Finally getting into a regular practice pattern (3 days/wk for about 45 min each). The reed on my Daye PC seems to be well broken in and plays marvelously well except for the bottom D. It wants to jump the 8ve… seemingly regardless of the bridle position on the reed.
With the bridle low (closer to the bindings) the lips were clearly too closed and a bottom D was impossible (as was E). Move the bridle up and it gets better (E sorted itself out) but regardless of how far up I move the bridle, bottom D wants to jump. In fact, I have experimented with moving it so far up that I practically have to stand on the bag to get a note. Again, all of the 1st 8ve notes will play, but D wants to jump.
I’ve settled on leaving the bridle in a place where I can get a decent hard D with a flick of my A finger. But again, if I burp, fart, breathe or otherwise blink, the D will jump.
I’m not having any issues with auto cran. Nor am I having problems with E, F#, or G wanting to jump… only bottom D.
DJM - I’ve had mild success with that (I found another post here at the forum where you suggested that). The A cut will give me the bottom D, but the D will still jump.
What seems to be happening is that E (and notes above) are playing well at normal pressure, but bottom D requires a significant drop in pressure.
I have the same problem (but am a very new student). I can get a good hard bottom D by flicking the A, but it constantly breaks into the upper octave, and requires a lower playing pressure relative to the rest of the bottom hand - perhaps this just requires recognition and subtle adjustments during playing?
m.
I was afraid someone might suggest that… … and my newbie status cannot be ruled out as the source of the problem. It just seems that the drop in pressure required to get bottom D is grossly out of proportion to the rest of the bottom hand notes.
On a brighter note, my David Daye drones arrived in the post today…
Probably a leak somewhere…finger not in place over a tonehole…leak on sides of reed…techniques issue possibly as mentioned…may be climatological and could resolve with coming months.
I have a reed that’s touchy in that way. If you finger bottom d and remove the chanter from the knee it shoots up the 8ve. The first solution is to cut with an A.
In the situations where that’s not appropriate, for example going from E to D, I have to get the chanter off the knee before playing the D, just by a fraction of a second - that allows me to hit the D with normal pressure.
Could be dry air in the room you are playing. Put a kettle or a pot of broth to boil on the stove and play in the kitchen for a while. The extra humidity may fix things.
Marc
As mentioned above, getting off the knee just a fraction of a second before playing bottom D has help me. (I also am a new guy with a Daye set.) There seem to be subtle pressure differences between bottom D, E, and then F#-G-A etc are all about the same pressure. I am gradually getting used to it.
There is an old Welsh hymn tune called Hyfrydol (also known as the advent hymn Come, Thou Long Expected Jesus) which, when played in D, makes you go back and forth between bottom D and E over and over. It’s a good exercise for getting the feeling of the tricky bottom note. Keep at it. You’ll get it.
Good advice! That seems to help. I’ve just kept hammering at Friar’s Hill (and the preceding exercise in H. Clarke’s tutor) and it’s getting much better. I can hit the bottom D 90-95% of the time now.
I’ve also found that it helps if I don’t pump the bag full just before a bottom D.
Seems that I should keep in mind that as a rank newbie, the problem generally lies in the piper… not the pipes.
My experience of the bottom D squealing, which I assume is what you mean, is that the reed is simply too closed. My solution has always been to either open it a little or scrape it more to allow a free vibration with the small lip opening.
After a decent week of hitting bottom D, the problem is back. During this last round of difficulty, I realized that I may not have described the problem correctly.
I can hit bottom D and hard D just fine if I’m playing a slow scale or just playing those notes alone. I can even give the bag a heave and bottom D won’t jump… it’s only when I’m playing the notes in a tune or exercise (i.e. the simplified Friar’s Hill in Clarke’s book and the preceding exercise… #9 I think) that the bottom D jumps. I don’t think it’s a squeal because the resulting note matches back D… i.e. it’s jumping the 8ve (correct me if my terminology is off).
I am veerrryyy reluctant to start scraping on the reed. I ruined two chanter reeds on my NSPs that way (thinking the reeds were the problem and not me). At this juncture, I’m only comfortable moving the bridle and moving the reed in/out of its seat.
Yup, try everything non-invasive in the book (and then some) berfore bringing to bear a sharp implement to your reed… especially if you are uncertain about how make or adjust reeds. For squealing, try rubbing beeswax on the sides of the reed. Also, you can open the reed by gently applying pressure with your fingertips to the sides of the reed near the lips… but easy does it. Closing it, do the same by applying pressure to the flats nearer the binding.
Reep, do you have experience piper living near you that you could visit and consult with? I think they would be able to demonstrate some of these issues for in addition to correcting any bad habits (should you have some) before you become too accustomed to them.
Thanks for your updated explaination. I find it strange that the note is jumping to an octave D (my experience with bottom D squeals are two possible notes, which differ depending on pressure, but they are not D). Paddy Maloney, of the Cheiftans, deliberately produces these squeals by cramming extra air thruoght the note sometimes. Like Paddy and as already mentioned by others, it does sound like you are putting too much air pressure through on the bottom D when you are playing tunes. Unless you’ve got an outstanding chanter and reed combination, there are likely to be notes that need a little more or less air pressure, such as the octave G needing a little more than the neighbouring notes and bottom D needing less. My bottom D goes flat and muffled if I don’t pull right back on the air pressure (except for an A cut, which produces the hard D) and my octave E drops to the first octave if I don’t hit it hard.
I make my own reeds and I have found that the bottom and back D notes cause the greatest frustrations when fine tuning the reed (i.e. there is a compromise between making the bottom D play well with no gurgles/squeals and keeping the back D from going flat as a result). Your problem may be reed based, but it is quite possible that your chanter is the culprit and any reed you put in it will do the same thing. Therefore, you really do just have to master how to control the note. You may be like me and want to close reeds as much as possible to maintain a mellow sound and lessen the required air pressure difference between octaves, but this practice makes the bottom D want to gurgle or squeal and sends the back D flat. I’m quite adamant that opening your reed just a little will dramatically lessen your bottom D woes.
If you want a good workout on that bottom D try the Polka on the next page, it is tougher to go back and forth from E and D. It makes for some good practice though, I am hitting it almost all of the time now.
Everyone else’s advice is better than mine, so pay more attention to them than me.
But often I find that while playing, my fingers have wandered from the holes. The lowest notes are the least forgiving in this regard. This is the same on the low whistle.
Maybe that’s why you get the bottom D when playing slow scales but start to miss it when the fingers are more active, as in a tune. Dunno. That’s the kind of thing that happens to me all the time.
I must apologise for stating something that was not true in my last post. I had a play around with putting too much air through the chanter on bottom D and found that it would jump to an octave D (I said in my earlier post that two higher notes are possible, but D is not one of them).
The two high notes created by cramming extra air through on my chanter were a 2nd octave D and a 2nd octave A. It is still the case that you are putting too much air through, but I just wanted to correct one of my comments.
… and my newbie status cannot be ruled out as the source of the problem. It just seems that the drop in pressure required to get bottom D is grossly out of proportion to the rest of the bottom hand notes.