Good day Zhu Li, that is indeed great news and nobody is happier for you than I am.
Forums like this are about reaching out and getting help and this has clearly worked for you.
Some advice if I may. As with your piano playing, it is all about practice and technique.
One of the biggest issues we have with GHB pipers of all levels is not practicing. The GHB is a very loud instrument so finding an appropriate place to practice can be problematic, especially in your part of the world. You can use the practice chanter to learn tune fingering but the bigger issue is bag control.
When you take a breath, you are passing bag control to your arm and when you start to blow after your breath you are taking control back from the arm pressure. This is called transitions and if you get the transitions smooth your piping will sound better for it. To get this right you need a good technique and lots of practice. If you have too much arm pressure or too much breath pressure on transitions you will have sharp notes or even chirps. If you let the pressure drop you will have flat notes or even chokes. Watch this video, Bob Shepherd was one of the best GHB tutors of his time and pay careful attention to the breathing technique of the pipers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ARtfEtgxWHo
You will notice they take and breath without any shortshifting. Regular steady breaths mean less transitions therefore, less opportunities to make transition mistakes. You will also notice no big ballsack cheeks. They breath with tight embouchure from the diaphragms so there is no pressure latency (lag) from having to fill their cheeks to get to the correct pressure, just like a good oboe or clarinet player. You will see some great pipers with bad blowing technique and ballsack cheeks but to do this they must have exceptional bag control. Lots of practice.
One learning technique is to spend lots of time only playing your drones only in the bag, something you can do where you live and something most people can do in their homes without disturbing others. Your drones will tell you straight away if your transitions are good and it will also get you good at tuning your drones. I make chanter bleeds that are a plug that replaces the chanter in the stock and the bleed has a hole size that simulates the exact amount of air your chanter would be using if it were in use. This means you are practicing your bag control on a bag that is using the same amount of air as with a chanter but without the noise. You can now practice without leaving the house so no excuse to not practice bag control every day.
Practicing with your drones will also help with learning to tune. Listen to this video, he is called the bagpipe master so I guess he is a teacher like an English or maths master.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ui9uC_n_k28
Because of your major scale stuff, the F to hG won’t sound too bad but the F to E will sound a bit off to your ear. You will also, in time, pick that the drone’s loss of harmony with the chanter really stands out when he plays the F. This is because it is a bit sharp, the F needs a bit of tape so it does not sound out with the drones. Funnily enough, your ear will tolerate 10 cents sharp but will kick up at 5 cents flat.
This is another example to listen to. I picked on the same tune.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KD0zHfczpw
Same problem with the F but listen to the pitch. In the first video he is at about Bb while she is about 482, typical band pitch. She has the wrong pitched reed for the chanter as I discussed in the video but notice how the F sounds worse against the drones at the pitch she is playing yet, it is sharp about the same amount as the bagpipe master. This is why some very fine pipers will not play solo piping up at band pitch.
The ability to be able to hear this mismatch with the drones and fix it is why the really good pipers just sound so good.
My point is, practice as much as you can and only practice good technique, record yourself and listen, then, listen to a recording of a good piper playing it. You will spot the difference.
Good Uilleann pipers have to have exceptionally good bag control to seamlessly jump between the octaves, just have a listen to a few of them at work and look to see if you can spot any extra movements when they bump to the octave.
That’s my threepence worth, I wish you all the best and I will post the video I said I would.
I apologise for any offense I have caused by my reference to the competitive nature of the GHB mob, of which I am one.
While I am very aware of the Irish Comhaltas, I did not see them as a formal competition. They are about promoting Irish music and culture and I have always viewed them as Irish festivals as all Irish instruments and song are on display at these events. I thought they were peer reviewed and I had no idea that the uilleann judging was done by formally trained, credentialed judges like is the case with the GHB competitions. Today I learned something new.
While I do stand corrected, in fairness, I didn’t say all/only GHB pipers and I did state it as a generalisation and, as I started with the GHB in 1968, I have seen my fair share.
My point was that the GHB world is very regimented in both music and equipment. I could not see an uilleann piper being judged down because he did not have 2mm of hemp showing on his drones or the 2 & 3 finger spacing on his bass drone, but I have seen this in the GHB competitions. I agree we must have standards and rules but I really like the relaxed musicality of the uilleann pipers and that they are largely void of such attention to non-musical detail.
In NZ they still have a lot of session pubs and over 95% of the attendees will bring their Irish instruments although they do get the occasional GHB. They also have their annual tionól in Nelson, (pre Covid). I remember Brian McNamara stayed at by brother’s farm when he attended one such event which goes to show how well supported the Irish music is in NZ.
History tells us that the warpipes were made illegal in Ireland at one time because they were seen as instruments of incitement so piping was brought inside with the uilleann pipes because of the need for music. Enough said.
Again, I apologise if I offended anyone from the GHB mob, I was only trying to be informative for Zhu Li.
Cheers
G