here’s a question for the Brad Angus pipes owners. I have a B chanter of his (made in 2002) with me at the moment but it’s not working properly at the time. I have a bunch of reeds made by Angus but non of them gives an in-tune scale with normal fingering. Especially with Cnat (which works best with X OXX OOOXIX (read back d from left to bottom D right). Furthermore, bottom notes G, F, E are extremely sharp in both octaves. So as a starting point, what fingerings do you use? Do they differ much from modern “standard” fingering? Brad himself gave me some hints re reed and staple dimensions. But I need to know the right fingerings first, I suppose before I start. Any more hints re Angus reed tweaking? Thanks for helping
Hi ChristianRo, I dont have any Angus chanter but generally speaking if you want to correct sharp bottom notes you should try to insert a rush in the bottom half of the staple, it may flatten a little the 2nd 8ve, but you know… its about try and fail, some use guitar strings or 1mm wire, I achieve best results with a 0.5 thick 2mm wide copper stripe and it doesnt affect the tone quality.
If Brad has designed his chanters from “historical” (i.e. old) chanters, which is what I’m guessing, many of the “normal” fingerings are going to produce unacceptably out of tune notes. This hurdle is going to require real growth on your behalf, and it may push you back a couple of steps (or more) until you can get fluent with these new fingerings.
My Hunter B was designed directly from Peter’s Coyne chanter. What worked on my concert chanter …well …much of it didn’t transfer over. Initially, it was really tough going and .frustrating. Tunes that I had played well on the concert chanter in the past, were relegated to a snails pace with the new fingerings on the flat chanter.
However, the hard work breaking out of the standard/basic fingering mold paid, and still pays dividends. When you use those fingerings on the concert chanter, you can bring so much new colour to your sound that wasn’t there before. So, your flat chanter can re-teach you how to play the concert stick in a more palatable fashion.
Use trial and error to guide you. FIND what works by simply adding and taking off fingers (and lifting, or lowering the chanter). Try and do it yourself. Break free from the “beginners” bog standard fingering chart and you’ll grow by leaps and bounds.
I was hoping for more first-hand experiences, but thanks for the replies so far anyhow.
Marcelo, the chanter came with a rush already, I managed to bring down the said notes with heavy blobs of wax on the rush. Highly improbable that the bore is this much off the mark. Further reed/fingering investigation necessary.
brazenkaine, sure there are more than one way to finger the chanters. But only a limited number of them results in properly tuned notes. This differs from reed to reed and from chanter to chanter. So I was hoping for a “works best” fingering info for this particular maker as a starting point for tweaking.
I have a Bb Angus full set (that is it in my avatar), after getting it I gave it to Uilliam to check and set up for me. The chanter reed has not been touched since and the chanter plays in tune with itself anytime I pick it up using standard uilleann fingering.
I agree with Brazencaine. Get ahold of Brad. It is early enough in his work that it may need to return to him for checking the tuning. It may only need the proper reed for it. You should not be that far off standard fingering, maybe a note here or there. Brad stands behind his work and will make it right by you.
Christian,
I recently acquired an Angus B set, none of the original chanter reeds were working so I have been learning how to make new reeds for it. At first I tried using staples for my C chanter (rolled staples) but resulting reeds were very out of tune because the staple bore was too large, and the length too short for B chanter I suspect. I took apart a couple of the old Angus reeds and used those staples to design more. Had much better luck but had to modify how I made reeds quite a bit to get a working reed. The chanter now plays pretty well in tune (and with great tone quality) using concert chanter fingering, but the Cnat is a little sharp, and the lower octave E is quite sharp. Is this the issue you have with the Cnat? I have heard that this situation with the Cnat is not uncommon in old (or copies of old) flat chanters. I needed to get used to sliding into the Cnat with the C# finger not completely lifting it off, this flattened the note to proper pitch. As Brazenkaine pointed out, flat chanter can require you to re-learn how you play some notes. I have also found that if the bridle is forced closed around the base of the reed too much that it can cause the Cnat note to rise almost to C#, essentially the Cnat can be completely lost in the most extreme manifestation of this.
The lower octave E was more problematic. Thinning the reed along the edges of the scrape, and the bottom of the scrape helped to lower the lower octave E, and improve it’s tone. That is, making the scrape more U shaped than V shaped. As so often happens with UP reeds, one “solution” begets other problems! The reed became overall too weak and the back D sinks very badly. I did two things to fix the back D, shorten the reed head (more than I would for C reeds) and not thin it so much in the middle of the scrape, and I also had to modify how much I scrape from the inside of the reed (leaving it stiffer near the tail then I would for concert reeds). I should caution that I use Benedict Koehler’s reed making method so I can not really recommend what size sanding cylinder to try, I’m going by feel.
I can measure the current reed when I get home if it would be of any use to you, let me know.
As was suggested by another person, the best thing is to call Brad and talk to him, which I have been meaning to do, and will pretty soon.
Yep. It was my suspicion that putting down the right index finger is a ‘no go’ for Cnat. I think I heard this is true for many (older) chanter designs.
Thanks for your valuable hints. I think I am going to take one of the faultier chanter reeds apart and try to build my own. Wish me luck:-)