I sprained my left wrist and so have switched to Piper’s, my left thumb on the barrel. This enables an ergonomic grip and a straight wrist. I’ve been doing this for nearly a year (doctors, MRI, you name it) and I can play with a wrist brace and Piper’s. The problem I’m having is that with PG the part of my finger that covers the hole isn’t as sensitive as a finger tip, nor is it shaped to fit a hole, and so sometimes I’m not closing the hole completely. Didn’t have this problem with the Classical Grip. Welcome comments and advice from folks who are using PG.
Hi Jim,
I’ve always played with PG. Being a piper also, I’m used to using the tip of the ring fingers for the bottom hole for each hand, and the part of the finger between the 1st and 2nd joints for the other flute holes. Covering the holes effectively is partly a matter of muscle memory, of course, but I also find that dry skin makes it harder to seal the holes unless playing in a very humid environment. Living in the arid west, I usually use a hand moisturizer of some kind which helps a lot (also for piping). My go-to is Bag Balm - smells awful, but leaves a somewhat tacky finish on the skin which I like because it lasts longer than standard skin creams. Vaseline would also serve, I’m sure.
Cheers,
Mark
Thanks–I hoped a piper would chime in.
I went from Highland pipes > uilleann pipes > flute > Low Whistle so I’ve always been used to using the various fleshy pads on the underside of each finger.
Highland pipes and uilleann pipes have a simliar lower-hand grip which takes advantage of the fact that the middle pads on the index, middle, and ring fingers line up with the end pad on the little finger.
On Low Whistle however my lower-hand grip is different, using the middle pads on the index and middle fingers and the end pad of the ring finger. Thus for me “pipers grip” is a misnomer for my lower hand.
On Highland pipes the upper hand is usually more or less horizontal and some pipers use three end-pads and some use three middle-pads.
On uilleann pipes the upper hand is usually at an angle to the chanter, and my upper-hand grip goes middle-pad middle-pad end-pad, just as it does when I play Low Whistle.
On small whistles I use the end-joint pads of all six involved fingers, then as I move to lower and lower whistles the hands automatically adjust, eventually ending up with the classic Low Whistle so-called “pipers grip”.
So going back and forth between various instruments is, as was said above, merely a matter of the hands knowing and remembering the “grip” for each hand for each instrument, the spacing of the fingers and which fleshy pads are used for each involved finger. It doesn’t seem to me that sensitivity is much of a factor unless I’m picking up an instrument new to my hands, where my fingers need to search for the holes and figure out their spacing.