How to leard to blow the bag

The Wonderful World of ... Other Bagpipes. All the surly with none of the regs!
Post Reply
User avatar
MichaelLoos
Posts: 675
Joined: Wed Sep 05, 2007 2:53 am
antispam: No
Please enter the next number in sequence: 8
Tell us something.: I'm here because I just wanted to change my location... but it turns out much more complicated than I thought. Do I already have the 100 required characters?
Location: Klietz, Germany

Re: How to leard to blow the bag

Post by MichaelLoos »

Glenarley wrote:All the humidity aspects of GHB bags is covered in my video
Where can I find your video?
Glenarley
Posts: 127
Joined: Mon Jan 04, 2021 2:20 am
antispam: No
Please enter the next number in sequence: 8
Tell us something.: My family has been making pipes and reeds for over 25 years both Uillean and GHB. I am being asked to share pass on information on to other pipers in this open environment.

Re: How to leard to blow the bag

Post by Glenarley »

MichaelLoos, all my videos are on youtube, just search "glenarley".

To the questions.

Yes, you are correct, uilleann reeds are affected by atmospheric humidity. They are not mouth blown so the bellows draws in the atmospheric (humid) air.

Yes, FMM do play with sheepies but I do not agree it is for a supposedly superior tone. Those pipers are so good they could play with a shopping bag and still sound great. I can make a guess why they use them, same as I can guess why Tiger Woods wears Nike clothes.

No, I will not mention brand names unless it is mutually exclusive to the point I am making.

I would prefer all questions be posted in the forum, it saves me time and is informative to all that read this thread. Thank you.

Cheers

G
Glenarley
Posts: 127
Joined: Mon Jan 04, 2021 2:20 am
antispam: No
Please enter the next number in sequence: 8
Tell us something.: My family has been making pipes and reeds for over 25 years both Uillean and GHB. I am being asked to share pass on information on to other pipers in this open environment.

Re: How to leard to blow the bag

Post by Glenarley »

Full silver GHB pipes sound better than non full silver pipes.

The only explanation I have heard is that because the silver mounts are hollow, they give off a unique and wonderful tonal ring when played at the right pitch.

If you cover the end of a bell with a sheet of metal and strike the bell, you will still hear a sound but it will not be a nice tonal ring. As the mounts have no opening for any sound vibrations to bounce from, I don’t think we are going to ever get a ring, just a thunk.

All silversmiths have their own designs for the mounts so if a particular sound could be achieved through a specific shape/size, I am sure they would all be making the same type of mount.

My view, The Emperor’s New Clothes.

Silver embellishments do look great contrasting with the dark wood of the pipes and silver does have a warmer shine than the black shine of chrome and nickel but they will not embellish the sound, cost yes, sound no. If you like the look of full silver and can afford it, why not. You will have a fine looking set of pipes that you will be proud to play, but don't think the silver is going to make you sound any better.

Cheers

G
Glenarley
Posts: 127
Joined: Mon Jan 04, 2021 2:20 am
antispam: No
Please enter the next number in sequence: 8
Tell us something.: My family has been making pipes and reeds for over 25 years both Uillean and GHB. I am being asked to share pass on information on to other pipers in this open environment.

Re: How to leard to blow the bag

Post by Glenarley »

Moisture control systems keep your reeds dry.

Because the air being supplied to the reed from breath is “saturated”, (it cannot hold any more moisture) and the moisture control systems are very inefficient, the air operating your drone and chanter GHB reeds is saturated.

I demonstrated in my video through the use of a hygrometer, that the air passing through the moisture can is saturated and that should be an end to it. I cannot change physics.

All cane reeds, (GHB clarinet, uilleann, oboe, smallpipe etc) have an absorbed moisture content, it is only the amount that changes between instruments and locations for the bellows blown.

