Another newbie and another set of Paki pipes

Uilleann Pipes
1

I had the opportunity to get my hands on an unused practice set for only the price of shipping from Europe. The set is from Pakistan (Geoffrey). I work adjacent to the Music Instrument industry and I have a good friend who is a distributor for mainstream instruments (guitars, basses, drums, keyboards, etc). They got hold of this set of pipes and after a while just wanted them gone. I have been holding out to get a proper practice set to start, but have heard that the Geoffrey bags and bellows are at the very least staunch, and possibly even useable. So that alone seemed to be worth the price of shipping.

The set arrived yesterday. The bellows and bag are for sure airtight. I have the vague feeling that there is a little too much resistance on the intake of the bellows, but 1) Being a newbie, I don’t know and 2) That would require taking the bellows apart to investigate and well, I don’t want to. The connector hose was way too long. I considered downing a few pizzas and six packs of beer but decided cutting the hose was probably a better approach.

I have the gut feeling the bag neck is a little long.

One of the reeds actually worked (made a seemingly Uilleann-like sound) just fine without any fussing. It plays the first octave and tuning is not drastically far off. I am really quite a newbie, though. My lack of bag control makes it nearly impossible to judge the overall intonation of the reed/chanter at this point. The reeds have also been packaged up for months and they are definitely not awake yet.

The other reed doesn’t speak at all and I am actually having a bit of fun trying to get it to. Although I am primarily a bass player, many years ago I studied both Bassoon and Oboe and so tinkering with double reeds is not particularly scary to me. And I am only trying to get them to speak consistently, not trying to “tune” the reeds. I am also consulting several great reed resources that are often mentioned in this forum.

The chanter is cosmetically fine. A nice piece of Rosewood. The finish is really glossy (meh) and has a few fingerprints in it (boo). But the chrome plated metal work is really nice, as is the black velveteen bag cover.

I know that the chanter may never be truly playable and the reeds are dodgy at best. And so I am balancing the amount of mental and emotional energy I put into them against that reality. So, mostly, it’s just fun. I have a local player and a highly reputable local maker in my area, so I will be reaching out to both of them to help me determine what is or is not salvageable of these bits. So far, I am only out the cost of shipping, so it won’t take much to feel like I got my money’s worth.

I am still going to get my hands on a proper instrument as soon as I can pull the pennies together. Perhaps all I will need for now is a chanter.

I will report more as I go.

2

Can anyone give any guidelines to bag placement relative to your body from front to back?

What’s the best way to figure out if my bag neck is too long?

3

I don’t have time to reply to your whole post at the moment, but I’ve noticed over the years that many newbies think the neck of the bag is too long. I hear this all the time, so don’t alter it until you have an experienced piper have a look at it. Can you post a picture of your setup here on the forum. Seth

4

Seth,

I am certainly not looking to modify the bag without having it checked out first. Although, the chanter stock is tied into the neck with neck folded back on itself, like rolling up the sleeves on a shirt. There is some room to roll it back some to try shortening it before going so far as cutting something. Again, no plan to try that at this point, just wondering where things should be if everything is in the right place.

Thanks

Also, sent you a PM

5

Hi joconnor58, you may consider yourself a lucky guy just because the bag/bellows are airtight, is not common in that kind of sets.

6

I too came across a Geoffrey set similar to the one you described. I have decided to abandon any attempt to make the playable. The bellows and bag are no good. Only one reed worked and it is doubtful that the chanter is is any shape to play. I have a chanter on order from David Daye and a bag bellow set from Seth Hammon. Good luck with your set. I hope it works for you. If you need any other thoughts and suggestions check out the “hello from newcomer” post. As foolish as I felt knowing that what I had bought was crap, I found everyone here to be honest fair and very helpful to a newcomer.
Matt

7

I have made contact with my local pipemaker and we will be meeting up sometime soon so I can get his evaluation.

8

Well, at least buy the poor bloke a bottle of scotch for his trouble.

9

I’d hold out for Jamesons’. . . :party:

Bob

10

I will definitely compensate the gentleman.

11

You can compensate him with a cape or some yellow pants. You can trust me on this - he’ll love either.

