I spent last week at the East Coast Pipers Tionol in Florida with Mick O’Brian, Michael Cooney and a great bunch of local pipers, fiddlers and fluters. We had a great time. I was holding forth on reed making and one of my students was a very nice woman named Stacia Lewis who is a really good reed maker, I was so surprised and absolutely delighted. Reed making is absolute bitch at best and when I come across a fellow reed maker I am always pleased, to say the least.
When I finished the classes Stacia loaded me up with a big batch of Florida cane and a bunch or new reed making ideas. I couldn’t wait to get home and try out some of the methods.
Big thanks to Kathleen Cavanagh for managion succh a nutty bunch.
The Florida cane given to me was a mix of 7/8 to 1" in diameter with a wall thickness of from 1/4 to 3/16". It is the same stuff that Joseph Smith used.
I had a great time at the reed making workshop this past weekend at the Florida Tionol. The class format was such that we all set up to make reeds while Pat looked over our shoulders and answered our questions as problems came up. We shared our knowledge and methods, talked about where we each learned this solution or that. Pat was calm, cool and collected as he handled each walk-in problem from the other classes. He fixed reeds, leaky valves, keys, removed unwarranted rushes, etc. I learned a lot from watching all the maintenance. A special thanks to Pat for correcting my misaligned bass reg chanter. Who knew there was a chanter under there? Generally he fielded every problem presented while continuing to oversee our reedmaking. One fellow turned out his first bang on reed! WooHoo! I only wish it were a whole week of it. Stacia.
The feedback from the Tionol goers was really positive in terms of having a reedmaker / pipes maintenance person avaiable. Pat, you have an incredible history with the instrument, and we were honored to have you there. Stacia is the reedmaking/tweaking expert here in Central Florida… and we are lucky to have her! This year one of the goals was to have someone to help with the common mechanical issues that all of us have faced with our pipes at some time. It’s great that there was so much skill in the room to help out. And there were many happy pipers walking out of classes on Sunday.