My tenor drone reed has never been entirely satisfactory.
First of all it, was so sharp that the slide kept falling off the drone, so I taped a piece of knitting needle to it as an extension. That solved that problem.
However, there’s a bigger one. It goes sharper under increased pressure. I’ve read all about the solutions for this, and tried them.
Moving the bridle up fixed the same problem in the baritone and bass reeds, but not in the tenor. Oh no, it had to decide it wanted to play in B (actually I agree with it there, but this is a D set), and very loudly. If I lean on the bag with all my weight I can make it play a D, but then the baritone closes up and there’s no way I can actually play like that anyway. So I’ve moved the bridle back down and it’s not playing in B anymore, but it is still going sharp.
FWIW, here’s a picture of the wretched thing:
I made a new reed for the tenor drone, and it was MUCH better. It did everything right for about a month. Then I accidentally destroyed it. The less said about that the better.
I’ve been going through my small supply of drone cane, trying to duplicate my earlier success, but to no avail. I’m down to my last piece of drone cane.
Help? Anything else I can try doing to the existing reed? Any advise about not messing up this last peice of cane?
1-- Check the size of the bore in the top section. If it is larger that 1/8" then insert a brass tube, or a piece of wire of different sizes, to reduce the bore size. This will flatten the drone. You can also reduce the bore of the slide section to accomplish the same thing.
2-- When you make the reed and it is overall too Sharpe, scrape the reed toward the back of the tongue.. the weaker the reed the flatter and the more stable.
3-- If still sharp, place a small piece of wax on the tip of the tongue to weigh it down making it flatter.
4-- Finally to balance the drones make the tenor reed first , get it going and balanced with the chanter; follow with the baritone and lastly the bass.
If you are out of small diameter cane, use your last piece as the reed body and tie on a plastic tongue. You can do this over and over until you get it right without hurting the reed body.
Will this also cause the bass drone to use less air???
Actually it probably will use less air, if adjusted to the tenor. A good set of drones should play with the weight of your arm plus a little extra.
Another thing that affects the drones is the size of the air hole in the stock.
If the drone is taking too much air you can reduce the size of hole located under the switch in the stock. Of course you then have to make a new reed that will work under less pressure.
