Is the imprtance of reed making lost on aspiring pipemakers

Uilleann Pipes
1

Hi all :smiley:

It strikes me that recently that the growth of aspiring pipemakers has been truly exponential.
One only has to look at the vast amount of discussion in the many uilleann pipe forums, the availability of plans and the vast web resources that are now available. I’m sure that in previous generations this amount of information available would have been like all christmas’ had come at once.
In my belief this is the only way to rid the Global Uilleann pipe community of sub-standard pipes and therefore raise the bar in terms of true quality. We can this has alrady been done by some new generations of masters such as:

Benedict Koehler and David Quinn
Cillian Ó Briain
Andreas Rogge
Geoff Wooff
J. Bourke R.I.P
D. Williams R.I.P


Therefore by aspiring to these and past masters maybe some day all sets of pipes will be like the ones we all dream about.

However I do notice that amonst the all of the information that is being passed about from master to novice or in indeed novice to novice the information on reedmaking is minor in comparison.
We all talk about making pipes like the modern and past generation of craftsmen but the fact that these names were all great reedmakers before pipemakers is sometimes lost. Today reedmaking somtimes seems to be an afterthought, so therefore how then can an aspiring pipe-maker judge the quality of their work if they do not have a sound reed making basis by which to compare the instruments performance.

In my humble opinion there are some sets being made and sold that are not worth the materials they were made from and if we look at these sets the quality of the reed making is always worse. I’ll bet that this is the begining af all sub-standard pipes

I think all pipers should at some point be a reedmaker but i really think that anyone who is attempting to make pipes whould at the very least be able to reed their own set consistantly and make that set perform at the peak of its ability.

I’d be very interested to see how many aspiring pipemakers we have here and then find out just how many are not proficient reedmakers? The results would be interesting i’m sure.

I’m very interested to here any responses and in the extreme case that anyone may somehow be offended in any large or small way I would like to offer apologies and say there is no part of this intended to offend anyone, it is purely a topic for debate and discussion

Look forward to hearing some replies, especially pipemakers :laughing:

2

It’s KOEHLER & QUINN..not KOEHLAR..
It’s BURKE..not “BOURKE”
It’s O"BRIAIN..not “O’BRIAN”
It’s ROGGE..not "ROGGUE
And it’s WOOFF..not “WOLFF”

If your going to start WWIII on this forum at least you can spell the names right.. :laughing:

3

Um, actually it IS “Bourke”…

You’re right on the others’ names though…

4

Damn..and I was on a roll too!! :sniffle:

5

If you start correcting spellings and grammar here, you’d do nothing but that (by the way, the correct contraction of ‘you are’ is 'you’re; ‘your’ is a possessive pronoun :wink: )

Let the man be heard!!! :smiley:

6

I’m correcting Pipe makers names..not grammer. :wink:

7

*Grammar :boggle:

Mukade

8

Juddge yee nott,unles yoo bee judgeed !!!

RORY

9

:laughing: :laughing: :laughing:

10

To get serious for a moment…

It’s a shame, but it seems as if isolated pipers almost have to learn how to reed their own sets.

I have had no good chanter, drone or regulator reeds from the makers of my pipes with the exception of a loaner chanter reed from one of them. These are well known makers that have been making pipes for quite a while.

I should have bought that reed as I still haven’t made a good one myself yet, but I do have two working reeds for that chanter. Both of those have some problems that I believe I could overcome with my own reeds, but it is hard for me to get back into the reedmaking mode as I have had health problems that have made me too weak to play pipes for about 3 months.

Of course, other than my concert D half set, my C set is a mixture of makers and none of them has had the whole 3/4 set to work with, so that may have added to my problems.

11

Hello all :smiley:

I apologise for my spelling of names and as can be seen i have edited accordingly.

Just to state once more this is just a topic for discussion and debate not to offend or argue about.
So barring any further debate on my knowledge of English grammar if we could debate the issue at hand it would be nice :wink:

12

I just finished making a chanter. Had it not been for the knowledge I have of reed making, I probably would’ve thrown the chanter in the garbage.

Perhaps the best lesson I have learned is that the pipe and the reed have an interdependent relationship. DM Quinn implies this in his book, “The Pipers’ Despair”, in which he states his reluctance to provide measurements for a reed that will fit your chanter. He notes that, in general, chanters (even those made by the same maker) vary, sometimes wildly, in their characteristics and behavior.

In the process of pipemaking, someone has to know something about reeds.

