I got my Sam Lawrence C# chanter.
It is great, the only problem is that I can’t really feel the holes very well, and it sounds like a dying cow or duck. Is this normal? Has anyone else had trouble sealing tone holes? Also the reed is rather stiff, will it become easier to play as time goes by?
Sorry for amateur questions, but I just need some err… reassurance.. 
Have you ever played any other chanter before you got this one as a comparison?
As someone new to piping myself, I certainly struggled a bit to find/cover the holes when I started playing (still do every now and then which can be very evident trying to stay in the upper octave). Coming from playing instruments with keys or covering holes with fingertips, I found the pipers grip to be a little hard to get a feel for where the holes were. Some chanters have scalloped indentations but mine (probably like yours) doesn’t, so for a while you will be struggling to get a feel for it. Fear not! With a bit of practice you’ll know where to put your fingers and it’ll become second nature, but for now you’ll feel like it’ll never happen ;-p.
I was lucky enough to have a brief play of a beautiful sounding B Woofe chanter a couple of months ago, and I was completely lost! My fingers didn’t know where to go at all!
I was also… I guess a little surprised at how much pressure was required in playing. I didn’t quite expect to need to squeeze so hard on the bag. It probably depends on your reed and all that as well. The most important thing to start with is consistent pressure and maintaining long steady notes (which can be really tough to start with), practising your bag and bellows technique, and learning to relax your hands and feel how lightly you can hold the chanter (that last bit is something I still really struggle with!). Practising bad habits will just reinforce them, even though it can be boring and you want to jump ahead!
If you can find an experienced piper to look over your set and give it a play that can really put your mind at ease as to how your chanter plays. I was lucky to find an amazing piper in my city who is giving me regular lessons and it has really helped, both with looking over my set and also giving me incentive to practise regularly.
Two thoughts. I have dry hands and found that rubbing some skin moisterizer on my hands helps. I use “Bag Balm” it stinks a bit but its really good.
The other thought is that when I play a different chanter and get the gaggle of geese sounds… I open all the tone holes and the close each one starting with the bottom D, then back D, and then on down. If I get a squawk I reposition the last finger till I get a nice tune all the way down the scale. Your fingers are all in the right position for the moment. Get a feel for it. Do it again each time you get messed up. Eventually your muscle memory kicks in.
My current chanter has the depressions and they help but its not fool proof…it’s the muscle memory that makes it work.
I think most of my issues are with the grip, surely it must be a critical step. I may just try only gripping the chanter for a certain period of time. I have much trouble getting and staying in the second octave. All it does is squawk, again, may be due to the grip.
And no this is my first REAL chanter 
. I learned a few songs on an tradlessons uilleann pipe app before starting on the real thing to help give me an edge, but technically I need to start from the beginning. But I have some songs in my subconscious stored for later.
Let’s just say I have a much greater respect for pipers out there, and I already respected them quite a bit!
Have you established proper and comfortable bag control? If you can’t take all your hands off and blow a steady open note I’d suggest that’s a large part of the problem as powering the bag is probably currently taking all your conscious effort. There’s only so much the brain can do so making as much of it as unconscious as possible is a large part of the game.
Just remember not to attempt to get a better seal by using greater pressure. Getting a good seal comes from the precise placement of the fingers, not from exerting pressure on the holes.
The hands should always be relaxed, and grip the chanter lightly. Roll up an ordinary sheet of computer paper to make a “chanter” 11 inches long, and finger it. If you grip too hard you’ll crush the paper. Remember that light touch and use the same on your real chanter. Beginners nearly always 1) have poor finger placement and 2) grip the chanter too strongly.
Eventually your fingers will remember where they need to be, their spacing, to make good seals on the holes. This might take weeks of practice.
Then there’s bag pressure control, which is very tricky on the uilleann pipes! It will take many hours of practice to get a feel for the exact pressure required to sound each note of the scale properly.
