After playing well this entire winter in nice 52% RH, my Koehler reed has decided to close up. Question: Does Benedict design his bridle to slide up or down or should I squeeze the bridle?
Thanks
Squeeze that baby with a small pliers. Go gently now!
Patrick.
Actually, you not really want to use a pliers at all. As I understand it (which I may not), Benedict’s design not only doesn’t allow the bridle to slide, it is also designed to be sort of “self-correcting” over time.
Working under the rubric that all changes to a reed should be slight and reversible, the bridle is designed to ‘open’ the lips, not close them. The lips will want to close by themselves, if you want to open them, you hold the staple in one hand to immobilize it, and squeeze the sides of the bridle between your fingers and thumb of the other hand. This temporarily opens the lips just a tiny bit - sometimes you can’t see it, but you can hear and feel the difference when you put it back in the chanter. It appears to alter the stiffness of the reed, without necessarily altering the dimensions. Over time (maybe a few days), it’ll relax, but by then, the humidity etc. may be quite different, and you may not need to re-adjust it.
I have one of his reeds in my Brendan Ring chanter, I live in New England, do not possess a humidifier, and find that a) it’s really stable through the year, and b) it really works. And of course, it sounds great too.
-Frank
Okay Gibbon’s… you asked for it… 
Absolutely, use your fingers if you are strong enough. I sadly am not and bare the physique of a fair young maiden. I too have reeds by Mr. Koehler and find them remarkably stable in a completely different climate at the other end of the country.
Patrick.
There isn’t much I could expand upon in the above blokes’ statements but something alluded to in fgibbons excellent treatise is that changes to made to the lips/aperture may take days to work their effect on the reed. The other thing is to grip the reed with your strong hand (sorry to rub it in, Patrick, oh and I think I’lll kick sand on you at recess now!) really tightly by the staple and tails and then squeeze and hold the blades open for a bit.
t
I’m with Frank on this (hi Frank!).
My notes from a workshop that Benedict gave last year at Chris Langan weekend:
“Don’t use the bridle to change the aperture. It’s better to first try reshaping the cane: squeeze the cane halfway up the reed while holding the bottom of the staple. If that doesn’t work, then try the bridle. There’s a delay effect with the bridle.”
My solution to all this is simpler: I leave the pipes in their case if the humidity is lower than about 45 percent
A wise, wise man… I do the same, or modify the house humidity. Check your local druggist, they may have a really inexpensive humidifier you could purchase.
I’m off to join a gym.
PD.
Naw, all you need is one of these:
I bought one about 15 years ago; it’s indestructable. And after all these years of using it I can now take raw potatoes and squeeze them into mashies with one hand, no problem.
Well, there’s nothing much to add. My fellow F.O.B.s (i.e., Fans of Benedict) have summed up the general advice quite eloquently. I’ll “muddy up the coffee” (as they say in Rockland, Maine) by saying that I do have a BK reed that has a bridle that is designed to be adjustable. It is a reed that was designed for summer use; although, I have used it right through the winter.
Kearnypiper, do go for adjusting the blades first as Frank, Brad, and Tom have described. I want to believe that Patrick is also of this opinion, but he is trying to mislead us. Oh yes… He WANTS us to think that he is too weak to squeeze the blades, when in fact, I would suggest that Patrick’s hands are registered with the FBI as “lethal weapons!” He could kill a man with his thumb and forefinger!
Here’s my final bit of input. 10 digits will solve this dilemma, and I’m not referring to fingers. They are 802-229-0315.
It may be but couldn’t you poke a hole through your hand using one of those?
Thanks to all for your quick replies.
I should have mentioned that I had previously tried Benedict’s “forefinger-thumb” squeeze technique, but it did not help.
Patrick’s recommendation did the trick.