I am not wanting to be a “Dick”, but to be asked why a GHB reed only holds 30 – 36% moisture when being played is sort of obvious. The cane, while somewhat hygroscopic, can still only absorb a certain amount of moisture. To suggest that playing longer will put more moisture into the reed is playing with my mind. If the reed got to 100% moisture, there would only be water, no reed, so there has to be some reed to play and that works out to be about 100% reed which has absorbed a moisture content of 36 – 30% moisture. Sorry if it is my way of explaining that is the problem, that’s why I did the video.

One good thing about canister moisture control systems is that they can prevent drone roar on start-ups. The restriction through the medium prevents the big air inrush to the reed and this stops the reed from vibrating too fast (roaring).

A not so good thing about the moisture control canister systems is that they have quite a noticeable impact on the tone of the drones. This is because each drone has a tube attached going into the canister that isolates the drones from each other so they do not get that (so called) sympathetic harmonising.

Uilleann pipe makes quite often insist on boring out the drone stocks to prevent this drone isolation as many firmly believe the tone is more harmonic when the drones are joined in the same cavity.

If you play your mouth blown pipes, the reeds will be wet. That’s why you have to pull them out and let them dry before the black stuff starts to grow.

When we tried a blow stick full of gel crystals, we kept the moisture capture tube attached. After playing for 20 minutes, the amount of moisture captured in the tube was still about 13 – 14 grams. It was not possible for us to detect a difference as a result of using the gel filled blow stick.


Cheers

G
Glenarley
Posts: 127
Joined: Mon Jan 04, 2021 2:20 am
antispam: No
Please enter the next number in sequence: 8
Tell us something.: My family has been making pipes and reeds for over 25 years both Uillean and GHB. I am being asked to share pass on information on to other pipers in this open environment.

Re: How to leard to blow the bag

Post by Glenarley »

"A folded reed staple produces a better sound than a brass tube staple".
"A sterling silver reed staple produces a truer sound".

I will address both points in the same comment because they are, in my view, both examples of Nose Tapping Black Artism at its best.

The job of the staple is to attach the reed to the chanter, that’s pretty much it.

When the instrument involves multiple tuned octaves such as the oboe and uilleann chanter, the staple must meet certain criteria so that the octaves are in tune. The length and taper of the staple must be made to suit the instrument’s parameters, In the case of uilleann chanters where the exact pitch can differ from maker to maker, the staple may differ primarily in length and taper however, the material is not a fundamental concern and some makers will use brass and others may use copper and some may use both.

The GHB chanter is a very simple, basically one octave instrument so I am only addressing this instrument and the GHB chanter reed staple.

The staple has two ends, the eye end and the seat end. The seat end is round and the eye end is crushed to form an eye shape, x & y axis. Some makers roll up the staple from a flat piece of material and others form the staple from brass tube. Why go to the trouble of rolling a staple when we have brass tube that just needs to be crushed in one simple step, good question.

Originally, one reason makers rolled staples was because it was not possible to purchase thin-walled brass tube in the range currently available, another reason was the reed design itself. The reeds were of a narrower design across the x axis where they were tied onto the staple and they were more prone to splitting because the bark was not removed. If parallel tube was used, when it was crushed to the shape of the eye with the preferred y axis, it was wider across the x axis at the eye end than the diameter at the seat end, and this made it difficult to form the narrow cane around the staple so the cane halves would seal along the edges to the lips. By rolling a folded staple from a trapezium shaped blank it was possible to keep the x axis equal to or smaller than the seat end diameter and this made it easier to form the cane around the eye and get good edge contact all the way to the reed lips. Just basic engineering and physics.

The newer, higher pitched chanter reeds are now generally wider at the point they tie onto the staple, the bark is removed and thin-walled brass is readily available, so many reed makers have changed from rolled staples to crushed tube staples. The brass can be accurately formed to have fine corners at each end of the x axis making it easier when binding the reed to form the cane around the staple to get a good edge seal. The newer reed designs also remove the cane bark and this makes the cane easier to form without splitting when binding it to the staple.

