Materials required:
Two drinking straws
Tape
Scissors
An appreciation of insanity
Merrily](http://www.rit.edu/~eeg6662/cf/chanter.mp3%22%3EMerrily) Kiss the Quaker
About as well tuned as a real one, too…
[ This Message was edited by: avanutria on 2002-09-28 14:28 ]
O.K. Beth,
What have they been teaching you to smoke up there in Idaho???
This is really funny, and I had a good
laugh on this Sat. morning!!!
Lolly
Are you sure that’s not mexican food resiDOO?
A dedicated effort on yer part…loved it!
My dear Beth, you’re a sick young woman. When are you coming to Salt Lake again so we can see and hear this in person?
Susan
From a technical standpoint… do you prefer the stiffer thin wall clear “Dixie” straws over the more resilient thicker walled “McDonalds” type straws?
Does it still sni.. er sip coke? 
Mike
Beth, that scared the birds silly! SO FUNNY!
Hey, are you going to give us technical info for making this critter? hole location and size? Reed construction?
How cool is that!!! I love it!! Will you tell us how you make it? I’d love to attempt something similar, in my “spare time” (ha,ha if that isn’t ever a joke!) =) But seriously, I would love to know how you made that!
Hey! Now that’s funny. 
Put it on E-Bay as a hand-crafted polymerized dixie-chanter!
I’m stunned. No words can describe what I’m feeling. They say that the pipes stir one’s bowels…or is that blood, I can’t remember. Anyway, consider me stirred.
Well, at least you folks are more appreciative than those at the Boise session last night.
Thin walled works better because the reed lips will move more easily. The reed part is actually the same straw as the rest of the chanter. the yellow part on top is another straw used as a mouthpiece which covers the reed. You don’t need this part but it made the tuning more stable, as otherwise your mouth varies the pressure on the straw, changing the pitch.
So - take a thin straw (got them from my cafeteria at work) and cut the top - hmm how to explain this. You want two flaps, for the reed. Cut the top kind of like a triangle, but not quite - I found that leaving the top edge straight (rather than the point of a triangle) worked better. If you’ve ever seen the reed of a chanter you know what I’m talking about.
Once you have that, you can make it make a ‘tone’. compress the straw with your mouth, somewhat past the base of the reed. You’ll have to experiment, and it takes a LOT of air.
So now you have some semblance of a base note. I guesstimated at this point and cut six holes, using a D as a rough guide for the hole spacing, and making two triangular cuts for each hole, resulting in a diamond shape. I ended up having to tape a couple of the holes partially to tune them. The pitch will also depend on how much air you use - and it seemed to be in a different tune every time I picked it up to play it (kind of like a regular chanter, actually).
Now I had a bunch of toneholes. I found that when I used more air for the higher notes, I ended up pressing harder on the reed and it was impossible to keep a steady pitch. So I made the yellow “mouthpiece” section out of another straw (Fred Meyer brand, I believe). But when I put the one over the other, I had no way to compress the reed, and the air was just blowing through a tube.
A couple of well placed lumps of tape took care of that problem, although it wa a job getting the mouthpiece over the reeds once all that tape was in there. I tried to make a bridle (the little metal bit that goes over reeds in chanters) but didn’t have anything handy that would fit the bill.
Still takes a lot of air to ‘play’, and I don’t have a second octave. I never made the ‘mexican food’ connection myself but that was the IMMEDIATE reaction at the Boise session, so I’d say you guys are spot on, hehe.
I should start a gallery of “Merrily Kiss the Quaker” played on strange and unusal instruments, now I have two](http://www.rit.edu/~eeg6662/storage/Melody_Kiss_the_Quaker.mp3%22%3Etwo) clips of that tune. Unfortunately that means whenever it comes up in session I start cracking up…
[ This Message was edited by: avanutria on 2002-09-29 14:20 ]
Not as good as the Melody Pop version of “merrily kissed the quaker” but definitly more useful as duck call…
falls over laughing
That’s great!! My cat freaked out and ran out of the room, maybe partially because I was cracking up so much. I don’t understand how you could get through playing that without doing the same! 
I should start a gallery of “Merrily Kiss the Quaker” played on strange and unusal instruments,
I say go for it! Listening to these two clips has quite literally been the highpoint of my Sunday, Beth!
Beth:
What was the second instrument? These both cracked me up.
By the way, I was up in one of your neighborhoods last weekend - Henrietta. I have a brother who lives up there.
The second clip is a Melody Pop candy slide whistle. If you visit your brother again between December and May, look me up.
Oh, my eyes are watering. That’s so fun! I am never going to learn this tune. It is already beyond my ability to play without laughing.
Thank you for the clip. I feel better. zzz zzz zz ZZZZ, z ZZ-ZZ zz ZZ ZZ… Ha, ha, ha!
-Patrick
I built a CPVC cornemuse some time ago that uses the soda straw reed. BTW - The reed work better if you flatten the straw slightly.
Daniel, we were discussing something on chat, night before last: Can you make us a bagwhistle?
Yea, I can make you one.
What key do you want the chanter in and
what drone notes do you want?
The current one is in G with D and G Drones
I’ve thought about making one in High-D with Low-D and High-D Drones and a removeable Low-G Drone.