Does anyone have thoughts on how Chladni diagrams could be derived for UP reeds? Maybe high speed photographic techniques would be of some use.
Hi Mark, we haven’t seen you out here in San Diego lately.
Have you read Patrick Murray’s paper on Vibrational Modes of an Uilleann Pipe Reed?
Chladni patterns keep rearing their heads all the time in violin making. It is easy enough to photograph some iron filings or glitter on a large flat plate of wood, but would be very difficult to capture on something the size of a reed. There was a video sequence on YouTube some time ago of a flat square piece of wood, being excited at various frequencies, and the changes in both pattern and behaviour of the filings was astounding. High speed photography was used, and the most interesting aspect of the performance was the way in which the plate vibrated - not as in gentle waves, but more on the lines of a maelstrom. I’ll see if I can dig out the reference.
you don’t need chladni patterns IMO. Modes of vibration would be fairly easy to capture with a clear chanter top and a strobe triggered by microphone input (some fancy circuitry might be required in order to get the triggering to work just right); then just put a short delay in the strobe fire and use that to change the strobe phase. You could then easily film the reed in apparent slo-motion.
I’m not a hardware hacker otherwise I’d have done this myself already!
I was really just referring to the patterns, maybe not the process. I think it would be useful to know where and how the reed was vibrating for any given note, and how reedmaking might benefit from diagrams like these:
Just make the freaking reeds; if they sound good, play them, if not, trash them. Good data are great when relevant, but in this scenario, its not going to improve your tone or make you play better. Now go practice!
I made some reeds, but they didn’t all work perfectly.
Did’nt that guy go blind from looking at those .
I guess you don’t realize that Uillmann is a master pipe maker, reed maker, and piper? (and this isn’t just my opinion: Paddy Keenan said this of Mark a couple of years ago when he was playing down in DC) I can assure you that he doesn’t skimp on the practice. His only “problem” is that he’s a perfectionist.
This can tend to be a problem once the individual realizes that ‘perfection’ is more or less an ideal than it is an actuality.
Perfection doesn’t usually go hand-in-hand with uilleann pipes. I do, however, fondly remember the instances during the last 25 years when I considered my pipes to be working perfectly. There is a level of perfection that one must always strive for, and that level means different things to different people. For a beginner with a crappy practice set, that might mean a back d that doesn’t sound like a c#. For others, it might mean the whole set is in joyous harmony, and the chanter behaves flawlessly for hours on end, nestled in a pleasant snug, surrounded by lovely women with suggestive glances, good friends who are stellar musicians, creamy pints, and a gracious publican who slides you a few bob at the end of the night. To me, that is perfection.
I trust a night in the drunk tank isn’t the cherry on top of this nice dream fun day? 
No, hopping into a cab with the leggy brunette.