Thanks again
fyi
one must be careful with the squeezing of the reed i do have to confess. i have posted more than once regarding BK’s reeds ( i have several in more than one chanter) in favor of erring on the side of gentleness…
but alas last year, a mere week or two about cautioning Gary in Atlanta about taking pliers to his bridle, and after receiving a call from BK thanking me for my advice to him… i, 5 minutes before an audition for a gig, squeezed with my bare hand (gripping the staple firmly with strong hand) split my most perfect reed… the “reed with no imperfections”… my life has never been the same, and alas… only recently has a new reed introduced itself with similar qualities.
beware…
If I did that they would only come out in the summer… 
Winter in Copenhagen: 10 - 30%
Summer: 60 - 80%
- Not really pipe-friendly country here, adjust adjust adjust…
/Morten
Indeed. What do you think that shower in your bathroom is for?
It’s the same if not worse here in Montréal, where we frequently have several weeks in winter when the temperature never gets higher than -20C and the humidity is very low. But if you have a tight house, lots of house plants, boil water for tea, etc., and don’t keep the place too warm, the climate inside can be quite pipe-friendly. The humidity in our small apartment has only rarely fallen below 45 percent all winter. If I cook pasta, the humidity shoots up to nearly 60 percent and the pipes sound even better. Everyone here used to look forward to eating pasta, but not any more – they now associate it with having to endure the trials of a beginning piper!
I am not a fan of using giant, blue, rubber bridles on my reeds…
t
That’s a good one, Brad! I read somewhere that the humidity in Ireland stays around 70% all year 'round, and IMHO, people get a little hung up on how different their local climate is from there. When speaking about the weather, nobody (in Ireland) ever mentions humidity, presumably because there’s nothing to say… (I mentioned humidity to my aunt a year or two ago, on a hot, “close” day in Kinsale, and she said “Oh, is this what ‘humid’ is like?”)
But you know, most of us play indoors, especially in the winter, and the indoor climate is quite different from the outdoor one. I live in a 75-year-old house - it’s not drafty, but it’s certainly not as tight as newer houses (no Tyvek housewrap, uninsulated plaster walls, fairly tight but old wooden double-hung windows with storms) , and I find the indoor humidity rarely goes below 40%, even when the temperature’s been in the teens (Fahrenheit) for a week.
Now, I think the pipes sound better when it’s up at 60%+, but realistically, I don’t think I could manage to keep it up there in wintertime. I think Benedict does a remarkable job in producing reeds that seem to weather the “continental-climate” seasons of New England. I can’t really compare it to other reed-makers, but I just don’t have the kinds of reed-trouble stories that people have come to expect from pipers.
But to get back to Pat D’arcy’s original point - it’s not that you’re weak (last time we met you were a strappin’ lad!), it’s just that adjustments to the bridle don’t always result in visible changes.
-Frank
That so sad, John. I would almost send you one of my spare KB reeds in D, but I’m saving it in case I return to a D chanter someday. I’m of the opinion that most bridles (and reeds in general) don’t need ANY adjustments that actually take strength of any kind. Of the three BK reeds I have, two adequately adjust the opening by sliding the bridle up or down. On the third reed, the bridle is placed lower towards the staple and won’t stay where you slide it (if you can slide it at all)…because of the tapered edges. Some bridles have a fold in the middle of the reed that sticks out so you can squeeze and tighten it from there rather than gripping it by the edges. So, I know different styles of reeds mean different kinds of adjusting. I prefer a reed with the staple up higher where the edges are more parallel. Then, the slightest movement of the bridle changes the action dramatically.
I find that the low bridge seems to give better tone, less stuffiness, and the reed speaks more easily - that is, provided there are no significant leaks. The high bridle can compensate for lots of things including slight leaks, but at the expense of tone (Just my experience, yours may vary).
I would advise against using your bare hands if and when you do resort to squeezing the bridle. Sometimes I squeeze the bridle with my fingers, but it’s always risky, pliers seem to give more control,. I’ve spolied a number of good reeds (of my own making, at least) through impatience regarding locating my pliers.
I also agree that squeezing the reed cane, with the bare fingers, is the thing to try first. That seems to be more controllable, as the cane has more “give” than a low bridle and thus you can squeeze with finesse.
regards
Bill