There are no “11 secret herbs and spices” with GHB reed staples. I just dare some piper/reed maker to put their hand up to do a blind test. The most prolific and consistent GHB reed maker, (Bob Shepherd, RIP) with the most successful competition result record in the history of the GHB has used both, and now uses brass tube. Brass is cheaper than copper, it is harder than copper at comparative thickness. Brass tube staples are cheaper and quicker to produce and are more consistent than folded copper staples and, they will not close up if over tightened into the seat.

The staple lengths will fall within a working range and the xy axis will also have a working range, depending on the chanter make and pitch, but that’s about all there is to it.

To put some numbers to it, I have more than 20 different reed staple makes with lengths from 22.2mm to 24.4mm. X axis from 3.2mm to 4.5mm and Y axis from 1.3mm to 1.9mm, all id dimensions. All these staples came from reeds that worked just fine in the appropriately matched chanter. Do the percentage sums and you will find the range is wildly varied however, an average can be found and that average would work in nearly all GHB chanters. They included rolled copper and brass and crushed brass tube. There is no secret recipe, only what I feel is cleaver(?) marketing. Just think blind test before you pay. Also remember, “A fool and his/her money are soon parted”.

Now, for the piper that only wants the very purest of sound, we have the silver plated, the sterling silver and, the “Gold” plated staples, $$$$. Claimed by some to produce the purest sound that could ever pass through a staple to your chanter. It has been suggested to me that you can make these pure sounding staples even better through a unique polishing process. I am told you can only get this special polishing compound from a Chinese alternative medicine shop. It is very expensive and you may have to haggle with the shop to get some but ground unicorn teeth make the best staple polish known. I personally have never tried it but have been so advised.

There was no staple preference pattern that could be found in the case of molded and ridge-cut reeds.

Cheers

G
Glenarley
Posts: 127
Joined: Mon Jan 04, 2021 2:20 am
antispam: No
Please enter the next number in sequence: 8
Tell us something.: My family has been making pipes and reeds for over 25 years both Uillean and GHB. I am being asked to share pass on information on to other pipers in this open environment.

Re: How to leard to blow the bag

Post by Glenarley »

ABW chanters sound better than PAR chanters.

Polyacetal resin, (POM) also called by its trade name Delrin or Polypenco, and some others, versus ABW (African Blackwood), Dalbergia melanoxylon.

I firmly believe that if POM was available in the early 1900’s we would not be having the debate as all GHB’s, (and other musical instruments) would be made of POM. Easy to machine, very stable, impervious to moisture and cheaper than ABW.

If you search through youtube you will find a plethora of videos comparing different musical instruments based on the material they are made from. Look at the blind test results and it becomes clear that even well credentialed, accomplished musicians could not consistently isolate the POM from the ABW and it is no different with the GHB mob. Try and find an elite piper that is prepared to do a blind test on drones and chanters made from ABW and POM, you most likely will not, but you will find plenty that tell you ABW sounds better than POM. Emperor’s New Clothes seems to fit right in.

So why do so many prefer to pay much more for a material that can split, warp, snap, rot and discolour? There seem to be 2 clear reasons, one, we are snobs and want to oneup others through cost and implied wealth, and/or, because we have been indoctrinated into believing that natural is better, purer, classier and more exclusive than cheap and dirty “man made” material. Before your fingers hit the keyboard, think “Blind Test”. Are you prepared to risk having your pants pulled down?

My son’s Buffet Crampon (Paris), (notice how I included “Paris”, (implies exclusive Euro) is ABW and costs 10 times what his POM Yamaha cost and 4 times what his Jupiter, (notice how I did not include “China” when stating Jupiter) cost. When his tutor plays any of them, it sounds like a million dollars, we cannot pick the difference. My son prefers to play the Buffet, not because he feels it sounds any better than the other two but because it is better ergonomically than the other two. He also feels that the spring tension on the Buffet keys is better suited to his finger strengths. In other words, he believes he plays better on the Buffet because it is a better designed and manufactured instrument. To get this quality you need to pay for it however, the quality of the sound is a result of the musician.

After all this we are still left with the question of the “Best Sound”, yet again.

