I have lately received my Andreas Rogge Practice set.
The first couple of days the chanter was playing
very well, but now I’m surrounded by hot weather
and though the house is closed and the air-conditioning’s
on, the chanter makes loud squeaks at some notes
and some are not even playable.
I have tried opening the reed, but it didn’t really solve it.
Now, I can just put them aside and wait till it cools down,
but on the other hand, I need this set for performing,
and some performances are outside, when it’s hot/damp/wet.
If I don’t have a solution for it now, when I’m inside my house,
then I won’t be able to play them while performing.
Welcome to the world of Uilleann Pipering and if it helps you are not alone with this problem and at least you are not blaming the chanter
Reeds are a nightmare with changes in temperature and humidity and you will have to learn to adjust and possibly make your own reeds to suit your own climate and possibly rush the chanter to compensate for any tuning issues due to climatic changes
Travelling to different parts of Europe with my own pipes has shown that they work well in the UK but travel across to say Roggeland in the height of summer and they stiffen up and collapse only to revive on return to a damper UK
Yesw, I have the same problems as you when I go to France. Next week I will be there again, and the temperature will be well into the nineties! The only reliable solution I have found, courtesy of Chris Bayley, is to actually make a reed for the conditions it is going to be played in. So this year I will take some half-finished reeds and scrape them down over there.
The converse also applies. The reeds I make for the Summer do not like our UK winter climate, and go into a sulk
Thanks for the solution, I actually have one half finished
reed, I’ll give that a go (though I assume that I will
mess the reed up since I’m not experienced enough).
So the bottom line is - Make reeds yourself so you can have
one for each type of weather?
I wonder - statistically - how many pipers actually depend on
their own reeds and not a reedmaker or pipebuilder’s ones?
I personally don’t know any piper that makes his own,
but since there are only 5 UP players in the whole country here..
statistics can go down the drain for me
The air conditioning is probably the biggest part of the problem. You’d be surprised how much humidity it sucks out of the air.
40degrees C is hot but pipes can play in 40C if there’s sufficient humidity. You might find that the chanter runs sharp of A=440, don’t worry about that.
Do keep an eye on the reed and don’t let it close down completely; that can cause permanent damage to the reed.
Yes. After several years of frustration. I dedicated the year 2008 to learn to make my own Irish pipe reeds: NPU Tionol, Willie Clancy School, DUPG Tionol, Heart of the Instrument DVD. Today I have at least three great working own-made reeds for each of my chanters apart from the original reed from the maker. Practically, I have dozens of fine reeds and I do not make them any more, I have so many.
Normally, I make 6 “blank”-reeds before scraping; Usually, 1 of them works great. Another two are just fine; 3 are unusable and recycled.
Every piper must know how to make reeds who lives thousands of miles from the nearest reed-maker. I never learned making reeds for my Hungarian pipes, since in 40 km of range where I live there are 5 excellent Hungarian pipe reed-makers.
Most German pipers have no clue how to make reeds, because they simply visit a DUPG tionol (they have three per year) or go to Thubingen where Andreas solves every problems.
Miki
hmm, i always thought that reeds dislike humidity.. Obviously, i was mistaken! Lets say i do want to start making my own reeds, should i buy the npu kit or perhaps seth’s? Also, npu now have two kinds of canes - california and regular. What kind is best for me? Thanks!
In my experience, air conditioning is second only to central heating for making my reed curl up and dry. Perhaps at home you may want to think about turning the A/C off for a few hours, at least around the time you play?
My new chanter’s reed was a bit homesick for Ireland at first (especially coming to a drier, central-air heated and woodstove-burning environment) but it’s settling very nicely now. I’ve made a point of playing it at least every other day on the theory that it’ll be less likely to “get stuck” in a certain place with regular use. I don’t know if there’s any credence to this or whether it’s due to a whole bunch of factors, but I’d say this reed is twice as stable as it was in April. I’m getting to the point where I can take the chanter anywhere and it stays pretty reliable and reasonably in-tune.
I have a humidity display in the room where i practice and it’s been interesting to track the reed’s “moods” – but it’s now pretty consistently content at 50 - 55%, which is a big improvement over its whingeing about anything less than 65 - 70% when I first got it (though it still really sings at 60%+).
(yes, I spend far too much time with my reed d’you think I should give it a name? )
I´d say that learning to make a reed (though very, very helpful in the end) would be the second step before the first. First you HAVE to learn to adjust (sometimes referred to as “tweeking”) a reed properly. This might cure (let´s say) about 70 % of the reed problems caused by climatic changes. It´s funny to see that the vast majority of beginning (even pretty advanced) pipers have absolutely no idea how to do this. This is but as important as learning tunes and gracenotes. I don´t think it helpful to say: “A good reed rarely sees the piper”. Pipemakers aim at this but have not succeeded (and I think they never will). The uilleann pipe chanter is NOT a wistle (buy and forget) but a “know-how-instrument”. It is important as learning to play to gain this knowledge (back). Adjusting only means to touch the bridle. This is reversible while scraping is not. Only those people who are able to make a reed should be entitled to scrape. Consequence: More than one reed (a range from “hard” to “soft”) is very necessary.
A little hint: Take the two “extreme notes”: The harsh D and the high B and learn to open or close the bridle that they perform properly. If the harsh D “autocrans” it´s too close, if the high B “falls down” it´s too open. If it doesn´t work then get one of the other reeds that suit the climate better. Any properly (and carefully) done (and learned) adjustment only takes a few seconds.