I would find it very difficult to be a pipemaker if I was not first a piper.

DM Quinn also said in one of his writings that, on some level, he and other pipemakers felt that they had to make pipes. This is the way I felt too. I certainly wasn’t going to wait another four years for someone else to make me a new set of pipes after I sold my pipes to pay for a lathe. I had learned to make reeds, and I had enough of an obsession to begin investigating pipemaking, mostly to learn to make myself a set of pipes the way I wanted them.

The only thing I have ever identified with as a craft, art, trade, livelihood, whatever you want to call it has been playing the pipes. In fact, a lot of the time it has had the opposite effect of what the traditional livelihood is supposed to provide - stability and financial security and that stuff. I am sure any of the women that have ever been in my life along the way would’ve called it an illness.

Learning to make reeds was a step along the path, and in my experience it has been absolutely crucial, not because I am a pipemaker, but because I am a piper.

I don’t think it is a crime to make pipes and not make reeds. I have heard people say that it was easier for them to make a set of pipes than it was to make the reeds. After all, there are a lot more machinists out there than there are pipers.

There are substandard pipes out there, but hopefully as all this new information and awareness spreads and more people learn about the instrument, such substandard instruments will go through a process of natural selection.

Tim

13

Aren’t these two statements in direct opposition, in practice?

I don’t see how it is possible to make good pipes without at least being able to make good reeds. In the absence of a close reedmaker/pipemaker partnership such as Koehler and Quinn have had, I don’t see how a person can make decent pipes without reeding them. In the K & Q example, David Quinn is also an expert reedmaker (possibly before Benedict, though I don’t know that). I doubt that David could have become so skilled as a maker without that reedmaking expertise, and I don’t think that he has by any means stopped making reeds.

As you point out, the reeds and pipe bores are utterly interdependent. A set of pipes cannot achieve its “voice” without matching reeds. Considering the variability of materials and processes involved in pipemaking, tuning and voicing a set of pipes “by number”, i.e. without the reeds, doesn’t seem feasible.

Bill

14

The thing is, a good reedmaker can get & make a poor chanter playable within reason, but I still maintain a chanter that is easy to reed up is a good chanter. all the best.

15

I didn’t intend them to be in direct opposition. What I meant was, somebody has to reed the pipes, be it the person who made them, or someone else. Not everyone is making pipes for a living, and if a machinist wants to make himself a set of pipes and have his buddy reed it up, what’s the harm in that?

If on the other hand you are going to commit to selling them, you have a certain responsibility for quality.

I made the chimey heights too low and probably undercut the holes too much on the last chanter I made. I reduced the staple volume and it seems to have worked. (progress not perfection.)

I probably spent an equal amount, if not more time learning about reeds and discussing it with others. I think I am probably more familiar with reeds than I am with pipemaking, but there are days when I don’t know a damn thing about either . :slight_smile:

16

Do you think it’s the lack of embouchure that makes UP chanter reeding so difficult?

I mean, I know professional double-reed players (nearly all, if not all, of whom make their own reeds) get a few days out of a reed. They make them all the time and they can make them reliably.

It seems rather common that it’s incredibly difficult to make a chanter reed . . . but then again, a good chanter reed can last for years, so if you only have the one set (for example), how much of a sinner are you if you can’t keep your skills up in the intervening years?

Stuart

17

Short answer is “yes”, I think. Also there’s the issue of standardization - modern oboes are much more standardized in terms of bore, staple, etc.

18

The embouchure on a double reed instrument allows a significant dimension of control of the reed opening and vibrating length of the blades.

In the example of the bassoon, this means that different areas of the tip vibrate for each register, for example the wings for the very low notes and the central area for very high notes. This is essential to get the range of 3 1/2+ octaves.

But bore designs are not that standardized. Many makers have used Heckel instruments as a basis for their designs then adapted the bore over time. Different wall thicknesses, hole placements, and wood also affect bore design. The upshot is that reed shape is important - particularly the width of the tip and the throat volume - and must be matched with the instrument and bocal. Blade length is used to tune the reed.

There are a vast number of bocal variations (equivalent to the staple) in terms of bore, material, wall thickness and length, and can have a huge effect. There are also varaiations in oboe staple bore and wall thickness.

Overall though, I’ve found the challenges of getting a bassoon reed to work much easier than producing a responsive, in-tune UP reed. The ability to bring a note into tune with your embouchre makes life a great deal easier.