I’ve been playing the Highland Pipes for 30 plus years and now happily starting on my Seth Gallagher half-set. After two months I’m at the Seagull Stage, i.e., both wings flapping with an occasional squawk. My problem is too much pressure (first practice I shot the stock and drones five feet across the room) 
Then I rehemped. Obviously a carryover from the big pipes where I am used to high pressure under the left arm. Is there any advice, any “tricks,” mental or otherwise, that will bring my bag and bellows into balance? The bellows is new and stiff and seems to spring back after every squeeze leaving me with the impression that I have to squeeze it again. Most of the time I’m in the upstairs octave with a downstairs tune. Happy to be here. Regards to all.
I find that by concentrating on keeping my hands very relaxed, in addition to aiding my speed and timing, it causes me to be a bit looser on the bag pressure. I still get the occasional jump up, but it is becoming rarer by the day. I would also recommend at least an hour and maybe two hours per day practice. This will allow your bag and bellows work to become second nature and more in the subconscious than the conscious. After about a month, you will have become more accustomed to the multi tasking part of this and will be more able to adjust the pressure on the bag. This will become very important when going from back D to the second octave and back, where you literally have to adjust the pressure on the bag note to note.
I would first empty the bag on some notes or a tune.
Never mind if the presure drops or the tune breaks.., it’s just to see where the point of “feeding” the bag lies.
It also let’s you concentrate on playing pressure rather than pumping the bellows.
If you do this for some amount of time you will at some point automatically fill the bag when you need air before the point of no pressure arrives and not think about it.
Make sure to use full bellows to fill the bag.., but from hearing your bellows springs open that won’t be a problem (self opening bellows is a good thing btw 
)
[u]Pipey
The bellows is new and stiff and seems to spring back after every squeeze leaving me with the impression that I have to squeeze it again.[/u]
What might be happening when your bellows are opening by themselves is, the bag is already full of air, so when you pump again this causes the valve in the blowpipe part of the bag to stay open.
Air then escapes back into your bellows, this is a common senario with beginners and will change once you have worked out a happy medium.
Beginners tend to play the pipes in the second octave using bellows pressure, because they have not yet built up the playing muscle tone needed to work the bag, this is a habit which one is not aware of until someone points it out to you.
It does cause problems in the second octave especially if your reed has stiffened up, because the amount of air that a single stroke of the bellows provides in not sufficient to keep longer first or second octave notes going for long enough and the note will drop out of sounding.
If the valve in the blowpipe is off centre and air is escaping back, this is very confusing to any beginner and needs to be fixed right away or you will never get the balance between the two correct.
Keep the bag full when practicing and pump it up again when the bag is no more than half empty or you will not be able to keep up, the nearer your bag arm is to your body the less leverage you will have to control
the playing pressure.
Stick at it.
Slan
Davy.
Yes, the balance is very hard to strike. some of the best and worst advice I got came out of the same book, I seem to recall it was Davy Spillane’s Uilleann Pipe Tutor:
(best advice): The bellows is not a handle or lever for the pipes, don’t use it to “make it go” or pump in time with the music.
(worst advice): Don’t pump too much - often an entire tune can be played with the bellows disconnected (bull shizzle - I’d hate to see the size of his bag)
the trick is indeed to find your own special “gleeful Uri Geller” (“happy medium” ::rimshot:
Gentlemen, many thanks for taking the time and for your very sound advice. It’s helping already. Each tip was valiuable. I’m on my way. Thanks and best regards.
Antaine,
I think Spillane has something when he says not to pump too often. I think it is very important (vital actually) for the beginning piper to learn to regulate the pressure with the bag and not the bellows. Unhooking a full bag and playing a whole tune can teach a newbe to play with the bag and not the bellows. I read somewhere that Leo Rowsome used to do that to his students. It helped me immensely.
I also think it is very important for someone coming from the GHB world, where an even bag pressure is desirable, to learn the nuances of regulating bag pressure for gaining the octave, hard D etc.
Jeff
I also think it is very important for someone coming from the GHB world, where an even bag pressure is desirable, to learn the nuances of regulating bag pressure for gaining the octave, hard D etc.
Thanks, Jeff. Good insight on the GBH where rock solid bag pressure is the norm. I also have to move my arm back a bit so I can get some traction on the bag. I think my arm/elbow is too far forward near the neck. Again, thanks to you and my other “tutors.”
I was at an Irish language immersion weekend and after the séisiún one of the guys said he played the ghb and wanted to give the up a try when he overheard me saying i get two full octaves. Once he got the chanter figured out (do they play with fingertips? he was missing some of his anyway which made it even more difficult) he proceeded to try to play them like ghb. When I explained to him how you had to regulate bag pressure constantly and overblow for second octave (which is all he was doing with that much pressure) he said he’d stick with the ghb and remember us uilleann pipers in his prayers.