I just received my new practice set thanks to reepicheep on this website. It is a Patrick Sky set. How do you people play this thing!!?? The only sound I could make sounded much like a duck! There is someone in my area (Washington DC) that I can take lessons from. I will be thankful if I can ever play this thing! You all impress me.
Oops! Sounds like a duck? It appears you inadvertently purchased the Duckophone (also know as the Quacktise set). You want to go back to the seller and specify a Patrick Sky Uilleann Pipes Practise set. Make sure you do not have a head cold when ordering. Then Read the FaqFaqFaq thread, get some good tutor books and videos, and close the bedroom door when you practise.
http://chiffboard.mati.ca/viewtopic.php?t=14466&sid=d815062b863a3d20c5e03b959e451063
If it walks like a duck, I would be worried.
Dahlilama,
I should check with Pat as it sounds as if you have received an order from his other workshop. He is the national president of the wild duck & geese elimination society. From your description it would seem that he has mistakenly given you the “duck & goose” lure. For heavens sake don’t play your new aquisition anywhere near open country or you will be inundated with dive bombing wild life and be cleaning guano of yourself for months 
Joseph (the UK one) 
PS. On a more serious note (note?) you are experiencing a typical beginners “shock & awe” at the complexity of learning several new skills at the same time. Give yourself time and try to enrol the help of a tutor for those first few important lessons before you pick up any bad habits as I did. They can take months to eradicate. Good luck and enjoy the experience.
Don’t panic! You are not alone.
Dali -
You might drive up to Baltimore and meet that nice piper that lives up there. He comes down to the session in Annapolis. Or go over to Annapolis and meet him. He is quite good and that is a great session.
I’ll bet some face-to-face time with him would do you wonders.
- tom
Thanks for the replies. I will try to get the duck out of the instrument. I agree with trying to avoid bad habits with a tutor. Thanks. As an aside, how long did you all take to feel like you were making headway on this instrument?
Er … headway? … There’s headway? 
djm
I’d recommend that you put a duckway on your chanter, too.
Dahilama,
Making headway is subjective and basically boils down to “how long is a piece of string”. Personally, it took me several weeks to get the coordination between bag pressure and bellows at a working level. Once I had made some headway on this I then struggled with maintaining a steady tone and reaching the second octave at will caused me more consternation 
It was many years ago now but I think the first tune I managed to play was the “fairies hornpipe” and still remains one of my favourites (the Seamus Ennis version). Even then I think it was about three months before it was “acceptable” but maybe I’m a slow learner. The other problem of course was my inability to read music and I was learning by ear. So I was attempting to learn several things at once.
I did have a tutor of sorts but the pressure of the chanter reed he set up for me was awesome and I found it a real struggle. 
Hard blown reeds seemed to be the norm about 20 odd years ago whereas now there are some excellent makers out there who are producing a good chanter/reed combination without the extremes of pressure I experienced. I feel sure that my progress would have been much quicker had I not had to fight the chanter reed all the time.
So stick at it and your rewards will come soon enough.
Joseph (the UK one) 