Hey all;
Over the last year I’d thought that I was losing muscle mass. It took more and more air to keep the pipes playing. Over this last winter my set got ah… cantankerous, shall we say? I was exhausting myself and my use of the drones was decreasing.
Yesterday I spent some time and checked everything for leaks, and using skill, wit, verve and a whole bunch of string plugged those pesky leaks. After all that an enormous amount of air was still required to play with the drones and I was beginning to despair. Friends laughed and pointed when I tried to use the drones because of my ridiculously flappy right arm,
pumping and pumping and pumping. Frustrated that nothing was working, I checked the bag itself. Oh, I’d known that there was a small leak in the bag that I couldn’t track down but I figured it couldn’t amount to much at all. But there was still that flappy right arm requirement, plus the gallons of sweat coming off me when I tried to play a nice slow air.
I remembered that I had another bag from a practise set I’d lent out a year or so ago. The guy I’d lent it to had given it back to me days before I’d moved and I’d simply forgotten about it. I went downstairs, opened the trunk of many things and grabbed my old bag. It’s larger than the one I’ve been using and I wasn’t sure if size would matter. (It does. No, really.)
So I carefully took the mainstock off my old bag, even more carefully cut the hole for the mainstock on the old/new bag and futzed about with tying it on. Unnerving. Worse by far was replacing the little wooden bit at the mouth of the bag. Leaks galore, I tells ya. More futzing and two very sore hands later, no leaks. I was proud, and danced a happy little dance.
Then I tried the set. Things were much better, but awkward. “Ah”, thunk I, “the connecting tube (kinda like the internets but more rubbery) is too short.” I cut a new, longer piece out of what I had left from the last time I replaced the intertubual link and tried that out. Holy mackerel (and other, less well known sacred fish) what a difference. Thus far I’m sure most of you are thinking “Well big whoop, dude, you replaced your bag and are all agog. Nice for you. Why are you telling us this?” Here’s the reason.
I’m a tall, skinny Person of a Certain Gender (6’2" and 165 lbs) and the pipes were built by a short, solid Person of aforementioned Gender. Putting a new bag on the set has suddenly made things much more comfortable; my hands aren’t hovering slightly above my crotch any more and I’m not having to hold the chanter like… well you get the visual. Not that I’m… uh… anyway. So the reason I’m writing all this is because it struck me that other isolated pipers may well be playing on sets either much too big or much too small for them. I can sit up straight and play now, my right leg isn’t curled sixteen feet back any more and suddenly my left hand is sitting lightly and comfortably right where it should be. I’d had a lot of troubles with my c finger’s placement; no matter how I held the chanter it felt awkward and uncertain. Now it’s sitting right on the hole. Nnnnnnnnice.
So check to make sure your set is properly set up for your size and shape. I wish I’d known about this a long time ago. (Actually, I did. It had been suggested that I needed a new setup, but having nothing to compare it to, I let well enough alone. My original practise set was so long ago I’d forgotten about it. If you’re rolling your eyes at my stupidity, so am I.) I’ve actually been having little fits of joy alternating with big fits of frustration; my hands and arms and back are all trying to assume the original position of hunching over a tiny set when I am not really all that tiny. Mentally yes, physically not so much.
Yours, working on not going back to the bad old habits;
Mark
so maybe ye do have to oot an shoot a moose..anyone know?Thanks