Ok..so I nearly crapped my pants this morning when I went to my practice room and my chanter was wet! It was only wet near the tone holes. I immediately used a towel to dry it off…but am a little perplexed as to what happened.
My guess is that because the humidity has jumped nearly 30% in three days…the moisture was trying to get into the chanter, but my natural finger oils were preventing it near the tone holes.
I had played it last night (less than 8 hours prior)…and all seemed to be going well. I played it this morning and after about 25 min it came to life and sounded alright again.
I’ve never had a sweaty chanter before… any ideas on what I could to do prevent this from happening again? I could try and dehumidify the area when I play, but now its about 55%…which is a nice humidity. However, I have noticed that my Cnat chanter key and a few of my regulator key don’t want to budge with the higher humidity.
Any tips would be appreciated.
(My set is ebony and nickel-silver by Seth Gallagher.)
Work the keys. Don’t let them stick. What to do with the natural levels of humidity is a personal decision. Some people isolate their pipes and treat the humidity in that one room. To me, this seems too much. If you can’t ever take your ipes out of the house what use would they be? Personally, I just let the pipes adjust to whatever the current conditions are, with no special treatment.
Dan, I fear that St. Peregrine snuck into your practice lair and peed on your chanter a little. But thats ok, because I read somewhere on C & F that 2nd century martyr pee is good for your back D.
Or wait, where am I and why am I wearing a helmet made of bologna?
Aye Captain Dan!!
Good to hear from you after the tionol.
I live just north of you, and what you described is not at all usually. This weird phenomenon has happened on my metal harp strings and pins, flutes (of wood), whistles (of various materials), as well as my pipes.
Advice: keep your pipes in your case when not in use, especially on days of weather shifts, which in this region is almost daily. This seems like a " well duh" sort of thing, but it does help, and although it doesn’t stop humidity changes it does slow the changes and seems to keep reeds and keys happier. Many piper also have cloth wrapping or padding for keeping the wooden pipe parts from banging around in a case, cloth also acts to wisk moisture away from the wood.
If you can find a dehumidifier or small air conditioner for your practice space this is a really boon. You don’t have to take all the moisture out of the air, just enough to keep the room stable. Sometimes merely keeping windows in a room shut can help.
Bear in mind that when this happens, the relative humidity effectively goes over 100%; pretty hard on reeds too. You might want to avoid those temperature extremes in your practice room, or at least keep your pipes somewhere more temperature stable.
I think Chad’s advice is probably the best, keep you pipes in their case when not in use. As Billh mentions, drastic changes in humidity will beat the living crap out of your reeds.
To answer the question of how the moisture finds where you’ve put your hands, the oils from your mitts prevent the wood from absorbing the dew, whereas the rest of the wood soaks it up. That is a guess, but it works for me.
Strange - no one has mentioned the obvious - a good deodorant. Check with your maker as which one is suitable
Seriously a wipe over with a dry lint free cloth would seem best and in future keep the pipes in a dryer warmer atmsophere if possible - a case should help. If problem continues investigate de-humidifiers.
