Apron/Popping Strap Traditional Material?

Uilleann Pipes
1

So, maybe I think to much… and a bit too anal retentive… but I am in need of replacing my current piping strap, and this ponderance came to my head. I wanted to get something traditional, and started looking at leather on line at places like Tandy, etc… but then I got to thinking: The predominate leather in Ireland “in the day” would have likely been sheep skin, not the cow leather I have been using and shopping for.

Anyone have input on what the traditional leather actually is for piper’s aprons? Sheep, goat, cow…?

Thanks!

2

Mick O’Brien appears to use a folded piece of chamois. You can buy these in auto parts stores (they’re used for drying water off of paint).

I suspect you’re over-thinking this - use whatever piece of soft leather is convenient. There is not much history or tradition to a popping strap, beyond the obvious need to close the end of the chanter. I’ve seen a lot more sheep than cows in Ireland, but there are both.

3

Granted, the pipes are an expensive instrument, but 19th and early 20th C Ireland was a relatively poor place. They’d have used whatever leather was at hand - cow, calf, sheep, goat or pigskin are all valid options.

4

Spoons-player skin is always popular :stuck_out_tongue: Might be a little thick for some…

dave boling

5

Bravo!

6

Add to the list deer hide and greyhound skin.

7

Aye, that would be the slow greyhounds. :smiley:
Bob

8

They all get slow eventually. And with greyhounds, ‘eventually’ means 18 months, or less.

9

I adopted a retired racing greyhound, and she is off hiding now, thanks to this thread! 146 races… http://www.greyhound-data.com/d?d=lazy+k+hero+val&sex=&color=&birthyear=&birthland=

So no greyhound leather for me! :smiley:

I tried to get a local spoon player to let me have his thigh skin… all I got was an imprint of a spoon on my forehead, and a headache!

So long story short, stop thinking about it, and buy some leather of whatever kind.

So, what is traditional… polished, or suede? Horeen? What color… green? Red?

Kidding! Kidding!

Thanks for the input, guys!

10

I suspect that the most common hyde is likely to have been pigskin. Sheep skin (or more likely lambskin) would have been processed so as to keep the wool on the hyde for insolation and comfort. Lambskin gloves are very comfortable. Pigskin, on the other hand, wouldn’t have been considered a luxury product.

11

Some of the players I admire most use chamois. But I don’t get it: chamois folds and creases like crazy. Maybe its so soft that you can seal the chanter right through a fold (?).

12

Don’t know about the seal. Chamois tends to be porous.

Apart from the seal, leather helps reflect the sound, which I doubt chamois does.

13

Don’t use seal. Just don’t.

14

I seem to recall a fellow who used the top side of an old, beat-up work glove, fingers and all. You know, one of these jobbies, split in half:

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He was a working man’s working man, so it was perfect not so much because of the association, but that he’d used what he naturally had on hand. I thought that had to be about the coolest and fiercest popping strap ever on the whole darned planet. :thumbsup:

15

No, you don’t want jobbies! (Said the Scot…)

16

Oh, dear. Yes. I mean, no. You don’t want Scottish jobbies on your leg. :astonished:

17

Or your chanter. Even if it’s traditional for a working man’s working man using what he naturally had on hand!

:boggle:

18

My linguistic horizons thus broadened, I feel ever so much more a citizen of the world, now… :smiling_imp:

19

You know, I was coming around to that. Seems that my blue jeans did a perfectly fine job sealing the chanter end. I had a popping strap and used it, but not every time.

There was someone - David Power, was it? - who had a particularly large popping strap that draped down, and I was told by someone else that enhancing sound reflection was exactly the reason for it.

20

Or you could just wear leather trousers, no issues then.

:smiley: