OK, not being able to leave well enough alone, I felt the need to adjust my reed (when I probably should have just used rushes). To make a long story short, I now have it almost back to where it was but back D is weak and almost indistinguishable from C.
how can I fix this? - and I promise never to screw with my reed again till I know more about it.
Jeff
Actually… you should screw around MORE now than you did before. What better chance do you have to experiment and learn which adjustments get which results? Basically, it’s sink or swim time 
Just kidding on the sink or swim… we have no intentions of letting you drown. I think it’s best to experience for yourself how small adjustments can get big results. I recall you ordered at least one spare reed, so relax. Don’t play the spare reed yet, just look at the location of the bridal and check out the opening of the reed lips (elevation) and adjust the original reed to match the spare. That may not be the optimum setting, but it’s a starting reference.
Most important is maintaining temperature & humidity control of the room you’re playing in. You know now that a perfectly adjusted reed might not play at all with a relative humidity drop of 30 or 40 percent.
Post back on your results and if you’re not able to get the reed going we’ll take it to the next step.
Hey Tony, hey Jeff.
I hope you don’t mind my butting in, but I too have been having reed difficulties; one day it’s damn near perfect, the next day it’s a whiny hissing thing that requires lots of fiddling.
I’ve been able to set it up so that it is clear and bright for a day or so, but even under similar temp/humidity conditions, within a few days (but usually the next day) the C and the back D is very very easy to overblow, and the low D will often be impossible to get in without a screech and gurgle. Could it be that the bridle is slipping? Any ideas? And just how much fiddling with the bridle and reed depth in the chanter should one go about doing, anyway?
Thanks,
Mark
[ This Message was edited by: jqpublick on 2002-01-19 04:17 ]
Mark, jump in… that’s what an open forum is all about.
If you suspect the bridal is moving when the reed vibrates, use some ‘sticky-tack’ or beeswax around the bridal to hold it in place.
As said before… adjustments should be minimal (one mm in either direction often determines hell or happiness). Reeds are pliable and thought you can ‘bend’ a reeds shape to play at a specific moment in time, the bending stress is still there and will continue to change the shape of the reed. When you return, the reed won’t play the same as you left it.
I had one reed that sounded good and played well, but it wouldn’t hold it’s setting for very long. I would drop the bridal when I was finished playing and reset it when I came back to play. This wasted much time each practice tweaking the reed… I ended up trashing it.
Mark,
I’ve had the same problem too. Just when I think it’s playing great, it shoots craps the next day.
Has anyone developed a decent plastic reed?
any hints on how to increase the tonal change between c and back d?
Jeff
ok actually I fixed the back D and C thing (sealed the edges of the reed with beeswax to fix an air leak) and the whole thing is actually in tune now, but… and there’s always a “but” it seems… bottom D gurgles a little and it hard to push into the upper octave.
so what is really the hard thing about this instrument? the playing or the maintenance?
Jeff
“so what is really the hard thing about this instrument? the playing or the maintenance?”
Looks like a bit of both and hopefully not maintenance while playing !
Considering the size and shape of the chanter and the sounds it makes… we’re really asking the reed to do a lot. What other instrument sounds so awesome ??
[ This Message was edited by: Tony on 2002-01-19 13:12 ]
On 2002-01-19 12:16, anima wrote:
snip… bottom D gurgles a little and it hard to push into the upper octave.so what is really the hard thing about this instrument? the playing or the maintenance?
I have found that a gurgle on the hard bottom D can sometimes be cured by taking a small amount of thin cardboard or paper and slipping it up inside the bore at the bottom of the chanter (the end that rests against the leg).
It requires a little bit of experimentation to find the right amount of thin cardboard/paper required, but I’d start with a piece about an inch long, by about 3/4 of an inch wide. Slip that up the bottom of the chanter and play the hard bottom D and see what sort of effect it has. Sometimes you’ll need to add a bit more, sometimes you’ll hit on the right amount straight away
Now, if only someone could tell me how to help keep my regs in tune overnight! My chanter and drones stay in tune really nicely, but I have to spend quite a while each time I play getting the regulators back in tune. Are regulator reeds more prone to problems like this as compared to chanter reeds? An enquiring mind would love to know
All the best,
Steve
On 2002-01-19 13:11, Steve Turner wrote:
Now, if only someone could tell me how to help keep my regs in tune overnight! My chanter and drones stay in tune really nicely, but I have to spend quite a while each time I play getting the regulators back in tune. Are regulator reeds more prone to problems like this as compared to chanter reeds? An enquiring mind would love to know >
reg reeds play only a few notes so they should be easier to fit and to keep going. And they are, I find anyway. You need to take them for a bit of excercise every day to keep them steady (like the other reeds).
The best thing is to set up the whole reg slightly sharp, then rush it down to the proper pitch but do it in such a way that you are able to move the rushes enough to keep the tuning where you want it in most circumstances.
Thanks for the advice Peter. I’ll do what you suggested tomorrow and tune the regs a bit sharp, and use the rushes and a touch of blue-tack (if necessary) to flatten things down to the right pitch.
