How to leard to blow the bag

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Zhuli
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I want to lean by asking questions.

Re: How to leard to blow the bag

Post by Zhuli »

Hello Mr Glenarley thank you for your answer and good advice
I can understand what you say
I do not like the sound of the Yamaha piano and I like the sound of the kawai piano
i play most on the electronic keyboard and i can make it sound like the kawai piano
I will do what you want and listen to the youtube lesson
I would like a GHB bagpipe chanter reed to work but how do i know my comfortable pressure
Why will the synthetic reed give you one less thing to worry about.
Thank you for my question
Glenarley
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Re: How to leard to blow the bag

Post by Glenarley »

Good day Zhu Li

You find your blowing pressure by finding the pressure where you can keep your bag steady on tone and doing so with steady regular breaths and look at the pressure gauge. We normally do this with drones only and having a chanter bleed plug inserted. It is very easy to hear when you are steady with only drones and the bleed plug simulates the air usage of the chanter without the noise of the chanter.

I make a chanter stock extension with the pressure gauge attached which fits between your chanter and your bag so you are able to see your pressure while you are playing. I make the bleed plugs to suit the exact chanter flow for the piper and with these bleed plugs you can practice your bag technique almost anywhere because the noise level is so low yet the bag is using the same amount of air as it would be with the chanter attached. In your case you will have to rely on your new tutor to help you with this as he will know what to do.

Because synthetic reeds not require require moisture they do not alter in pitch as they get wet from your breath so they do not need to be played in. This is a big advantage for a learner like yourself. There are many that claim the sound of synthetic chanter reeds are off putting but I am not sure it is too much to worry about. In the first World Online Solo Piping Championships, players from different locations used synthetic chanter reeds and were placed as high as 2nd. Maybe the judges were disadvantaged because the events were recorded, I am not sure. Maybe the judges just judged with their ears.

This is a video of Fred Morrison playing Pibroc'h (piobaireachd) in a formal competition with judging.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4a6v7L8EU7E

This video is also Fred Morrison playing for a piping audience in an informal environment.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQAl7kQpikY

In the first video he is playing up at band pitch, (mid 480's). I believe he is up at this pitch so he is at about the same pitch as the other competitors.

In the second video he is playing a different set of pipes and is pitching in the mid 470's, also very steady.

To my ear, the high pitch is too bright and does not have a good harmonic with the drones whereas the low pitch is not so harsh on my ear and does have a nicer harmonic with the drones.

You decide for yourself but I think the sound speaks for it's self.

As you develop your piping your ear will also develop likes and dislikes. At the end of the day, what your ear likes is probably best and you will enjoy playing alot more if you like the sound you make.

I will get round to making the videos as I previously stated but at the moment things are very busy.

All the best

G
Zhuli
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I want to lean by asking questions.

Re: How to leard to blow the bag

Post by Zhuli »

Hello Mr Glenarley thank you for your answer
I can hear the better sound the same as you said in the you tube lesson by Mr Fred Morrison
I do not understand a lot of GHB bagpipe things and there are many different informations that are saying the different things.
I looked at the www lessons on the www bagpipe lesson school on 2 other www lesson pages and they do not say the same as you on your you tube lesson on the moisture in the GHB bagpipe bag.
I ask my science teacher and he said you are correct and the www bagpipe school are both not correct so why are they all not the same so why can you tell them they are not correct so they do not tell learning students the wrong information
i want to know if my GHB bagpipe teacher is allowed to ask you some questions so he can understand all your information
Thank you for all my questions
Glenarley
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Re: How to leard to blow the bag

Post by Glenarley »

Good day Zhu Li

Your oboe tutor has my contact details and it is fine for your tutor to contact me.

To be blunt, it is not good form to point out that information on GHB school sites is inaccurate, it just upsets a type of person that sees you as knowing little thereby not having the right to point out errors by someone who appears to know plenty. This is a moderate forum and you will see that most answers are fairly polite and friendly. On the other bagpipe forum you referenced, you would have a steady stream of curt and prickly posts telling you where to get off.

Your science teacher is correct of course and maybe it would help some if the information was corrected but, experience tells me I would be talking to the willfully deaf. What we call "the nose tapping black arts pundits".

As an example, in my youtube video on bag moisture I demonstrate in the simplest terms, that if the air going in is saturated, and the air going out is saturated, the air in the bag is also saturated. I am still getting emails from pipers that insist the air in the bag is only 65% RH irrespective of the air going in and coming out and they use the data on a pipers web site as proof. Should I argue and end up sounding as stupid as the person arguing with me? I think not so I politely ask the person to make a video so that I may be better informed. I am still waiting for the videos.