If you’re new to piping in general, just getting your bellows-work to the point where you can sustain an even tone needs to come before learning scales on the chanter. Just finger B on the chanter (it’s an easy note, you only need to keep two fingers really sealed) and play only one long B for a half hour. No, really. Ideally look at an electronic tuner and try keeping the needle from moving about. Until you can play B indefinitely, keeping the note from wavering, you can’t play scales or tunes properly on the chanter.
Once you can hold B then try G, A, and various other notes. F# and E in the low octave are tricky because they tend to be less stable, requiring careful blowing, and they require more fingers on the chanter. The hardest notes for beginners are usually Bottom D and Back D, because they require the most finesse in the bag control. C natural is tricky for beginners too.
I was surprised at how big a change going from D to C# was for me at first. It gets easier.
Bag Balm and patience are both good things – also, I’d suggest you don’t overdo it at first or you might risk strain to your hands or forearms. After a bout of enthusiasm-inspired tennis elbow, I settled on 10-minute sessions and worked up from there.
Finally … see the thread about masking tape, though be aware there are many people who aren’t crazy about this idea. I found it helpful for training my fingers, but YMMV.
Congratulations! And yep, every reed is different … oh so different sometimes!
Which reminds me … after whingeing to Mick O’Brien about an occasional weird tone quality on my C chanter, he said “maybe you’re overblowing it.”
After a lot of experimentation I’ve concluded he was right. Lighter pressure is taking some real getting used to because it’s totally counterintuitive to what I’d been doing – but I’m getting it sorted, I think (hope)!
Judging from these posts, it will take some time to get used to pressure control, but more time to get used to finger spacing, correct?
I should also not that I am not a very strong person, hopefully I build some strength.
No more trouble with the fingers for me; that cleared up in a month or so. But I’m still working on the pressure change a year in. Then again, I was overblowing the poor reed for the first 6 or 8 months. And of course, I play a concert chanter mostly, so there’s always adjustment.
It’s a process! I just ask myself what else I’d be doing with all this time and thought …
Good luck!
This is sometimes an exercise that I will do if I find I am getting leaky notes. Fill the bag and close all the fingerholes. Don’t play anything, just listen for air escaping and try to get the leak to stop. This will help pin down which fingers are having trouble closing the holes completely. Once I have no air escaping, then I’ll play some staccato notes, stop and listen for leaks. I’ll do this a few minutes until I feel I have better control over my fingers.
Another thing . . . use a popping strap. I found a lot of my issues with this didn’t have anything to do with air leaking through fingerholes, but the bell. A fold in the pants (trousers for those across the pond) fabric was lifting the bell of the chanter ever so slightly. Using a popping strap corrected this immediately.
I have three chanters (so far) in two different keys and bores from two different makers, and all three took some getting used to when I first started playing them, and all three will take a minute or two to remember the exact right finger placement if I haven’t played one for a while. All three are straight, i.e. with no scalloping over the tone holes. The biggest adjustment for me was going from the scalloped holes on the chanter of the rented practice set I started on to a non-scalloped chanter but like Cathy said you get used to it with practice, practice, practice. When I started out on all three, I went back to just doing scales and playing tunes really slow, making sure I had a good air seal on every note. On the first one especially, it was like starting all over again.
Good luck with it but I bet you will get used to it in time
Scratch my last post, I think that i may have a tougher time with pressure than tone-holes.
I am currently doing the technique of closing all the holes and listening for leaks, and it is helping alot!
I can only reach the second octave by pure luck. Is it sealing issues or both pressure and seal?
These are pretty much the only questions I have as of now, and after that I am all set too practice!
You’re right, consistent pressure and getting the right pressure for different notes on the chanter will be your bugbear for a long time. Don’t despair, just practice a lot and work on it. It’s going to take a lot of practice to get a decent sound out of the instrument, it won’t happen overnight.
I wouldn’t worry so much about the second octave for now. You’ll have your hands full getting a clear, in-tune, unwavering note in the bottom octave at the moment.
