Chiff and Fipple Forums

If you put a really big bag on a very efficient bagpipe you don't have to blow very often. So infrequently, in fact, that you can sing to your own piping. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZI36snntGJE I played Bulgarian pipes for many years and with the chanter having a single reed (like a drone reed)...

Size the bag: A small bag may seem to fit under the arm better than a medium or large bag but the smaller the bag, the more problematic it will be for steady control. I've been piping long enough, 49 years, to have seen a large number of fads come and go. Back in the late 1970s and into the 1980s t...

I've known about them since the 1980s. Their line of bagpipes and piping supplies is marketed under the "piper's choice" name. I've not knowingly heard or seen a set of their Great Highland pipes, but I have tried their Scottish smallpipes which were alright, and their "Border pipes&q...

All three lower-hand fingers down? For sure various fingerings sort of happen in specific passages, the "economy of motion" thing. I can imagine a quick passage in a reel going from Middle D to first-octave B and back xxx|xxx xoo|xxx xxx|xxx or the "rocking" motif B d B e B d B x...

Steady Blowing is a Fundamental Skill Everything comes from tone, and tone comes from steady blowing. It's Job One of the piper. Back in the 1980s a strange hippie-hillbilly guy showed up at music camp. He was self-taught on the pipes. For some unknown reason he had got it in his head that a piper ...

Alright I found the thing! Still with the original top, and sticker which says "The Clare" with a shamrock. The rest rubbed off. Notice the inchoate top, not enough plastic in the mould. I played it just now and it's not all that bad. (Judging by the teeth-marks I must have played it some ...

Somebody once gave me a whistle exactly as you describe. It was in two pieces that came apart, and could be carried easily in a pocket. One piece had a sort of bell-shaped end, so that the other piece would fit inside it. It was a D whistle. This must have been some 30 years ago now. Exactly so, on...

As a reed maker, the bane of my craft is unsteady blowing pipers. And the bane of everyone who tries to set up and tune up a pipe band! Holey moley with some of those pipers there's just nothing you can do, they just can't be tuned up. Soft reeds are not the panacea for poor bag control, something ...

Resale value. A 6 key flute will be easier to sell in many cases than one with 4 or less keys, since those who only “need” 3-4 keys will often be willing to buy a used 6 key flute, but someone who wants or needs a 6 key flute is unlikely to purchase a flute with 4 keys or less. That makes total sen...

I put my COB chanter reed in it and it played very well throughout. I would think a good Reedmaker can make this particular chanter play very well. That's good to hear. McCallum was smart to use their hegemony in the GHB world to sell Uilleann pipes to the vast number of GHB players who are itching...

This discussion came up elsewhere and I asked Terry McGee if he could rank what customers purchase in order of popularity. I was surprised when he said the vast majority order either no keys, or six keys. The no-keys thing isn't a surprise as I've seen a huge number of fluters who play vintage 8-key...

"Fred Morrison" (McCallum) uilleann half-set https://www.ebay.com/itm/204775875574?itmmeta=01HX1D4CRDVPKM2VT2PXCTMH1D&hash=item2fad97e3f6%3Ag%3A99YAAOSwGJ5mNRXP&itmprp=enc%3AAQAJAAAA4Ai%2FKVHk2ATjKoYJxVP6sXJIARRS%2Bny2BM4slobNchOYy8N71luJMZss7sDBXDLmPuWvSksZ08EaBlajbecaCaicGS%2Bpiy...

...mature aged pipers that can no longer muster the will or energy to play hard cane chanter reeds. When a Grade One Worlds-winning tonemeister/reedmaker was setting up our band he asked one of our older pipers "what strength do you blow?" Our mature gent replied "I'm a musician, not...

Having played Irish flute, Irish whistle, and uilleann pipes for many years, and having arranged hundreds of pieces for these Irish trad instruments, I've got spoiled by the fact that on those instruments one can play any tune with all the correct notes in the correct octave. The Highland pipes, as ...

In Janice Dockendorff Boland's book, she cites Quantz as recommending the F# fingering x x x | o x x K Right, that's the sharper Baroque F# fingering. They were into all that enharmonic stuff then. I didn't go into that because the OP was talking about using a Baroque flute for Irish trad (which I ...