Zhu Li, read as much as you are comfortable with and by all means, listen to everyone, (within reason) even the biggest perceivesd idiot could come up with a really smart idea. Just think carefully before you repeat anything you read or hear. Do not get involved with the politics or you will end up going down that rabbit hole.

There is a saying, "don't listen to what I say, listen to what I do". If you want to learn how to play the GHB well, find someone that does and copy them. Listen to your teacher until such time you think you can teach him something.

Let me know when your pipes arrive.

All the best.

G
Zhuli
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Re: How to leard to blow the bag

Post by Zhuli »

Hello Mr Glenarley thank you for your answer and good advice
Sorry for my misunderstanding
What is “the nose tapping black arts pundits” because google and Bing do not find them as well
I can not go down a rabbit hole and we have rabbits only at the market so we have no rabbit holes so why
I can find “do not listen to what I say, listen to what I do” on Google and I know what to do and i do not talk about the politics
I do not understand why I can not tell the www bagpipe school the lesson is not true.
Why let them tell the lies to the learner student so the learner student will do the wrong practice
I will do what my teacher tell me to do and I am very happy to have a GHB bagpipe teacher and I will never teach him some bagpipe something.
I will tell him you are happy for him to ask you questions and I will tell you when I have my Delrin Dunbar GHB bagpipe
Sorry for my misunderstanding thank you for my questions
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Nanohedron
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Re: How to leard to blow the bag

Post by Nanohedron »

Zhuli wrote:What is “the nose tapping black arts pundits” because google and Bing do not find them as well
I can not go down a rabbit hole and we have rabbits only at the market so we have no rabbit holes so why
I can find “do not listen to what I say, listen to what I do” on Google and I know what to do and i do not talk about the politics
Unfortunately Glenarley is writing in highly idiomatic English that at times is not clear even to me (and I've been here long enough :wink: ); I suspect he's unaccustomed to communicating with people whose English skills either aren't that strong, or are of a different sort.

When we say "down a rabbit hole" it means, especially on the internet, either pursuing an extremely time-consuming topic (which I suspect is what Glenarley means in this case) or, alternatively, indulging in wild theories. The two are often one, but not necessarily. The idiom's origin is literary, from Lewis Carrol's Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Even some veteran English speakers may not know this.

As to "nose-tapping black arts pundits": This may either be a British idiom or Glenarley's personal construction; in any case the meaning isn't entirely clear to this poor Yank, either, for a flinger laid alongside the nose is a distinctly European gesture that has no reliably common meaning elsewhere, including the Americas (now, anyway). But what is clear is that the idiom's not meant as a compliment. Having had to look for information on "nose tapping", I find that it signifies a shared secret (so I learned something new today!); "black arts" is another term for sorcery, and by extension can be a jesting reference to specialized skills; "pundits", of course, means experts, whether actual or self-styled, who speak out on a matter. I am tempted to conclude, then, that Glenarley's idiom refers to people who needlessly present pipering as a far more mysterious thing than it really is.

As to “do not listen to what I say, listen to what I do”: I suspect Glenarley's point is about learning piping technique; in other words, speech can be weak or misunderstood, so it is more reliable instead to pay attention to the actual technique itself.

It's hard to keep such explanations as simple as possible, but I've tried. I hope that helps. :)
"If you take music out of this world, you will have nothing but a ball of fire." - Tribal musician
Glenarley
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Re: How to leard to blow the bag

Post by Glenarley »

Good day Zhu Li
I must apologise for using colloquial language when writing. Nanohedron is correct, I should better consider who is reading what I write. Sometimes I just write the way I speak and I need to fix this.

Nanohedron gives a very good description of the rabbit hole so that’s why you don’t want to go there.

The nose tappers has him a bit foxed but I will try to explain. The fact that Nanohedron attempted to goes to demonstrate the type of person running this forum.

When you ask someone a technical or operational question and they don’t want to admit they do not know the answer they “tap” the side of their nose and say, “aye laddie, that’s for me to know and for you to find out” like it is some deep dark magical secret squirrel thing that only they know when the truth is, they really have no clue or they are being selfish and arrogant.

As an example, when we make reeds or replace bagpipe parts, we use a German software package to take a digital profile of the notes and overtones. When we check the new reed or part, we use the original profile to see how close we are to getting it the same as the original.

