I had this thought…“Okay, self, that is a lot of money to spend at one time for a starter set. What if you bought one piece at a time?”
“Why, self, that sounds pretty smart, but let’s ask the nice folsk on C&F, first.”
Yes, I do talk to myself, and answer myself. Doesn’t everyone?
The Starter Set
bag
bellows
chanter
MacHarg seems to be the bag that everyone raves about. Found his web site. Read the comments on this site. Sounds to me like I should get a MacHarg bag. Sound like a smart start to building a set?
…or you could put the money in a jar and buy a decent practice set when the jar is full enough. Same cost and wait either way, and IMO much smarter. There’s a definite downside to assembling a set from components, especially for a novice.
I’m in the process of piecing together a set myself but my situation is slightly complicated by the fact that I play left-handed (though I’m right handed). I’m lucky to have very nice fellow to loan me his unused Preshaw chanter so that I can begin learning immediately. I have already conacted Kirk Lynch to begin making me a lefty chanter so I’m excited to have an instrument to play while I wait for my instrument to be made. I also purchased a half set (sans chanter) from another local which was made by Charles Roberts. I now have the bellows, drones (stocks/blowpipe), a chanter and a bag on the way from Tim Britton.
The main thing for me in the grand scheme was to get a set to practice on now but also get the ball rolling with a reputable maker that can build my whole set in the coming years, starting with the chanter. Every piper I’ve talked to has impressed on me the importance of a relationship with a local (as local as possible) maker. Since I’ll have my chanter in a year + I’ll have a quality bag to plug it into, quality drones to play that I can also resell in the future when I decide to have Kirk build up my set to include his drones, etc.
I also had to save though, and sell a flute in order to make it possible.
Tell me about it. I never new the better when I picked up my first whistle… right hand on top just felt natural. Six to eight years later I’m not about to relearn everything to play right handed.
I didn’t intend to hijack caedmon’s thread, but if you’re playing right hand on top, are you playing with the bag under your left or right arm? Playing with the right hand on top but otherwise in the right handed style will probably prevent you from being able to play regulators later on.
While there is indeed a great learning curve, I don’t believe this statement to be entirely true in the context of my previous post. I have tried a right-handed set and it felt so unnatural with my left hand on top after playing the whistle the opposite way for so long. An understanding of the basic whistle fingerings and ornamentation does give me somewhat of a starting point on the pipes.
I am putting the bag on my right, hence my dillemma; Any used set I buy I’d have to get a new bag and tie everything in opposite. I can make due with the right-handed Preshaw chanter in the meantime since the key blocks do not interfere with my fingers and the thumbhole is centered rather than ergonomically placed for a right-handed player but acquiring a left-handed chanter is part of my long-term plan.
(I too apologize for hijacking your thread, caedmon)
When I first started playing pipes as a kid faced this exact same problem. I am right handed but had learned the tin whistle and flute left handed because my teacher was so inclined. When my parents wanted me to learn pipes they ordered a left handed set but when I tried to play them I found that I could not get used to pumping the bellows with my left arm. I ended up sending them back and getting a right handed practice set. Sure it felt unnatural at first but I got used to it after a few weeks.
Now I play the pipes right handed and the tin whistle left handed. If you think that its potentially confusing, its not. Both instruments are like chalk and cheese. When I play the pipes, I play the pipes and I never think about how my hands are the other way around on the whistle (and vice versa when I’m playing the whistle).
I suggest that you try out both a left and a right handed practice set (preferably for a few days at least) before you invest any money in a bag.
…or you could put the money in a jar and buy a decent practice set when the jar is full enough. Same cost and wait either way, and IMO much smarter. There’s a definite downside to assembling a set from components, especially for a novice.
One reason to assemble a set from parts is that bags and bellows are obtained easily enough. Chanters appear on the second hand market pretty frequently. There is no cost savings doing it this way, but the wait time can be less. To order a practice set from many makers results in a wait time of several years. There can also be some challenges to assembling from parts, as most chanters offered second-hand don’t have decent reeds and most of the time seem to have no reed at all, so you’ll have to find someone to successfully reed it.
I could not recommend buying an unreeded chanter. Especially to a beginner. It is not safe to assume that a chanter can be reeded successfully - even if the maker is above reproach, you never know what may have happened to the chanter during its history. And even if the seller is totally honest, how knowledgeable are they?
If you can get a good chanter without a bag and bellows, then fine; you can scrounge up bag and bellows later. I can see no reason to buy bag or bellows without having a chanter already.
Jeff, how many chanters/sets did you buy before you got something you really want to keep?
Whistle playing can be good for building coordination and learning tunes but it can be a real stumbling block if you don’t realize you have to totally re-learn the details of your technique. The apparent initial facility which some whistle players feel they have with a chanter is an illusion. It must be shed before progress is made. Sorry to get all pedantic but I really feel this is an absolute truth.
Now that I can understand and agree with. A blanket statement such as “relearn everything” didn’t agree with me because when I think of “everything” I’ve learned from whistle playing I think of the tunes, the types of ornamentation native to the music (and their place in the music), and so on. For example, being able to execute a crann on the whistle does not mean I’ll be able to do so right off the bat with the chanter but knowing what a crann is and where it fits with the music is usable knowledge when learning. Knowing what it is supposed to sound like is going to help me when I work on technique.
I do fully intend and expect to treat the chanter as a new instrument and not as a whistle with extra holes. I’ll be spending enough time just getting the bag and bellows technique down anyhow before I get anywhere near playing tunes.
Jeff, how many chanters/sets did you buy before you got something you really want to keep?
A lot (maybe 6 or 7). At one point I genuinely thought that getting a set of pipes or even just a chanter that played well was nearly impossible. I had to learn everything the hard way…and school is still in session! It’s not like I didn’t place an order for a new set of pipes first. I placed an order for a new full set four months before I even started playing. Being the impatient guy that I am, I started buying anything I could get my hands on to see if I could get something to work until the new set is finally ready. What I learned is that the vast majority of second-hand chanters either don’t come with a reed, or the reed they come with isn’t worth the postage spent to ship it. It took me a long time to find a guy who could really make reeds to make these things work!
Last week I bought a Ginsberg Bb chanter (with no reed) and a UPB C chanter with two reeds (neither of which work well at all). The difference is that I have come to expect to have to send them out to have reeds made. So you are right in many ways…trying to get a previously owned chanter to work is a tall order. But the alternative of waiting years for a new set forces some of us into desperate measures!
I’ve been pondering Bill’s usual sage advice wondering if he meant to convey a paradox, namely that we must constantly relearn technique attempting to get it right because a perfect level of playing is impossible. An obvious reading is that we must relearn what we don’t learn correctly in the first place, but since no one learns uilleann pipes in a perfect world this applies to all of us no matter what (unless Plato hosts a tionol up in his realm of ideal triangles, horses, etc.).
Have you tried the C reeds in the Ginsberg chanter yet?.
You bet I did. It played right at Bb…but the volume was very very low, even when I opened up the reed. Oddly, ‘standard’ fingering for cnat and c# produced the same note (cnat). I’ve shipped both the C and Bb chanters (along with the D Froment) off to Brazenkaine for wood reeds. The only chanter I’ve left at home to play while they are gone to visit Mr. O’Kaine is a nice Tim Benson CP in cocobolo.
