Does anyone know about how much pressure (by pressure reading instrument) is required to play in the first octave (on the average)?
I’m still squeezing the devil out of this bag and trying numerous reeds without a lot of success. I looked at the tutor on NPU and he is apparently effortless in his playing of notes with no stress on his hands or fingers at all that I can tell. I have to squeeze this bag almost to the bursting point just to get an average note. I suspect something is not right.
4 months now and still no success. I hate to complain but I want to play so bad. My wife says anyone else but me would throw the thing in the woods but I am determined.
I ordered a DVD. Maybe that’l help some. Wish I could try a properly set-up set somewhere for a couple of minutes.
Flying a helicopter is MUCH easier than trying to play this thing.
4 months? Sounds like something’s not right. It shouldn’t take THAT much pressure to get the first octave.
It might be that the lips of the chanter reed are too far open. Adjusting that requires a little pressure on the reed bridle. If you’re not too familiar with reed adjustment you could risk damaging the reed. Is there an uilleann piper anywhere near you? If so, get them to have a look at your pipes.
What about the maker of your pipes? Who is he?
I know somebody who squeezed and squeezed until he ended up injuring his shoulder. Turns out that the reed was simply adjusted wrong, being far too open.
You need to get in the company of an experienced player, who will probably fix your problem immediately.
If there’s nobody around, go to a tionol. There will be a lot of people there who can get your pipes going.
But yes, the chanter should take a moderate amount of pressure, not a huge amount.
I’d say maximum pressure in the first octave for a concert pitch chanter should be about 50 millibar, based on measurements I’ve made (I prefer something like 40 mBar myself). But unless you have a pressure meter that probably doesn’t help much.
Suffice it to say that a child of 9 or 10 ought to be able to push hard enough with practice. So something is quite wrong with your setup… and yes, you’ll injure yourself eventually if you persist with an excessively-stiff reed.
It’s almost light enough that if you inflate the bag, set it down th weight of the bag settling alone should make it squeal. Get the set-up to someone who knows their stuff and get it looked at and find out what to do when the reed gets a little finicky.
I believe the millibar to inches-H2O conversion is about 0.4, thus 50 mbar is about 20" of water. That squares pretty well with your numbers, too.
For what it’s worth, I measured a well-known player of historic flat pipes at 33 to 37 mbar in the first octave, and 39 to 43 mbar in the second octave, That’s a range of from 13" to 17" H2O. I measured another player on a Coyne B set at around 40 to 60 mbar (but I thought the second octave above G was a bit stiff on that chanter/reed).
It’s surprising how much harder, subjectively, 50 mbar feels than 35 mbar… it “feels” like double the pressure although in reality it’s only 40 percent.
I noticed the same thing setting up a flat set. Above 25" things get ridiculously hard. I suspect that the effort needed to produce a marginal increase in pressure at the stock starts to rise geometrically as pressure rises. Leverage on the bag, stretch, loss due to leakage must contribute.
My take on it is a little different… Since a 10% difference in pressure is quite noticeable, even on the low end, I suspect the effect is due to a “nonlinearity” in our muscular feedback.
THE BEST EXPENDITURE of money at this point in the game would be to get to a tionol. There’s is going to be an excellent one in St. Louis. There will loads of knowledgeable people there who would like nothing more than to help you out with your pipes.
Traveling 100s of miles to a tionol sounds like a crazy thing to do, but everyone is friendly, the tuition is superb, and you will have spent your money wisely.
best of luck and mind your shoulder. you absolutely, 100%-ly should not be struggling (physically) to play this instrument.
I would get in touch with Pat Sky. North Carolina is only a couple of hours across and I think he recently offered a reedmaking weekend that you could attend to get some reed making experience to go with a couple of new reeds
Not really… Kinston to Spruce Pine is a long drive [], and muskrat has already indicated that long drives are a problem for him.
edited to add:
[] - Google Earth optimistically says 5 hours 53 minutes
No soldering necessary, just superglue (handelsübliches 12er T-Stück). You can stick it for test´s sake betwixt any chanter and bag. As said above, you hardly need it though and I had to search for it, evict the spiders and clean it a little. At least anyway it
sharpens your awareness for pressure phenomena and its relativity. See what is written above and some sets seem to play themselves while some older and worn out ones can cause lots of strain just to gain the same pressure level (and you get the feeling of squeezing your eyes out of your head)
enables you to communicate pressure
it satisfied my curiousity (IMO opinion there are “Ruck-zuck-ist-die-Fresse-dick”-movies that definitely are less interesting than watching the monometer´s hand move up and down while practising a tune)
I found the manometer on Ebay. The range from 0 to 60 millibars is most suitable for pipes.
Cheers,
Hans
