I embarked upon this long journey approximately 2 months ago, after being a Scottish Piper for the better part of a decade. I’m 26, and decided that if I was ever going to tackle the pipes I so wanted to play deep in my heart of hearts, I’d better start now. So I ordered a practice set. I’ve recently lined up a few lessons. And I’ve got a few questions for y’all.
This is me chugging along at The Heather Breeze, which I’ve been working on for a week. Tempo is something I’ve been working on - and I struggle with it - especially with the camera. I know it is far from perfect, but If anyone would like to tell me their thoughts I’d appreciate it. This instrument is incredibly important to me - and I will always strive to reach my full potential - wherever that may be.
My practice set is a Student Starter Set from Childress, which I must admit I was attracted to as he has an offer open allowing you to trade in and apply the cost of the Practice Set toward a Full or Half Set. I am aware of the lead time, and would ideally like to start tackling Full Set challenges next Summer. My question then is: How does one know when one is “ready” for a Full Set? What should I be thinking about? What should I sound like? I know this question might just be baggage from my experience learning the GHB, but I want to respect the tradition and the pipes, and not get too haughty with a hasty acquisition.
Lastly, any thoughts about Bruce’s pipes? They look gorgeous, but I have a difficult time finding videos and samples of them. Someone get me more excited than I already am!
Now, the next problem is that I’m an interloper - I’m not an actual piper, so can’t really answer your questions. They’ll be along in a minute, I’m sure. Meanwhile, that sounds pretty good to me for 2 month’s playing, existing (different kind of) piper or not. FWIW, I’ve always thought that was a hard tune, on flute at any rate.
You’re far ahead of where I was two months in, though I had no previous highland piping experience. Sounds great for a beginner!
IMO, you’re ready for a half or full set as soon as you can afford them. It’s good to get used to the whole kit laying on your lap, and to play the chanter without interfering with the regulator keys, long before you are ready to actually use the regulators.
I’ve never played anything made by Childress, so I have no valid opinion on his work. If you are closer rather than farther to your pipe maker, that is a Good Thing in general, else you will be learning very quickly the hard way to adjust your reeds and do your own maintenance, and in the long run you will want to learn to make your own reeds. If you can get to where some other pipers are, at a tionól for example, try to play as many sets of different makers that you can. At the very least, listen to sound/video clips of pipes of different makers. You may like some much better than others.
That’s what I suspected about the Full Set. Uilleann Pipers are so much more flexible about these things than are Highland Pipers. I’m not making a judgement call or anything - it’s just a bit jarring - though in a refreshing way. It’s harrowing yet liberating to be told by my instructor to “Get the basic tune down, then add things in that you think sound good.”
I’m in the early stages of being involved with the GNIPC (Great Northern Irish Pipers’ Club) here in the Minneapolis-St. Paul Metro. I’m heavily interested in attending some of the local sessions (backed by the local Center for Irish Music) as well - with an attitude for listening mind you. Maybe in a couple months I’ll work my way up to playing at the beginners’ session Sunday afternoons. I feel extraordinarily fortunate to live in an area with such a thriving Irish Trad. community as this.
I do fully intend on developing my reed-making skills, however. Whenever I hear a chanter that just sounds AMAZING it’s nearly always a user-created reed. I would imagine that skill combines the technical expertise of actually making the reed with intimate knowledge of your own playstyle and the capabilities of the chanter. Extraordinary.
I’d say you’re doing great, Alex! You are off to a good start, for sure. And as you say, you are in a terrific place for Irish traditional music, especially piping.
You sure sound way better than I did after 2 months. At that point (8 years ago) I had been playing highland pipes for 35 years. I think you’ve got really great potential. Get on it!
When I was just starting out on uilleann pipes a veteran piper told me it was better to play with the drones fairly early in the learning process. His philosophy was that a beginner could, if playing the chanter only, exaggerate the pressure-differences required for various notes.
It’s not an issue on the Highland pipes, because if the chanter is set up correctly you use exactly the same pressure for all the notes. On the uilleann pipes (as you have discovered) different notes require different pressure to sound correctly, yet these pressure differences, if the chanter reed is adjusted just right, are subtle. I’ve often seen beginners wildly overblow the 2nd octave and underblow some notes in the low octave; if they were using drones they would hear the drones’ pitch going all over the place, and they would (hopefully) learn to keep the chanter in a narrower window of pressure.
Now, that was that old guy’s theory. I’m not saying it’s right or wrong for you.
The biggest challenge I had adding drone from practice set was the setting up the reeds so that drones and chanters were balanced. Building my own drone set made it tougher, but I did learned a lot. With practice setup, we tend to play chanter reed that is out of balance and too strong, because we can . I ended up having to ease my chanter reed a lot. Having someone else set up the pipe would have made things easier. The second challenge is amount of pumping needed with drones. I am just getting used to that now (after about a month of practice) Beyond that, I am still messing with proper posture and air hose length. I don’t want to relearn the posture if i upgrade to a regulators.
anyway, I agree that halfset is the way to go . I love having drones.
