I was shown some very interesting drone reeds the other night made by Dave Williams .I have seen reeds like it before as the tongue was split from the bottom of the reed up towards the closed end . The owner didn,t know why they they were done this way as it didn,t seem to make any difference to the tone or tuning The reed was also flattened with some black wax on the tongue that had a sliver of lead embedded in it anyone come across reeds like this
RORY
I was shown some very interesting drone reeds the other night made by Dave Williams .I have seen reeds like it before as the tongue was split from the bottom of the reed up towards the closed end . The owner didn,t know why they they were done this way as it didn,t seem to make any difference to the tone or tuning The reed was also flattened with some black wax on the tongue that had a sliver of lead embedded in it anyone come across reeds like this
RORY
This style of drone reed (reverse tongue) is illustrated in Allan Moller’s reedmaking video. Never got it to work …
djm
Yes DJM It was Allan Mollers Idea to make drone reeds this way. He once told me that he did it that way because in his opinion it was more stable and he found they worked better then the usual way.
I have had Moller drone reeds for about 9 years (same reeds) never had any problems with them.
For swedish bagpipes people are split in two camps regarding what direction to cut the tongue, the peole who use Arundo Donax ususlly cut it towards the closed end, and the people who use native swedish reed usually cut it in the other direction. The advantage with cracking the tongue towards the closed end is that you don’t have to make a bridle if you have good measures. This holds for both the drone and chanter reed for swedish bagpipe.
best wishes, Anders
Hi Rory,
I’m trying to visualise what this looks like. Do you mean that the tounge is the opposite to what is conventionally done? WHich end do you stick into the reed seat. The open end still?
Cheers,
DavidG
Weight on the tongue will force the reed so far down it will eventually jump and speak in it’s second octave, where it has more stability.
Inverting tongues is quite common in the GHB world - same ideas, more stable, lasts longer. Not many GHBers put weight on the tongue (we’ve all long since gone to plastic anyways), though it’s common on other instruments like NSP, SSP, or Border pipes. Just flattens the tongue off a bit.
Never come across this jumping the octave business, though it doesn’t sound unreasonable. I take it you have to redesign the reed from scratch if you’re going to do this, Peter?
Cheers,
Calum
Geoff Wooff has always used that principle in drone reeds, as far back as I can remember (which is back to 1983).
At the tionol in Spanish point last year he did a talk on this, i heard some of it (had heard it all dozens of times before over the years anyway). the idea is that the weight slows dow nthe reed, you reach a point though where it sudenly jumps to it’s higher ocatve. Compare chanter reed: higher octave has more stability. Whatever the way, it works.
Either I read about that, and it was probably written by Geoff, or a conversation I had with him, can’t remember. Did he have an article in An Piobaire about it? Or was it somewhere else. It’s a good one for those nasty middle drone problems like too much air…
Alan
Alan tell me more about the middle drone.. too much air syndrome?
I am a sufferer! how can I cure this?
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RORY[/quote]
Hi Rory,
I’m trying to visualise what this looks like. Do you mean that the tounge is the opposite to what is conventionally done? WHich end do you stick into the reed seat. The open end still?
Cheer
DavidG[/quote
Picture a normal cane drone reed set in the drone but instead of the tongue split from the top of the reed towards the drone the cut is made from the drone end of the reed and split away from the drone with the bridle placed on the reed end furthest from the drone
RORY
…basically, look at a standard cane drone reed, reverse the cut of the tongue, and there you have it. Instead of the ‘floppy-end’ of the tongue facing out, it is now facing in. Other than that, the drone reed isn’t altered in any other way.
or,
make a drone reed the normal way, unblock the top and block up yer bottom and insert it upsidedown.
Alan
On the same video, Moller suggests using the inner, concave side of the cane, instead of the outer, convex side of the cane. As with the reverse tongue, he says he gets good results from this method.
djm
Here are my Dave William’s spare drone’s reeds. In fact, I just noticed that the spare bass reed was a “regular” one, so I add the one which is currently on my set for the picture. By the way, on my set, the tenor reed has no black wax on the tongue.