It’s just so subjective, like beauty. I may think my partner is beautiful while you may think she is the ugliest thing to have guts pumped into it. As I am the one touching tummies with her, I just don’t care what you think as I’m happy with what I have. Sound is essentially the same although there are some sounds that are universally accepted as being uneasy to listen to.

I often hear drones with an overtone that is edgy and buzzy and quite unpleasant on my ear. Because this overtone is competing with the fundamental tone, the pipers are unable to get that clean full hummmmm from their drones, so they can never really get the drones to lock. Because I hear so many pipers playing with this edgy buzzy sound, I am left to believe they like it. Maybe they do not want their drones to lock and the sound of several competing tones is the sound they are looking for, who knows? All I know is that I prefer the full tonal hummmm you get when the drones are locked to the fundamental without the competing overtones. My subjective preference.

ABW or POM, if you exclude subjective preference only the software and blind testing really know.

My threepence worth.

G
Glenarley
Posts: 127
Joined: Mon Jan 04, 2021 2:20 am
antispam: No
Please enter the next number in sequence: 8
Tell us something.: My family has been making pipes and reeds for over 25 years both Uillean and GHB. I am being asked to share pass on information on to other pipers in this open environment.

Re: How to leard to blow the bag

Post by Glenarley »

Please ask questions about my posts in forum, please. It offers others the chance to comment.

What I mean by annoying overtone is easy to see if you use the software. Vocevista Video has a free 14 day trial version, try it.

If I knew how to embed pictures in this post I would paste screenshot images to demonstrate, alas...

If you play an A on the piano you will hear an A. If you play an A at normal weight and simultaneously play the E at a quarter weight, you will hear the A primarily but you will also hear the E slightly. To put it in numbers lets say 30% E and 70% A. The E becomes an interference to you hearing the clean A. You do hear the A mostly, but it is just not a clean A. If you increase the E and decrease the A you will get to a point when the E becomes the primary and the A is the annoying overtone. There is probably a better way to explain an overtone but this is a simplified explanation. Again, the software gives a clear audio and visual display that is clear and simple and makes it very easy to digest.

Cheers

G
Glenarley
Posts: 127
Joined: Mon Jan 04, 2021 2:20 am
antispam: No
Please enter the next number in sequence: 8
Tell us something.: My family has been making pipes and reeds for over 25 years both Uillean and GHB. I am being asked to share pass on information on to other pipers in this open environment.

Re: How to leard to blow the bag

Post by Glenarley »

Sometimes, as much as it might sting, you just have to suck it up and admit when you just didn’t get it right.

These topics are all interrelated and should be covered as the one issue.

If we can see 2mm of hemp on your tenor tenons you will sound better.
Full silver GHB pipes sound better than non-full silver pipes.
Drones with tone chambers sound better than drones with no tone chambers.

What I tested was the tone chamber difference between different makes of pipes and found that the difference could not be heard to the extent that there was an advantage in one brand’s tone chambers over another. This is what the software showed and I stand by the result however, after speaking with an ex-colleague, it was pointed out that I failed to completely test all options.

This chap has an honours degree in mechanical engineering and a PhD in acoustics so I trust his theory and maths. What I should have tested was the drones with and without tone chambers, not the tone chambers on different makes. The results are quite surprising.

I have put the tests on a you tube video because there were several options that needed to be tested to try to be objective, and the numbers cannot be argued with.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ImiqXviGcSw

Basically, the larger the tone chambers the greater the effect on the sound when compared to the same drone with no tone chamber, (sleeve inserted to fill the space). I turned up sleeves that I used to completely remove the chambers keeping the length set at the magical 2mm of hemp showing. Plain wood sets used small diameter tenons and silvered sets had larger diameter tenons and in every case, the larger tenons (silvered sets) created a more edgy overtone and were more difficult to strike in, big surprise.

The engineer did try to explain the results to me but after the first couple of sentences, all I could hear was Blah.…Blah....Blah..Blah..Blah. He did say the results are exactly what he would have expected based on, as best as I could understand, the expanding and compressing of sound waves contained in a tube.

