Is there a trick to hinder the off-the-knee “tinker’s” e jumping the octave? The problem arises when I hit the cross chord G-C on the regulators. It’s possible to play the e on the chanter and the cross chord, but the zone for (1) activating the regulators (giving them enough air to properly sound, especially the bass) and (2) having the e on the chanter jump the octave is very narrow. Is there a taping or a rushing solution that might make this easier? Thanks!
Are you sure you’re not getting out of shape during this movement, shifting your grip slightly and causing a tiny leak at a critical finger hole or getting the open end of the chanter too near part of your leg as you pass into the new position ? Either of these things could cause the jump in octave.
Also, have you tried playing the E with only the E hole open ?
I know that leakage may be the culprit and have been trying like mad to prevent that. I think I’ve eliminated that possibility.
By only the E hole open, do you mean the bottom most hole? I’ve been playing it with the 2nd from the bottom open (ring finger raised, lower hand). This results in a sharper E, but prone to jump the octave. When I play it with only the lowest hole open (little finger “pinky” raised, lower hand), the result is a flatter E, BUT no octave jumping! It sounds good in that cross chord combination, though (especially G baritone/C bass). I’m actually amazed at how good it sounds. 
Is this what you meant? If so, thanks so much!
Well, different chanters and reeds can throw up varying results but I often lift just my ring finger for E’s, even ‘on the knee’ ( although I don’t expect that to work for most chanters) but then I get a lower pitched E which is flat enough to make nice chords with D-F# and A on the regs…
So much of this is Chanter/Reed dependant and some experimenting with fingerings might find a sweet spot with your set up. I can imagine that having just the lowest hole open and chanter off knee with a concert D might work.
There are two basic positions for the E note that appear to be chordiale for our purposes and these are +4 cents and Minus 10 cents to the absolute drone pitch ( the pitch to which every other note is tuned)… so, even if your E is close to these values or relative, in consideration of where the regulator notes are when you arrive at the pressure equilibrium needed to sound all the notes together, then nice things will start to happen!
I’m happy if something worked for you,
Cheers,
Geoff.
Thank you again very much. This is extremely helpful!
Just to follow up for the sake of documentation in case any others are interested:
If I cut the one-fingered (lowest hole, pinky open) hole produced E with an A, it creates a “hard E” (analogous to the hard D), thus raising the pitch a tad and making the combination with the G baritone/C bass regulator notes sound really, really nice.
Thanks again for getting me to think about things “outside the box.”
This “thinking outside the box” is what can turn Piping into Music. I feel there can be a too blinkered approach to fingerings. If we think ; the highest open hole governs the basic pitch of the note but what we do with the holes below it affects the tone and tuning of that note, including that vital hole at the far end. The harmonic content of the note can be adjusted with changes to fingerings and experimentation is the name of the game.