I’ve been struggling for hours over days to get my chanter into a perfectly wonderful balance in both octaves for all notes. A reasonable expectation for a musical instrument, so?
I rushed rushes of copper and steel …
I re-reeded reeds …
I inserted and extricated the reed at various depths…
I never did get it perfect. Today, I decided to settle for ‘almost’: high B is a little sharp (taped it) and back D is very sharp (same treatment) and I have a long copper wire running down the length of the chanter that makes it all stay together somehow.
My wife, whose wisdom far exceeds mine, says “It’s fine …it is a folk instrument after all…” what’d’ya think, you’re gonna play Carnegie hall?
Granted, I am a beginner and it probably takes me longer to figure things out than those experienced pipers.
So to my point: how long to you obsess about your chanter? Do you all get it perfect? Ennis recordings reveal inconsistency. Articles I’ve read about sessions in olden days say tuning perfectly was no big deal. But recordings of Keenan show a very mellow and well-tuned instrument.
It was getting crazy: I was spending my practice time monkying with reeds and such instead of playing… Maybe I could get into grade 2 GHB one day if I fussed so much on my GHBs!
in the beginning I had lots of problems tuning the monstrum
but it becomes more easy (after 4 years)
one year ago it took me appr 30 minutes to tune the drones to the chanter
now maybe 5 minutes (depending on the weatherconditions and most important: my condition)
The best option is to get your tuning as close as possible for an average of circumstances and learn to control and adjust your intonation while playing.
I have read posts where some skip certain embellishments they have learned in certain weather conditions.
It is amazing how conscious one has to be to play this instrument. What I mean is, on piano or GHB or, I think, most instruments, one learns until it becomes automatic: a muscle memory. But that does not seem appropriate here. Rather, with this instrument, the challenge is to have the ability to constantly be aware and controlled and conscious while playing. If I played UP all by “unconscious automatic muscle memory” I suppose it would only sound good when the environment matched the circumstances in which I learned the tune…
By intonation i mean what I say, intonation the pitch of each note in relation to your drones (and/or the people you’re playing with). You use bag pressure, fingering and what have you to adjust if necessary.
I don’t think it’s unusual, a fiddleplayer has to adjust his intonation, as do flute and whistleplayers. You listen to yourself and you adapt, it’s never a matter of rolling off what you have learnt. Or at least don’t think it should be.
Snoogie is right, you ought to be enjoying yourself just now. Then, sooner or later, with a little more experience you will come to the profound realization that this instrument is rarely in tune for very long.
I estimate that roughly 75-85% of the time, you have to tune as you play… bag pressure, finger gymnastics, chanter off/on knee and other variations for all of the afore mentioned.
If you don’t have drones yet you are wasting your time imho. The chanter is designed to sound good against drones, and will usually fall quickly into line when they are on. Just get it close and go make some music.
Meeting up with some other pipers may put your problems into some sort of perspective.
Allowing you to judge more clearly whether they warrant taking from your practice time or not.
Yes, I’m up here in the Adirondacks in isolation… Haven’t found any local uilleann pipers less than an hour’s drive away (I’m in Glens Falls, NY).
I’ve got to get myself to one of these tionols or workshops or something. The weekend in North Hero VT in August is easy travel from here… got GHB games that weekend this year, though.
Will keep my eye out for workshops etc nearby. I bet there are things going on in Montréal…et puisque j’étais prof de français, je parle assez bien cette belle langue.
Thanks for help all - this forum is clsest thing to tutor and it is been extremely valuable to be…
Seth Gallagher lives somewhere in your state (and if you do not do so already), you ought to take up making your own reeds, and Seth should have everything you need for this.
If you mean 2nd octave B is sharp then that is very common - nothing to get your ball of hemp in a tangle over at this stage. Also, try doing what I do for my sharp top B - play it not with the 2nd and 3rd fingers up as usual, but with the 3d (ring) finger down. That brings my sharp B into tune.
is much better than a flat back D - as you’ve found, it’s much simpler to fix.
also normal. If that is the extent of it, then it sounds like you have a pretty good reed.
Some good points here. This sort of thing used to (and still sometimes does) drive me bats**t insane…I hate playing out of tune…If I played a note sharp against the drones, I instinctively eased off it and then everything was off; if it was flat against the drones, I pushed it too hard and everything would start squeaking like mad…In the end, you have to figure out what is the most painless possible option and work things out from there. Sometimes my second octave E is still a touch flat and I have to push it a bit…This seems like a fairly common problem (listen to Liam O’Flynn…). If I’m playing 1st octave B and holding it for any length of time, I usually vent a few holes to get the tuning right…second octave seems fine (touch wood)…Anyway, Just try and get it as close as you can, tape and rush what you need to, and try not to worry about it too much. Sometimes you’ll occasionally even find that tuning problems go away on their own. Most players when they’re starting out put waaaay too much pressure on the second octave notes and they wind up going waaay sharp. As an exercise, you might try playing high As and Bs and gradually ease off the pressure and see how much you can ease off before you lose the octave. As you grow more accustomed to the instrument, you’ll find more ways to finess your way out of problems.
We’re currently planning a meeting for later this month in Montreal (about 2 1/2 hours from you), and possibly another in late September in or near Sherbrooke (that’s not far from the border with Vermont). Everyone in the club speaks English but if you want to practice your French, I’m sure Christophe and Alain would be delighted.
Nick Whitmer, in Ithaca, is about 3 1/2 hours west of you. He’s a very nice guy. Seth Gallagher’s about 2 1/2 hours south. I’m pretty sure they’d know other pipers in the area.
Living in Glens Falls you are not too far away from East Duram in Greene county (just south of Albany). Irish Arts week has some great UP classes there in July http://www.east-durham.org/irishartsweek/index.htm
and at the end of September, the East Coast Tionol will be held there http://www.eastcoastpipers.com/
This site has just been updated with this years info.
… ain’t it the truth!