Hey all, I just had an amazing experience at the Dublin Irish Festival in Dublin, OH. Michael Vignoles offered a workshop on uilleann piping, and beginners and advanced bodhran workshops. Watching 50 beginners clatter away on bodhrans only reminded me of the thread of jokes posted in this forum about bodhran players–the truth of that thread unraveled before my eyes. I have a movie clip and some pictures that I will post soon, so please be patient. And I have to apologize about the movie clip–I filmed it sideways from a digital Canon Elph, thinking I was going to get a vertical picture. I’ll try to edit it before I post it so you guys don’t send me hate mail if I am unable to edit it.
Michael introduced the instrument piece by piece; from the bellows he explained the meaning of the word “uilleann” and why the pipes were unique. Following the path of air through the instrument, he explained how the bellows were made and their internal workings. The air moving through the blowpipe, he explained that and moved onto the bag. Regarding the bag he explained the unique porous characteristics of leather, and how eventually, air can begin leaking. To correct this, the leather bag is lined on the inside with vinyl.
Following the bag, he introduced the drones and demonstrated how the reed was made, and how the drones sounded when played. He also demonstrated the drones’ requirement for little air, and let the full bag sound the drones until they gave a humourous sagging sigh, letting them stop.
He introduced the regulators, and I was rather surprised he only had the baritone and bass regulators on his set. I would have expected to see a full set. After the regulators, he introduced the chanter, and started playing “An Coolin”. There were other jigs and reels that he played, the names of which I cannot remember. It was very cool to see and hear him play. This was Saturday.
Today I wasn’t planning on going to the last day of the festival, but decided on doing so anyhow (they had a special deal going where if you showed up for the church service they were holding, you got free admission). After the service, my wife and I stopped by the musical instrument makers’ tent.
Now this was not scheduled as an official event, but I spied Brian McCoy huddled with a pad and paper and a video phone, and Michael Vignoles huddled over a shooting block and cane. I told myself, “I’ve got to see this!”. He had just gouged the cane and shaped the ends when I got there, so thankfully I didn’t miss much. After flattening the edges with a utility knife, he put the slip back in the block and began sanding the chamber with a piece of dowel rod and two fine grades of sandpaper, the inner third. After testing for flexibility in the center, he randomly marked the center and inner third without any measuring instrument (here, I would fuss with a set of calipers). He nestled the dowel rod in the shooting block, and with the utility knife, scraped the inner third part of the surface of the slip. At this point, he stands up and looks at me, smiles and asks “Are you a musician?”
“Yes.”
“Do you play the pipes?”
“Yeah, actually, I made a set.”
“Wonderful. Do you make your own reeds?”
“Well, I haven’t figured that part out, yet”
“Just watch and you’ll learn something.”
After that (again, no calipers) slices through the center and temporarily binds the top of the reed together to shape the tail. He quickly scrapes the bark off and chamfers the edges and scrapes the shoulders down a bit, then dips the end of the tail in water.
Then, he takes a staple made with 3/16" brass tubing and pinches the eye to a smaller size than I’ve seen an eye squeezed down to. He measures the reed length and slips the cane over the staple and seals the tail with masking tape. After that, he binds the reed with some sort of pre-waxed nylon thread, and tests for airtightness. After one test, he scrapes a bit off the shoulders, and binds again. Testing for airtightness, he finds success and finishes the scrape. He places the lips on some sandpaper, and after, say 20 strokes on each side, a successful crow is achieved. Then, he makes a pencil mark on the bottom of the “V” and just scrapes that off. making pencil marks on the edje of the “V”, he sands that off, then the very edge of the lips. After shaving “two spiders’ legs” off the end of the lips and placing a bridle on the reed, the places the reed in a chanter. For a quick test, he inserts the reed into his mouth, not touching the reed, just the staple (his regular set was in the hotel, just to illustrate how unscheduled this little meeting was). And after some VERY MINOR adjustments to the bottom of the “V”, the reed was sounding very, very good.
I said goodbye and thanked him sincerely, to which he said, “Please let me know anytime if you have any questions.” Very, very cool. I would never have expected to get a free reedmaking lesson like that. What surprised me the most was how much lack of precision he used, and how the mystery of reedmaking, as it were, was stripped right before my eyes. Yet, a lot of pieces to the puzzle of most of my struggles in reedmaking seemed to come together. I saw the intuitive part of reedmaking, and hope for myself that it’s not impossible to accomplish.
stay tuned for pics and a vid . . . I found an editor, so it looks like I’ll be able to rotate it.