I personally had a client listen to his repaired ABW chanter and tell me that it did not have the tone it had before it was repaired. I showed him the profile and asked him to play the chanter scale into the software and we could see the profile was a very close match. His response was, “the sound I am listening for is a sound that you can’t really hear, you can only feel it”. A bloody nose tapper.

The software can record and display sound that even a dog probably couldn’t hear and as sound is just vibrations in the air, if this nose tapper could hear something, so could the software.

Nose tappers like this bloke could drive you to the wall if you let them so the most obvious answer is the blind test. Over here the main orchestras still use blind testing to choose musicians because it is completely, (almost) objective.

You will never find a nose tapper prepared to be blind tested for this sound that cannot be heard, plastic pipes v wood, different name brand instruments etc. Do not get into an argument, just acknowledge that your hearing is inferior and walk away with your sanity. The GHB is difficult enough without all the subjective nonsense from nose tappers.

Hope this explains and again, I apologies for using colloquialisms.

As per my previous advice, listen to your tutor, unless you think your tutor sucks, then find a new tutor. Watch videos of really good pipers and pick up what you can.

All the best

G
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Re: How to leard to blow the bag

Post by Nanohedron »

Glenarley wrote:The fact that Nanohedron attempted to goes to demonstrate the type of person running this forum.
I'm afraid to ask; you'd probably tap your nose. :wink:

And thanks for the finer points. Very interesting, and of course useful. :)
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Zhuli
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I am Asian and my written English is good for understanding.

I want to lean by asking questions.

Re: How to leard to blow the bag

Post by Zhuli »

Hello Mr Nanohedron thank you for your answer and I understand
Hello Mr Glenarley thank you for your answer and I understand
Every language has the same lessons but they are in a different language and they are using the things of the language
It is hard to sometimes know but I am learning alot of things.
When i learn a different language i am learning the bad words first for every language.
In Australia every thing is (bleep) and even when the person is being nice it is still (bleep)
when they are being bad it is always (bleep) so it is hard to know
When they say like you (bleep) wanker and you (bleep) dick head and you are full of (bleep) sh*t and you (bleep) ass hole they are being nice
If i say that here I will get in big trouble so I do not say it
I do not think I can join a Australia forum because I can not say like they do
on this forum no one says like that so I am happy to ask my questions
Thank you for all your answers
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Re: How to leard to blow the bag

Post by Nanohedron »

Zhuli wrote:When they say like you (bleep) wanker and you (bleep) dick head and you are full of (bleep) sh*t and you (bleep) ass hole they are being nice
If i say that here I will get in big trouble so I do not say it
It's a matter of culture and cultural expectations. In the English-speaking world, there seems to be a fair amount of allowance for jesting by speaking of others in an unfavorable tone, and this can include obscenity when our powers of speech aren't a priority to us. It's called "slagging", and it is usually a form of camaraderie; kind of like a snowball fight with words, I suppose. The thing is, the right time for it depends on where you are, on the occasion, on who's talking, and on the audience - and it's not always easy to pinpoint; sometimes you just can't please everyone, so as a solution on C&F, we ask people to avoid slagging for the most part. On the internet we're not face-to-face and hearing each others' voices, so it makes it even harder to know whether something is meant as a jest or not; more than once on C&F I have witnessed slagging humor being misunderstood as an attack, but I believe that had they been in each other's physical presence, they would have caught the smaller signals that help to clarify things. But we don't have that help on the internet, so on C&F I recommend using certain smileys to make one's point clear in case a ribbing might be mistaken for being serious. Two groups that are particularly prone to misunderstand each other's humorous intent are the British, and the North Americans.

I couldn't say for sure, but in your case with the Australian website, it may be that there's an unspoken understanding that only an Australian may slag an Australian.

C&F does indeed have warnings against obscenity and, to a somewhat lesser extent, slagging. Certain things have to be very obvious to the native English speaker if we are to know that it's not to be taken seriously, so if your own English isn't strong, or if you're talking to an English speaker from a different set of cultural expectations (Australian to Canadian, for example), it's particularly best to keep things basic. If you have questions about what someone else is saying, Zhuli, do feel empowered to ask, because guessing is more likely to be the worse choice.

