Chanter and reed - light/soft blowing

Uilleann Pipes
1

Hi guys,
I haven’t been around for a while, but I just had very broad question about pipe makers out there. I am planning on replacing my chanter partly because of the difficulty in procuring a reed that really works well for me. The original pipe maker’s reeds are consistent, but they seem to collapse after about 6 months. I’ve had several, two I got at the same time, and they both collapsed simultaneously. If I can find a pipe maker with a set up I like, and I can contact for a consistent, reliable replacement reed if I need to, then I would be a happy piper.

I have a reed in my current chanter that works, but I’m finding I have to really lean into the second octave more than I’m used to, and instead of becoming accustomed to it, it’s getting tiring, and makes me not want to play. (When I want to work out I’ll lift weights.) So what I would like to know is this: who’s chanters ship with a relatively light/soft blowing reed that’s going to last more than a few months.

Before I get roasted:

  1. Yes, I know I should learn to reed it myself. I am working on it, and have made some reed shaped objects, but nothing I am happy with.

  2. I know my question is broad, and largely relative, but being unable to travel the world testing chanters, I hoped there might be some insight available from the community at large.

Thanks in advance,
k

2

A number of questions…

Are you playing a Practice Set? A goodly number of makers would supply a Practice Set with reeds that take a bit of effort, to enable the piper to get used to the effort later required to play with drones/regs. Some makers shy away from supplying Practice Sets for this very reason.

If you are struggling with the second octave, is your set airtight?

Is the second octave hard to achieve, or hard to maintain?

3

A goodly number of makers would supply a Practice Set with reeds that take a bit of effort, to enable the piper to get used to the effort later required to play with drones/regs.

That would strike me as utterly odd. Increased pressure of a hard reed (extra pressure on the bag) and more air flowing through more reeds (extra work on the bellows) are two very different issues. Supplying a hard reed to prepare for playing drones later would seem like either a load of bull (to get away with supplying a reed that is too hard) or a complete misunderstanding of how the pipes are driven. Neither would do much to recommend said makers.

4

Without getting into further details, might your maker be either living in a more humid climate than that of eastern Canada and/or be making and tuning the reeds in a humidified environment? You may want to invest a little money (cheaper than a chanter reed) in a humidifier and humidify the area where you practice. I’ve had this same problem and it works wonders. It may take a couple of days and a fair amount of getting the moister wind through the reeds but it’s worth a try.

5

you also might want to consider having your chanter reeded locally, that is, by an experienced reedmaker living near you or in similar environmental conditions to you. There are may folks who can reed up different pipemaker’s pipes. Just a thought. Cheaper than buying a new set.

Jeff
(edited for spelling and typos)

6

right on mr.gumby!!!the theory that a practice set should be harder to blow than a full set so that the learner must learn to blow a heavier reed to prepare for a full set is wholely erroneous.whats the drone switch for?when you turn off your drones on a full set,what have you got?a practice set.!!!the chanter reed should serve for both purposes otherwise you are in a world of pain.if you are having to blow that much harder to maintain the upper octave then you either have a poor reed a poor chanter or both and then you have no chance of becoming a piper.i am getting a bit hot under the collar now because as a working reedmaker i get some dreadful apologies for chanters in to reed up(i will mention no names).for a reed to fail after 6 months seems weird especially if it keeps happening.yes it could be climatic,choice of cane,reed construction etc.but the opener of this thread seems to have a more serious problem which i can not address on the limited information on offer.there is a lot of twaddle spouted by so called pipemakers who offer weedy excuses for their poor efforts and then run and hide behind the premise that the uilleann pipes are one of the most difficult instruments in the world,they are not!!!why are there so many good pipers?they are not gods or geniuses they have just been provided with decent pipes and reeds and have not fallen foul of the incompetent makers who excuse their work with the old myth that many are called and few are chosen,rubbish!!!i will not offer any recommendations on this web site as it will be seen as commercial but if you email me at my website,google allan moller uilleann reeds i will be glad to help out with advice on who to buy from.disgruntled of north wales,allan moller.

