Chiff and Fipple Forums

Does anyone make one?

From what I've hear Swedish pipes aren't that loud, there's probably little demand for such a thing. I did attend a talk on them a couple of years ago and the speaker (Olle Gallmo?) said that they have a tendency to play flat as moisture collects on the reeds (his own set was bellows blown) I can't imagine a practice chanter being very stable.

the reason I ask, is I recently saw a picture of a set, that came with one, but no provenance and no reeds... just trying to figure out who the maker is/was... worried that the Pakistani makers have moved into the Swedish pipes market...

Seth Hamon makes Swedish Bagpipes. He'd probably make you a practice chanter with no problem!

http://www.swedishbagpipes.com/Home_Page.php

Seth makes plastic pipes and you likely saw one of his plastic chanters, it's not a practice chanter. My friend got an brown plastic one for free with a used set but it sounds absolutely miserable, it sounds like plastic. Säckpipa are easy enough to learn without pulling out the chanter. As mentioned, if you blew it directly with the mouth moisture would collect on the reed and clog it, even synthetic reeds. The set I play is bellows blown because I got so sick of mouth blown reeds being too temperamental, and also my pipes have three drones so it would be a nightmare keeping all those stable if it wasn't bellows blown.
Can you post a picture of the set in question. Occasionally I've seen Pakistani ones on ebay and from what I hear they are not even serviceable.

In defense of Seth's injection molded pipes, sackpipa and others, they don't sound like 'cheap plastic' I've heard several and they sound and work nicely. His reeds are well respected too.

Walsh's smallpipes don't sound like toys either.

this was NOT one of Seth's plastic sets.

Yes, Seth can make one for you. He made one for me. He just put a practice chanter cap over one of his molded plastic sackpipa chanters.



The design and materials are similar to a standard GHB practice chanter, so I don't know why some have predicted that it wouldn't work due to moisture. The plastic reed gets wet, like the reed in a GHB practice chanter. So, after half an hour of playing, I shake it out. It's MUCH louder than a GHB practice chanter. I would say that the volume is comparable to a loud SSP chanter.

I have been struggling a bit to bring it into tune. I've been playing pipes for 26 years, and I'm familiar with adjustment and tuning of synthetic single reeds, but I can't seem to tune this chanter correctly, despite hours of adjustments and experiments. I tried several variations in open, closed, and semi-closed fingering, as described by Olle Gallmo on his website. Still, some notes are spot on while others are not close. I plan to send Seth an email. I'm sure he'll be able to explain to me what I'm doing wrong.