However, yes, a popping strap will help ensure you get a good seal at the base of your chanter. The key to reaching the second octave is to ensure the chanter is fully sealed (at the base and all of the finger holes), applying some extra pressure and then playing the note. Maintaining that note in the second octave requires steady pressure, it’s easy to drop back into the first octave if you waver a bit. Notes above G in the second octave are even trickier, and I wouldn’t worry about them at all for now.
I think I am starting to get a feel to the pressure that it wants. By no means have I mastered it though.
But I think I may have been over-blowing it, and the pressure needs to be accustomed to each note, am I correct?
On most chanters I’ve played there’s a range of note where the pressure is more or less the same. (You really start noticing very fine gradients of pressure when you start using the regs in airs.)
So on my chanter there’s a range from G in the low octave up to F# in the high octave that take more or less the same pressure. The regs will stay on pitch through that range.
Then high G requires a bit more pressure, and more for high A, and even more for high B.
In the low octave F# and E require me to back off a bit.
Bottom D is in it’s own world, of course! And it varies from reed to reed how much pressure it takes for Hard Bottom D.
A tricky exercise I have beginners do is to go back and forth between Hard Bottom D and low E (returning the chanter to the leg for every E). It requires very good bag control to consistently hit a clean Hard Bottom D and at the same time not overblow low E.
If you’re having huge troubles sealing holes, sometimes you can’t figure out which finger the leaking is coming from. The way to address that is to start at Back D, put on the thumb and get a clear C# (telling you that the thumb is correctly placed), then playing a clean B (telling you that the thumb and tophand index finger are both correctly placed) and so forth, note by note, down the scale. When you get to the digit that’s not sealing its hole it will be obvious.
This forum is a great resource. But the thing that could help you about a hundred times better is to get a tutor or experienced piper to sit down with you for a even just a few lessons. Another piper could tell you if the reed and chanter are set well and then help you with technique.
I started about a year ago. My tutor found that my bag leaked, so I was pumping way too hard and the reed that I had was no good. With both of those fixed he went on to show me technique. My first lesson was playing a constant note A for a while… It took me a week to get that down, properly .
If you are not near any pipers I think it would be worth your while to go to the nearest piper. I bet even of there are no tutors in your area that another piper might be willing to help out a bit.
Good thread! I especially support the advice to not get too hung up on the second octave too early, certainly not until you’ve gotten over your overblowing/hole-sealing hump. The intuitive things for beginners to do on high notes are to overblow(-squeeze), and to strangle the chanter, out of the stress and horror that come from missed high notes.
Overblowing and strangling/clenching are bad habits that are difficult to get rid of once established. Many of us, I think, struggle with the Death Grip; the sooner you figure out how to relax your hands, the better. And some day you’ll have an otherwise-terrific reed on which certain notes (e.g. back D, C#) only play in tune given much lighter pressure than the rest of the scale wants, so I guarantee that nuanced bag control will also always be important.
P.S. …and yes, you definitely want some lessons, even if only via Skype, but better still in person so that, as Bob suggests, you can get a sanity-check on your hardware. If, for example, your reed needs adjusting, you’re much better off being taught how to do that safely, than experimenting on your own.
It’s much easier to screw reeds up than to fix them, and if there’s one thing I’m an expert at, it’s screwing up reeds.
Good luck!
Mick
P.P.S. Congratulations on getting a Lawrence chanter! I’m sure I speak for many of us in admitting some envy.
–Mick
I am from Alberta, do you know of any people from here?
I’m sure if there are there would only be 2 or 3. If not here, there is a pipers club in British Columbia.
If there is no hope then I will go on skype at UilleannObsession. I saw one of Pat’s tutors, and he too, plays a Lawrence C#.
Another thing, I didn’t see it mentioned, to remember is that your bag arm controls the air flow to your chanter, not your bellows. The bellows only fills the bag (and never fill the bag to capacity, leave 10% so your arm regulates the pressure, not the the filled bag)