7

Mike:
It is a half set. Recently retied the whole set and sealed the bag stitches. It’s not quite 100% but very close, there must be an errant stitch I’ll have to track down, but they’re otherwise very playable. The Second octave is physically exhausting to play in for any length of time, and much above high G is a crap shoot. That said, I’m not a professional player, but I know I shouldn’t be wore out from playing one or two tunes.

Ceann:
In terms of the original reeds, they come from a very similar climate on the Northern east coast of North America. I deconstructed one to reuse the staple, and the reed is so thin it’s almost translucent, I don’t see how it could possibly last. In winter with home heating, humidity drops to something like 30% in probably every house north of Massachusetts, but the issue with the original reed is, I believe: same climate, scraped too thin.

The reed I’m using now was made on the southern West Coast of the US, and if anything should perform better as the humidity drops. There were circumstances that encouraged me to try this reed maker despite being so far away, and in his defence he worked in good faith, and I believe it worked very well where he is.

Anima:
Of course I would love to drive an hour or two to a wonderful readmaker and simply have him fix me up, but there are none here. I have to send the chanter away, have it reeded, pay for the reed and shipping, and maybe have a reed I can use, maybe not. It’s simply getting expensive and I am weary of it, I just want to play. Virtually every other piper I know has a reliable chanter and reed. Who wants to play an instrument that doubles as a seen-on-TV exercise machine? It’s not normal.

I’ve tried a Howard reed in it, it looks much more robust and plays as effortlessly as the original, but it is very quiet. Mine should be here in a few more days, and I believe it would make an excellent chanter to start on but I would like a little more volume to be heard over the drones and other instruments. It should do for the year or so wait while I order a new chanter.

What kind do you lot play?
Did the original reeds last?
Were they effortless or stiff?
The answers will be anecdotal, but it might be enough to start to build a consensus.

Ideal situation: Find reed that works brilliantly in my chanter
Tried that, years later, lots of money, and still looking.

Next best thing: Find pipe maker I like, buy chanter.
Reed lasts a year or two, or seven - order another one, carry on piping.

8

Allan:
It seems you are expressing the appropriate level of frustration. I will check out your site, though I am slightly reluctant to go down the route of sending my chanter away and possibly being happier, definitely being poorer. It’s a spin of the roulette wheel at a hundred bucks a pop. I’ll contact you through PM though and we’ll chat.
Thanks,
k

9

hi king,was not looking for business especially a problem chanter if it is one,have had enough headaches and heartbreaks over the last 35 years,just want to help out struggling pipers with a bit of advice,email me and we will talk,not looking for money from you,all the best,allan.

10

In the beginning I went through a lot of reeds. In retrospect it was me and not the reeds. I have probably ruined any number of perfectly good reeds by messing with them to get them just right every time I played. What I have learned through the years is, quit messing with it. Reeds are a fickle woman at best. My current reed has been in my chanter for about 4 years and other than moving it up and down in the reed seat I leave it alone. Overall it has almost always good days and the occasional bad day - especially in winter. I just deal with it on the bad days and keep playing.

11

Hi King of Canada!

I would recommend not to worry so much with the chanter reed. Without excluding at first the air tightness of the bag it is not reasonable to do anything else and even not to twist around the chanter reed.

Your bag should be stripped naked, without chanter and drones - simply only bag with cork or rubber stops in every connection. Then blow it up with your mouth or by the bellows through the valve where the bellows normally are connected to.

1st it should be possible to blow it up as hard as a good football. This should last at least 30 second up to a minute until it gets softer, before you even could press it together for more than 50 mm. If this situation lasts only one, two or three seconds, than at first the bag has to be sealed.

Afterwards begin with the reed. Would you please report?

12

I believe Allan was closest to the mark in this entire thread, though I forgive you all for assuming otherwise. I don’t see why I should be condemned to torture with non functioning pipes, when there are so many other people torturing themselves with functioning pipes.

