Learning to play with drones

[Ketil]

I started playing the pipes about 6 months ago and I am getting along nicely. I have a Brian Howard practise set and I will soon do a upgrade with a sett of Martin Banba drones. My set is airthight and the bellows are very efficient. When I get eager or play something diffficult I sometimes pump too much air getting too high bag pressure. Often in the high octave and the reed shuts down or squeal a bit until I get back to controlled bagpressure.
I know it is difficult to answer but may adding the drones actually make it easier maintaining a steady bagpressure? Do you guys and girls remember how long it took to be able to play with drones when you started. I read conflicting advice about Learning the drones. Some reccommend plugging one or two at first, others say go all in with all three. Any advice would be appreciated. Picking up the pipes has been the best decision I have made musically. Fantastic fun and not SOO damned hard as I thought it would be actually.

[bcullen]

I am going down the same road. Once I know a tune upside down and inside out I switch on the drones . The tune at the moment is Downfall of Paris and I can switch on and enjoy the playing
BUT it took forever to get the drones set up. Even when they were in tune they used too much air so I worked on the reeds to make them harder, So dont be concerned if at first you feel you are pumping out the Titanic. Just be prepared to do some tweaking. There are drone samples in D on the net that I used for tuning now I can get there by ear.
When I can play Harvest Home with drones I will feel comfortable and then onto the regulators F@@#$


Maybe I should get a life

[myles]

I know it is difficult to answer but may adding the drones actually make it easier maintaining a steady bagpressure?

As long as you have a decent set of drone reeds, then yes, they do help quite a lot by helping to encourage you not to play from the bellows. A couple of week's practice should see you on the way to maintaining steady pressure.

[myles]

Some reccommend plugging one or two at first, others say go all in with all three

You can start with just the tenor if you like - for example some people find the bass a bit more finicky and it can take more air. Nothing stopping you starting with all 3 though particularly if they're a nice light set of drones. The tenor on my set is the most tempremental of the lot so I just started with all of them, it was fine.

[MarkP]

Yep, good to practice with and without. I found it helped remind me not to over squeeze the chanter. I use two drones in the pub as I still can't reliably keep the bass and the tune going all the time (and there's rarely leg room for it either). I started with just the tenor and getting used to switching it, then added the baritone.