The engineers get the big win over the nose tappers with tone chambers. This is why we have and need engineers.

After my video was posted I have had 3 pipers bring their pipes to me to have roaring reeds on strike-in issues fixed and by inserting custom sleeves, all the strike-in problems were resolved. I have had 4 other pipers send me the bore dimensions of there pipes so that I could send them sleeves to fix their problems. All, except the bloke from Texas, have confirmed that the sleeves fixed their strike-in problems and that the tone was more to their liking, (less edgy, buzzy). I made them longer than they needed and they just cut them to the required length. So simple yet so good.

This sleeve system was not unknown to us but we had never tried to apply it till now. We should have taken more notice of what that old piper told us all those years ago. He gets the last word after all.

Cheers

G
Glenarley
Posts: 127
Joined: Mon Jan 04, 2021 2:20 am
antispam: No
Please enter the next number in sequence: 8
Tell us something.: My family has been making pipes and reeds for over 25 years both Uillean and GHB. I am being asked to share pass on information on to other pipers in this open environment.

Re: How to leard to blow the bag

Post by Glenarley »

The tone chamber sleeve practice has been explained to me by an old piper here in Aus that knew of and used these sleeve chamber fillers.

The practice goes back before WWII and relates to the use of cane reeds. Back then the pitch was low so most drones were tuned high on the tenon tuning slides. The problem is with strike-in pressure because the further up your tenon slides you have to go to set the pitch the less pressure it takes to shut down the reed. The short higher pitched more rigid blade synthetic drone reeds had not yet been invented and it was difficult to accurately control the blade strength on the cane reeds.

You needed the tenon to tune high for the low pitch required but did not want to have to strengthen the reed blade to stop a premature shut-off, so this could easily mean that the reed roared on strike-in. By filling the chamber you were able to tune the tenon long and still achieve an easy low pressure strike-in so no need for a stronger reed blade and no roaring drone. All good.

The bloke that explained this to me is 90+ and could not remember what he had for breakfast, but can remember stuff he did 70 years ago as though it was yesterday. Go figure.

The 2mm of hemp thing is just an urban myth that has been repeated so many times it has just been accepted by many as fact. It is nothing to do with superior, fuller, better, enriched, pure tone. It is not about tone at all really, tone is just a coincidence. Try it yourself with the bass drone. Set the lower tenon long as see what a difference it makes to strike-ins. Ignore the pitch for the sake of the exercise. Then set the lower tenon very short and observe the strike-in difference.

They did not have computers but the old blokes still found a way to get the job done.

The mere assertion, in the absence of evidence, is merely an assertion.

Cheers

G
Driftwood
Posts: 145
Joined: Sun Mar 13, 2011 7:24 am
antispam: No
Please enter the next number in sequence: 12

Re: How to leard to blow the bag

Post by Driftwood »

As an Uilleann piper I've followed this thread with interest in case any of the findings are relevant to Uilleann drones. Ideally though, I guess it would need an expert in both types to translate it all for me. So is it the case that increasing the volume of the tone chamber relative to the total volume of drone e.g. by increasing the diameter of the chamber and/or reducing the diameter of adjacent sections of the air column gives a "buzzier" sound at the expense of some stability? And doing the opposite gives more stability but a "boomier" sound? Or the other way round?
Glenarley
Posts: 127
Joined: Mon Jan 04, 2021 2:20 am
antispam: No
Please enter the next number in sequence: 8
Tell us something.: My family has been making pipes and reeds for over 25 years both Uillean and GHB. I am being asked to share pass on information on to other pipers in this open environment.

Re: How to leard to blow the bag

Post by Glenarley »

We haven’t put all the numbers to it yet but we are starting to.

The first and most relevant issue is the fixation of the GHB mob to have to show 2mm of hemp in the belief this produces the “best” tone, (tenors in this example). The uilleann mob don’t care about how much tenon is exposed, only that the drone is in tune. This 2mm hemp urban myth was the motivation for the exercise so all the testing was done at the magical 2mm hemp line.