When you have the time, do please acquaint yourself with the Board's principles:

https://staging.forums.chiffandfipple.c ... =3&t=84192

I'm afraid some of the language in it is rather idiomatic, but that's by design, so if you have questions about it or anything else, feel free to ask; you won't be called stupid, because we prohibit that here. But if you want to keep the conversation more private, feel free to send a private message (PM) to a mod or any other member you feel comfortable with. :)
Zhuli wrote:When i learn a different language i am learning the bad words first for every language.
I think just about everybody does that. :thumbsup:
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Re: How to leard to blow the bag

Post by Tunborough »

Glenarley wrote:As an example, when we make reeds or replace bagpipe parts, we use a German software package to take a digital profile of the notes and overtones. When we check the new reed or part, we use the original profile to see how close we are to getting it the same as the original.
(Taps nose pensively.) When decomposing a periodic signal into fundamental and overtones, if you want the parts to add back up to the whole exactly, you have to consider frequency, amplitude, and phase. I'm going to guess that your digital profile shows frequency and amplitude, but probably not phase. Now, I don't even know if human ears can detect phase shifts, so this may be a non-issue (an empty rabbit-hole, as it were). But I'm not sure we can dismiss the possibility yet.

The hard D in this video of a uilleann bagpipe reed in slow motion suggests that phase matters to the resulting signal. See http://staging.forums.chiffandfipple.co ... 6&t=105010 for more about hard D.
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Re: How to leard to blow the bag

Post by Glenarley »

Good day Zhu Li

Once again, Nanohedron finds an eloquent manner in which to make clear what I could not.

As I live in Australia and deal with a number of international students and travelers, i sympathise with any foreigner that gets involved with the social mob over here.

Have you found any pipers on youtube that you like to listen to?

Cheers

G
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Re: How to leard to blow the bag

Post by Tunborough »

Tunborough wrote:Now, I don't even know if human ears can detect phase shifts, so this may be a non-issue (an empty rabbit-hole, as it were). But I'm not sure we can dismiss the possibility yet.
Out of curiosity, I did a quick search, ... this paper suggests the answer is, yes, we can hear phase differences under the right circumstances.

I'll go back to my rabbit hole now. :wink:
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Re: How to leard to blow the bag

Post by Glenarley »

Good day Tunborough

You make an interesting point.

The software we use is called Voicevista. The reason we use it is because it gives very clear and accurate data display, particularly of the overtone patterns.

The fact of the matter is that I cannot hear a lot of the differences so I use the software to display the differences. I doubt very much that the human ear can actually hear the subtle differences we can see on the software so it becomes very frustrating when clients and pipers, wishing to belong to the elite, claim to be able to hear these sounds that the software and a very expensive condenser mic cannot. My only option is blind testing.

The problem here is that as soon as I ask about doing a blind test, right after I hear the sound of their bum snapping shut, I get all the excuses and remonstrating of mistrust and disbelief.

I truly don't give a rat's, I just want to know if this nose tapping black arts sound really exists anywhere outside of someone's imagination. As a manufacturer of music devices I think it is fair and reasonable to try and find the objective non variables. Apparently I am just being an arehole.

While no one in the living world has ever heard me say I am not an arsehole, even an arsehole must be given some tolerance and latitude. Yes?

If I wanted to pick a fight, I would point out to the GHB mob that there is no such thing as a tone chamber in the tenon slide bore of the drones, except in their imaginations. The fact that we have done hundreds of hours of testing countless configurations we have machined to perfectly match notable pipe configurations, we cannot find that magical sound. Even when we machined and inserted space fillers that completely removed the "chamber" space, we still have the flat earthers telling us the magical tone exists. At this point you need to make a decision!

To save going down that rabbit hole I will refrain however, I still think it is reasonable to ask pipers to listen to different sounds and tell me which sound they prefer without having to disclose the make and model prior to doing the testing.

So, Tunborough, I cannot agree or disagree with the point you raise because the laws of physics are what they are. As a manufacturer, I would just like to know how far into the physics the human ear can be trusted and when do the black arts cut in. I need to have that line scratched on to my slide rule.

Cheers

G
Zhuli
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Re: How to leard to blow the bag

Post by Zhuli »

Hello Mr Glenarley thank you for your informations
i still do not understand everything but i know there are alot of things to learn so i will take time to learn.
I like Mr Fred Morrison playing all the different bagpipes and i like the sound of his music
i do not like the high pitch playing some play because it does not sound nice so i do not want to play like that
i do not understand so many things to fix so many problems by so many people on the youtube lessons.
Some say to do like this and some say do not do like this to fix the same troubles.
I have your email at glenarley.pipes@gmail .com so i can ask you to show me things
The GHB bagpipe is not what people think a girl should play so I get some telling me not to play it but I like it and want to be in the band one day so i will keep learning to play the GHB bagpipe.
thank you for your help
sorry to be so much trouble for you
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