By the way, I think we met each other (at least in passing) a few years ago, at the NPU Tionol in Rosslare. If our paths cross again, I’ll be sure to say hello, and perhaps we could have a few tunes together…I could certainly learn a lot from playing with better players such as yourself
Thanks for your advice and best wishes,
Steve
Steve, I have a bit of wire up each reg and bluetack under each note as necessary, stick the bluetack a bit down from the actual hole, towards the reed so you can move it in and out when the reeds change. Shape the blue tack in such a way that it doesn’t choke the reg and doesn’t cause to much turbulence inside the bore. Try find a set-up in which you can keep the regs in under most circumstances. Start bringing the higher notes in tune and work your way down. It will take a bit of experimenting finding a set-up that will work in most circumstances but once you have it you can control most of the tuning by moving the tuning pin.
[ This Message was edited by: Peter Laban on 2002-01-20 06:04 ]
Jeff, what’s the update ??
I’ve got more normal temps & humidity here… all my chanters (3 D’s, 1 C & 1 B) are back to playing and less tweaking. I did have to rebind the wood stock that attaches the bellows inlet to the bag, for the second time, but that’s just a place that gets much stress. Are you having better luck with the reeds yet ?
I did a few things this weekend that got my reed back to sounding great.
I sealed the edges of the reed with beeswax and this fixed the weak C and back D.
I also used a bit of beeswax to hold the bridle in place as it kept slippin down after I would get it set just right.
I rushed up to the C hole with a fat piece of bass guitar string to get all the notes in sync - this also seemed to fix the bottom D gurgle.
I also bought one of those cheap plastic soap cases for travel. I punched a bunch of holes in the top and then put a wet sponge in it.
This has been keeping the humidity in my pipe case at about 60%
There are some great reed resource sites with troubleshooting tips on the web that I found, especially Dave Daye and Seth Gallagher’s web sites.
It has been a frustrating week, but I learned alot about how this thing actually makes sound and why it sounds like it does. The reed no longer scares me (as much as it did).
Jeff
Jeff… that’s great news !!
Your reed adjusting skills will improve as time goes on and the reed should settle-in requiring less tweaking…
Depending on your practice schedule, you should be passing (if not already passed) the cramped hand stage.
Are you learning to read music in your practice?
You know, now that I think about it, I haven’t really had a bad cramp in a few days now… so either I’m getting past that stage or I’m not practicing enough.
What I have noticed though is that I have to go back and work on the pump squeeze thing as it seems I’ve gotten a bit lazy and have caught myself pumping through the bag. 
I am using both Clarke’s tutor as well as the NPU videos - so it’s kind of a combination of reading music and then commiting the tune to memory.
Jeff
Hey all.
Uhh… should one learn to read music? I haven’t yet, partially from laziness and partially from the notion that this kind of music is ‘supposed’ to be learned by ear.
Mostly, I’d say it’s from pure laziness. I’d rather learn a tune than learn how to read a tune… When I was learning guitar a friend of mine used to give me tablature for tunes and although I learned the tunes, the music took a long time to be actual music, not just strung-together notes, which is what it usually was.
It would take long sessions of frustrated listening to get what I read to mesh with what I heard. Now, I don’t know if it’s that way for everyone, but that’s the way it is for me. Perhaps if I’d learned to read the music I could play more fluently what was there to be played, but it never seemed to work for me.
And Anima, what do you mean by ‘pumping through the bag’? I’ve never heard the term before. It sounds like a bad thing.
Mark
Mark,
Learn to read music… it doesn’t have to be your main focus, but it will give you assistance learning tunes without having to have previously memorized the melody.
Besides, the knowledge can be applied to other instruments. I bought a small Casio keyboard to help my piping.
pumping through the bag…
Perhaps a better way would be to describe it as playing with the bellows instead of the bag - forgetting to squeeze the bag and just using it as a large and funky shaped tube attached to the chanter.
Jeff
Hey all.
Okay, now I understand what you meant, Anima. I’ve usually simply forgotten to pump until the bag is WAY empty and then suffered the embarassing silence for a note or two, sometimes completely derailing the tune. Okay, usually completely derailing the tune.
I’ve been doing some pressure/sustain/bag-bellows practice for a while and I seem to have mostly gotten over the worst of those kinds of difficulties; what I have to do now is practice using ornamentations. Anyone have any suggestions?
And just as a smirk-inducing aside, after my babble earlier about finally getting my reed properly set up, and how easy it is, (pride does us all in, doesn’t it?) I picked up my set today and the reed was wildly out. I spent more than half my practice session fiddling with it before getting it to the point that the back D wasn’t constantly sinking.
See, it’s pretty cold here in Winterpeg and I’d gone to a friend’s place to do some playing, and to keep the reed and chanter from completely freezing I’d wrapped it in a good thick wool sock.
(Just as a warning for all you other cold-climate pipers, wool socks suck humidity out of reeds. Completely. All of it. So don’t use socks as chanter wraps.)
Of course, I didn’t figure this out until I’d toyed with the reed and practiced, toyed, practiced… finally got the reed properly set up, felt all proud and then realized that if I’d just been a)patient and b)smart enough to take the sock off the chanter when I got home… . Ah, well. I chalk it up to a learning experience.
Mark