Watching the video might help but to summarise, the bigger the chamber, the less stability, a more buzzy overtone and greater difficulty with the strike-in. This was always the case but at differing levels depending on the reed selected.

By stability I mean less pitch deviation over a larger pressure range. Like putting wax on an uilleann reed, you lower the pitch but you get a less bendy, more stable tone. The strike-in was the other aspect where stability could be applied as the reeds struck-in to the correct tone much earlier without the need to really bump the bag sharply, a big advantage for competition bands.

The strident overtone was the other big surprise as can be seen in the picture I show in the video. If I knew how to embed pictures in this post I could show many examples. Keep in mind that the GHB have 2 different sized tenon relief bore sizes to deal with. To round it out, the plain wood around 16mm and the silvered tenons about 18mm. The larger silvered sets were more problematic for stability and strike-in than the smaller diameter and on many, the buzzy overtone was just unpleasant, depending on the reed but in all cases, removing the chamber reduced the buzzy overtone and improved strike-in pressure.
In most cases, the tone was a bit like the treble on your audio device. Turn it up and the sound becomes thin and edgy and the opposite occurs when you turn the knob the other way yet the volume remains the same.

I will have to do more work on this as I am getting bashed by some old GHB trads dishing me up all manner of crap sandwiches because I am being seen as devaluing silvered pipes and messing with their beloved 2mm hemp myth. I need to cover the variables better if practicable to do so but the basic findings are sound and repeatable. Bigger chambers, bigger problems.

Will do some testing on uilleann sets to see the comparison with GHB but will need to farm this off to my brother because he makes and plays the uilleann, I do not. But we did make this initial observation.

A David Daye baritone we have is made with a short tuning tenon (small chamber) when compared to most other mainstream makes. He uses those brass reeds and gets a brassy edgy overtone compared with a cane reed in the same baritone. Take his brass reed and put it in a baritone with a more conventional length tenon (up round the 80mm, large chamber) and listen to the sound. It almost cuts you in half it is so edgy, a real icey buzz that I personally just cannot tolerate (my personal preference only, others may love it). When we fill the chamber on the large chamber baritone with a packing sleeve, we reduce the edgy buzz and the tone is noticeably softer and smoother (we will put it on the software when we have enough sample reeds).

We need to do a more objective testing to put some real numbers to it but this is not a priority as the GHB Black Arts is the primary subject of my efforts at this time.

Cheers

G
Driftwood
Posts: 145
Joined: Sun Mar 13, 2011 7:24 am
antispam: No
Please enter the next number in sequence: 12

Re: How to leard to blow the bag

Post by Driftwood »

Thanks for the information Glenarley. I'll be interested to see the results of your proposed UP drone research.
Glenarley
Posts: 127
Joined: Mon Jan 04, 2021 2:20 am
antispam: No
Please enter the next number in sequence: 8
Tell us something.: My family has been making pipes and reeds for over 25 years both Uillean and GHB. I am being asked to share pass on information on to other pipers in this open environment.

Re: How to leard to blow the bag

Post by Glenarley »

The bass drone tone chamber test is an extension of the 2mm of hemp myth applied to the tenor drones only this myth does not support the 2mm of hemp showing. On the bass drone we have the 2 and 3 finger spacing myth.

The story is, the bottom tenon has 2 finger width of tenon showing and the upper tenon has 3 finger space of tenon showing, and this will produce the “best” sound. Right from the onset I have felt that this was something akin to believing in the tooth fairy. It just does not make sense in musical instrument theory and it does not make sense in application. I am using the information from A Bernard’s book for the theory.

Not often am I really surprised but the bass tone chamber test went close. I did all the testing at the hemp length on both tenons and if you watch the video, you will see and hear, the numbers do not lie. It should also be noted that the fundamental tone of the base drone was stronger at its full length on the hemp line. When I tested at the 2,3 finger length, the fundamental tone was weaker compared to the overtones. Those that insist on that hummy tone may be able to hear the difference with the naked ear. I could not so I relied on the software.

