I fell in love with these little pipes when I first saw them at a festival over Easter this year. Since them, besides heaps of playing and busking, I’ve been refining their design, and am now pleased to be offering them commercially.
Let me say first of all that these are not bagpipes for purists. You will understand when you see the pics that will shortly follow. There are some very good reasons though, why these pipes may well appeal to the C&F community.
First of all, the chanter is a whistle body, with the addition of an extra thumb hole, giving you a top D to complete octave range. Fingering is whistle standard too, again, apart from the extra thumb hole, and the learning curve for the extra hole on these pipes is very short indeed.
The great bane of every novice piper, the reed, is conquered! There is a reed, but it is very non-traditional. It can be made and fitted in seconds. Setting and tuning the reed is also easy, a very similar technique to tuning a whistle fitted with a tuning joint.
The cost is very low. Apart from the bellows, (again please refer to the following pics), the components are readily available low-cost/recycled materials. Only the chanter and its sleeve are machined, so I can offer the pipes (supply your own bellows) for US$30. Thats posted from Australia, complete with spare reed material and instructions on setting up and playing and, oh yes, they suit both left and right handed players.
There will be pics following shortly. A picture is worth a thousand words, especially here! Once they’re up, I"ll make some more comments and try to answer your questions!
Here are a couple of pictures that Mr. Syn sent to me to post. No touch up except a little bit of red eye.
A cutie in this picture.
Some serious piping going on here.
How do I order?
And can you post a sound clip to clips and snips so I can let my wife know what she’s in for??? 
Paul
Do you really think this is a good idea? 
Just tell her it’s the same instrument they used in the movie Titanic. 
My 5 year old son is a bagpipe junkie. He’s learning whistle right now (learning is an exaggeration, but he plays around with it and can cover all the holes). This might just be perfect for his 6th birthday this September…sound clips! We want soundclips!
Eric
Okay, I’ll see what I can do about a sound clip. First to borrow a microphone, this could take a little while.
:roll:
Another toy bagpipe? Might as well go whole-hog with one of these:
.
I hope my skepticism does not offend. Perhaps my mind could be changed by a free Syn whistle… 
Cheers,
Aaron
Mr. Syn, have you swapped notes with Daniel Bingamon, who’s been
experimenting with a similar project he calls the Kings Mills Pipes?
Bold try.
Can you get two octaves out of them, or just one? If two, sign me up, I’ll take one!
-Brett
A roll of the eyes Patrick? I said early on that these were not pipes for purists, and by the look of your avatar, we can slot you in there quite easily. These are not the pipes for you!
Would I call them a toy though? I can think of a lot of musicians who would call a tin whistle a toy. I can also think of a lot who would be offended by that. Where you stand depends on what you call it. Like any instrument, these pipes have both strengths and weaknesses, they may only cover a singe octave but I can think of a lot of pipe music as well as folk tunes that fit in there quite nicely. In the short time I have been playing them, my daughter and I have won a busking comp (see top pic for the Dagpipe Band in busking mode), and been invited for guest spots at three gigs. Toys???
Why not those other pipes you show? I make and play them as well, so I can tell you that uillean pipes have two great disadvantages compared to synwhistle bagpipes, especially for entry level players. Cost for a start, compare say $500 to $30. Reeds for a second, synwhistle reeds are not conventional and are the easiest reeds I have ever struck. It takes me about 30 seconds to make, fit and tune these reeds, and I am confident anyone with a set could do the same in short time.
I am not fully up to date with Daniels pipes, but I think they are voiced the same way as a whistle? If so, then no, synwhistle pipes are genuine reed generated pipes, unconventional perhaps but a reed nevertheless.
Free whistles? No, but for a short time only, anyone who orders both pipes and a whistle can have free postage on the whistle!!!
Thanks for your comments folks!
Must be the beard… 
Don’t be offended, Erle. These are funny-looking pipes, but i think they’re a wonderful instrument for someone who wants to try bagpiping for the first time. If i had a bellows or one of those foot pumps around here, i’d order one.
g
Yeah Glauber, if you already have one of those foot pumps you’re sweet! I can get them here for $18 in local currency, but then postage cost is the killer, so anyone who wants the pipes is better off supplying their own. Of course if you already have a set of uillean pipes it is quite acceptable to use the bellows from them!
Purist is a bit of a loaded term. It suggests a bias against change and innovation. I do admit to having rigorous standards however.
OK, toy is too heavy-handed. Perhaps novelty is a more appropriate term.
As a GHB player I am familiar with restrictive ranges. But for a whistle player’s repertoire I would find this even more restricting.
The idea of an instrument that will be the tin whistle of bagpipes is a good one but tin whistles and bagpipes are very robust instruments. Wax paper and a comb makes a nifty little instrument but harmonicas sound so much better.
Cheers,
Aaron
Is this instrument played completely off the knee at all times?
Hi Aaron,
its too easy to get caught up in semantics, so I’m not going down that path. What you see is what you get, what you make of it is up to you.
Hi Joseph,
these pipes are indeed played off the knee at all times. Fingering is standard tin-whistle except for a thumb hole to get the top D with a fingering of O OOX OOO. The thumb hole is closed for all other notes.
I think I’ll get one! It looks like fun.
There are plenty of tunes that fit in an octave that are played by tabor pipes, ocarinas and the like – George Kelischek (of Susato fame) puts out a book called “Tune Book Two: 104 One-Octave Tunes, Dances & Duets” that would be fun to mine for tunes.
I have a pal who teaches music to groups of kids and teenagers, and he had the students make mouth-blown instruments using this same principle – “practice chanters,” if you will. They had a blast, apparently. It uses a vibrating membrane (from a rubber balloon) to create the sound, a funky, buzzy sound that is a bit loud and strident, but sounded better than I expected. The twiddly bits popped out just fine. I don’t know if I’d call a vibrating membrane a “reed” though.
Personally, I’m sure I’d enjoy listening to a good musician playing one of these. It wouldn’t approach the glorious sound of a fine set of pipes, but it beats a kazoo, that’s for sure.
(I’ve been daydreaming of getting a set of Northumbrian Smallpipes, maybe this’ll hold me over for a little while…)
Sometimes I’m maybe too rigorous. But the market for quiet-indoor-bagpipes at a budget price has been so saturated in the last 10 years.
I could change my mind once I hear some sound clips. Maybe this will have the same success as David Daye’s penny chanters. Syn whistles turned out to be quite successful. Or maybe this will turn into a cross between Stomp and Riverdance. I am curious about the reed.
Cheers,
Aaron
Well, this is not really a toy uilleann pipe, it’s a new kind of instrument (new kind of smallpipes, maybe?). I’m curious about the reed.