tubes, which are a majority of his cane. Joe made a good point. Cane is a vegetable. Have you seen two carrots that were alike? Every tube is different. My cane runs about 4 out of 5 that are soft enough for my type of uilleann pipe reed. A few are too soft and some of the rest are harder. If you like hard cane, you should try Pitano Perra’s cane from Sardinia. It is the hardest I’ve come across yet. A sax reed maker wrote him and said his cane produced the brightest tone of any. Hard cane yields bright reeds. For uilleann pipes I am after a darker tone, without harshness. Soft cane yields a darker tone with less of the bright overtones. I don’t mean a muffled or wimpy tone, but a round, full tone that suits the pipes. Hard cane yields bright, edgy tone with lots of upper partials. It all depends on the sound you want the instrument to produce as to the type of cane you like. Geoff Wooff just stated above that he has been making reeds from cane I harvested in '89. He has been using my soft cane exclusively since before he left Australia. He prefers the tone he gets from it. Soft cane doesn’t seem to get harder over time like hard cane does. A number of top pipers, as well as reed and pipe makers use my cane because they prefer the tone.

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Ted also has a great article on California cane in the new edition of the Pipers’ Review.

I’ve always used Spanish cane, more out of habit than anything perhaps, since buying some from Nick Whitmer way back when. I did bum some tubes off Folsom back in the 90s and those are just uselessly hard, but then I stored them in a cardboard box for years before being told that was a no-no - acid in the cardboard will spoil the cane, like how metal and ivory corrodes from being in contact with leather, leading to the phenomenon of old pipes with “burnt ivory.” Have also bummed a few tubes of “Cali Gold” off my pipemaker but didn’t have some reedmaking epiphany; I’m just used to the harder stuff Medir sell. Playing quiet Bb chanters I’m in the market for brightness anyway. Quiet D sticks too, nothing to make my ears bleed. My friends like the tenor banjo more…they can hear me with that thing!

I also bought some odds 'n ends from Joseph a few years ago - those are mostly way too punky for me, once you get past the funky twisted/narrow stuff. But hey, it’s all cutoffs so that’s to be expected. But I’m used to Spanish cane and its hardness. It takes a bit different technique, you have to be a bit bolder and gouge/sand things down more, cracks in the tails are an inevitability too - you just ignore them. For years me and Brad have been tying things up with a hand drill, you get an awful lot more consistent and strong tie that way, perhaps that holds things together more firmly, compensating for the thinner cane being a bit more susceptible to what the weather’s doing.

The thicker reeds being more resistant to changes in humidity was always what I’d figured the big selling point of Cali cane was, too. Ted doesn’t mention this in his article at all. Too much to cover! BTW I’ve been playing a lot more pipes over the summer than in recent years, the concert set every week and the chanter and 10 year old reed hasn’t changed at all. But then again it’s pretty unexciting climate wise here in Western Oregon. If you play one of those Rowsome yackety saxes and live in some chaotic hellhole like Ohio maybe soft cane’s your meal ticket. It’s great that Ted and his flock are still out mucking around in the bushes looking for this stuff, too.