I think the general concession here it that the reeds are fine, quit messing with them, adjust humidity, fix an air leak, put them down till they work better, I assure you these were all things I considered on day one. And day two. And day 100. There is no “keep playing” after a bad day. Every day is a bad day.

I know for certain that the reeds supplied from the pipe maker are too thin. I do not mess with them: the last two I got simultaneously and both played marvelously at first. I played one for a few months until it started to act up, took it out and tried the other one, but they had both collapsed simultaneously. Made at the same time, collapsed at the same time. They have a shelf life of a few months, you can take my word for it. I am not the only person with his pipes, and the consensus is the same all around. Case closed.

Moving on:
Consider this: any reed is expected to play while air is escaping through the drones and regs. Now close the stop valve and identify how much air is escaping through the leak. It is FAR less than the air use on even one tenor drone, and yet the reed is not functioning. I have spent enough energy trying to reconcile this reed (from a different maker), It is not too much too assume it simply does not function that well. If I don’t worry about the reed, I might as well burn them and take up bodhran. :poke: Based on previous trials, I believe there is a goodly chance the Howard reeds will function well enough, so let’s assume that is solved as well. Besides, I was never soliciting advice regarding my current set up.

The purpose of this thread was to try to gain some insight into which maker I might consider buying a new chanter from. Nobody was interested in answering those questions, which is fine, I’ll just have to think of a different way to ask.

Thanks to everybody for your help,
Cheers,
k

PS it’s “Canavoy”, not “Canada”! :thumbsup: I’m not vain enough to assume kingship of an entire country, just a community.

13

ok i will come right out and say it.i have owned o’briain,bourke,thompson,lambe,hughes and other chanters over the last 35 and now play a chris coe chanter which is in my opinion the best of the lot.you asked for a recommendation on line,king,well this is it.chris’s chanters are in tune,sound great are easy to play and are a dream to reed up.nuff said,allan.

14

Haha, sorry Allan, you were the exception. Though that is more enthusiastic than I could have hoped for :smiley:
Cheers all,
k

15

Oooh, I used to live there when I was just starting out - misery! Turned out in my case it was a cracked reed. Jim Wenham, the fellow who made me a replacement reed, made it fairly light on purpose, and I swear I couldn’t believe I was playing the same chanter.

I later bought a boxwood chanter that Jim made himself and it is lovely and light; in fact, I asked him for a stouter reed the next time around because I’m a big old dairymaid of a gal. So it seems that’d be a good question to ask reed or pipemakers as you go – i.e., “can you make me a reed that’s a bit lighter or somewhat more stiff (how about one of each)”?

The other time I’ve had trouble like that it turned out the reed was leaking at the sides. If it’s made too thin maybe it’s not sealing … Would a little cobbler’s wax on the sides be worth trying?

Good luck, and I’m so sorry. I have felt your pain (and someday probably will again, but thank God, not today).

16

hi kathy,just a few tips on treating leaky reed sides.dont use cobblers wax as it is brittle and too heavy even when let down with a softening agent.i have found that the best wax to use is the coating from a cheese such as edam,gouda etc.it is malleable and handles like a light putty.you only need to work a tiny amount into the leaky area to seal the reed.a better way ,if you are experienced at tying heads on is to unbind the reed and pack the tails with some very fine slivers of cane and then re-bind,this can make the head airtight.also leaks on the side of a reed can be cured by the use of oboe reed wire.this is available from woodwind suppliers,buy the finest guage.locate the leak/leaks on the head and use only 2 turns of the wire to seal the leak and twist off leaving the wire very loose but not rattling so it does not act as a bridle but only cures the leak.it may affect the tone a little but not the tuning and is only recommended for a quick fix but it can get you out of trouble.all the best,allan.

17

THANK YOU, ALAN!

That is hugely, epically, awesomely helpful information!!! Very interesting thought about packing the tails – I have a repaired cracked reed that’s just a bit too open and leaks just a little at the sides near the top. I’ve retied it several times to no avail … but pushing the tails out a tad might be just the ticket. I’m going to try that (nothing to lose). Thanks again!