12

If anyone was longing for an update…

I have futzed with the only playable reed for about as far as I feel capable to go with it. The end result is that the chanter/reed sounds easily through most of the first octave (bottom D up through First octave A) and is as close to in-tune with itself as I can tell given my still dodgy ability to control air pressure. The whole chanter is in C# though. Rather than Concert D As advertised.

The trouble comes through B, C, C# and Back D. All of these are essentially coming out as somewhere between A# and B. Clearly this is where bad chanter and bad reed converge. But hey, the thing comes back to life in a BIG WAY for second octave E, F# and G!

I had to postpone my trip to see the local pipe maker and hopefully will be able to reschedule in the next few days. I will not be surprised to hear that the chanter is too far gone for re-work. This is what I expected before I got the set anyway.

My formerly VERY AIRTIGHT bag is now showing a bit of a leak (very very slight) where the chanter stock is tied-in to the neck.

If the set has no salvageable bits I will still say that I have actually had fun trying to get at least a few notes out of it that vaguely resemble a musical instrument.

*edited for typos

13

Go to Rich’s Cigar Shop and get him a bag of Dunhill pipe tobacco.

14

Go to Rich’s Cigar Shop and get him a bag of Dunhill pipe tobacco.

And don’t forget the cape and yellow pants. He’ll love them all.

15

I had planned on reporting the results of my visit to the local pipe maker (Brad Angus) to have him evaluate my Paki practice set. I have hesitated to report, because the results are actually surprisingly positive. But nonetheless, I figure folks may be interested to hear what happened.

His first assessment of the set was that it wasn’t completely airtight (the bellows) and that it had asthma. So he actually did quite a bit with my set. He rebuilt all the valves. They used neoprene flaps with pieces of brass to hold them in place. Brad switched them out for leather and it became much easier for air to flow through them (in the correct direction). He staunched the bellows with beeswax and linseed oil. He also removed the stocks, opened up the inside diameters on them and then tied them back in. After the work I just outlined, the bag and bellows were brought up to standard.

He observed that the chanter was not terrible. The bore seemed okay. At the least, it was consistently tapered - did not appear to be cylindrical anywhere. He tried a handful of already made reeds in it and found one that worked rather well with only minor tweaking. With that reed in, we were able to determine that the set was more or less in tune with itself - at least on a per octave basis. The second octave is flat of the first and in the first octave is closer to C# than D.

At this point I felt that I had taken up a lot of his time and I compensated him and left with my now working practice set. Although not perfect, it is absolutely playable.

He offered to give the chanter a “good working over” in which he will actually take measurements of the bore, and work tone hole by tone hole (mostly adding undercuts) to bring the chanter a bit further along. At that point he would also finish a couple of reeds to suit the characteristics of the chanter. I have not decided yet whether I will have him undertake that effort, as I have a Sam Lawrence chanter coming soon (woohoo). It will be interesting to compare the two.

I am quite surprised at the result and I think Brad was equally surprised to find that the chanter was not worse. Granted the chanter is loud and a bit undignified in its tone, but the fact that dropping an already made reed into it and fixing the air supply resulted in something that worked is definitely surprising and I am going to assume…rare.

16

At the least, it was consistently tapered - did not appear to be cylindrical anywhere.

The question is ofcourse whether or not that is the hallmark of a well designed chanter.

17

I am quite surprised at the result and I think Brad was equally surprised to find that the chanter was not worse. Granted the chanter is loud and a bit undignified in its tone, but the fact that dropping an already made reed into it and fixing the air supply resulted in something that worked is definitely surprising and I am going to assume…rare.

Brad’s findings are in line with what I found with the Geoffry too-- that it could, with effort, be made into a somewhat playable instrument. However, the amount of work required was significant, and in my mind, at best the instrument would still be marginal. Given the good practice and half sets available new and used, I just can’t see it being worth the cost and effort. Most would not go through the trouble, nor have Brad Angus available to tweak, and would walk away from the experience discouraged.

18

Agreed. I went into it full well knowing that I might have something completely unplayable. I consider myself extraordinarily fortunate to be so close to a good maker, and that he was willing to spend some time on it. Even with those factors in one’s favor, it is still a dicey path to playing and not one I would readily recommend.

I am eager to compare it with a proper chanter. For an experienced piper, the differences would, I’m sure, be immediately obvious. But I will be quite interested to observe it from the perspective of a beginner.