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

I have had a couple of angry ants give me a serve for allegedly calling some accomplished pipers and tutors liars. While I do offer up my personal views, I am only providing information and I support all my findings with data and demonstrations. I avoid naming brands or individuals as I want the focus to be on the processes. I cannot be responsible for what other people state or document and while I am not alleging that others are liars and providing false and misleading information, “if the hat fits, ……..”.

My agenda is simply to put some of the “nose tapping black arts stuff” to bed and prevent pipers, especially beginners, from being conned into chasing unicorns. The focus should be on reliable equipment, sound fundamentals and wood shedding, lots of wood shedding. If the unicorn farmers have issue with what I am doing, bring something to the table or stay out of the narrative as unsupported personal opinions are not all that helpful.

To give an example, this was sent to me from another bagpipe forum as something to raise doubts over one of my videos.

The topic is drone reed selection.

“I find it hard to believe they were purposefully designed to tune lower on the pin. Naills are slightly flatter pipes. It is simply a function of the pitch of the chanter.”

I feel this is a load of poppycock from the uninformed. The writer may be a well credentialed piper which makes it all the worse considering (the underlined) was written as a fact to influence the equipment choice of an inexperienced piper.

“Naills are slightly flatter pipes”. Says who? Flatter than what? What model? What year? What reeds? What playing pressure? And so on.
“It is simply a function of the pitch of the chanter”. Says who? Isn’t the chanter brand and model mutually exclusive? What is the specified maker's pitch? Where are the facts and supporting information?

Better to remain silent and have the world think you are an idiot than open your mouth and remove all doubt.

I do answer all emails, even the ones from Bozo the Clown and Angry Ant. I would prefer the questions were posted in this thread as there will be others that are better placed and more articulate than me to give the most appropriate replies. It would also save me some considerable time constructing moderate replies.

As far as the uilleann pipe bass drones are concerned, the initial tests show similar results as the GHB but as there are so many differently designed uilleann pipe bass drones and tuning settings, it may be a wee bit longer before I can put some consistent numbers to the tests.

Cheers

G
Glenarley
Posts: 127
Joined: Mon Jan 04, 2021 2:20 am
antispam: No
Please enter the next number in sequence: 8
Tell us something.: My family has been making pipes and reeds for over 25 years both Uillean and GHB. I am being asked to share pass on information on to other pipers in this open environment.

Re: How to leard to blow the bag

Post by Glenarley »

The High A.

I have heard it called the, Disappearing A, The Vanishing A, The piobaireachd A, The Piper’s A, The Blending A and a few others that escape me at this moment.

It’s a bloody note on a scale and it is just an A, so why all the bulldust over a single note on the GHB chanter?

Many High A’s (HA) are played with a raspy scurly sound and are thin and pastey to listen to but because the pipers that play this type of HA seem clueless as to how to fix the sound, they seem to go down the “Emperor’s New Clothes” track and pretend that this is the sound they want and like.

“No, I didn’t really trip and fall over, I actually just wanted to pick up some dirt with my teeth”. Really?

After my boy posted his playing Highland Wedding as a hornpipe, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GhssKMKTTE we have had many requests for the music score. The tune is a Tully setting with some extras put into it by Liddell which my boy transcribed after listening to Liddell working it over, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xVAVE5i_10Q (20:00 min). One of the common questions to me has been how my boy gets his triple A’s to pop so cleanly compared to Liddell. The inference is that Liddell is one of the worlds best and yet a 15yo kid can pop a more strident HA triple, how?

I agree that he does but it is more to do with the reed than the piper, sad to say.

On the other team we get comments like the HA is, too brash, shrill, too bright, too sharp, not a real HA and so on. His HA is in tune with the tonic notes so that comment is just bollocks and the other comments are subjective preference, something we are all entitled to have.

Then comes the bite. I have heard Willie McCallum play some slow airs and marches with a very clean HA that did not disappear up his drones. I have also heard Fred Morrison play the same HA on some tunes. I am not too sure how arrogant you would need to be to tell either of those pipers their HA’s sound like crap or are being played incorrectly.

I believe that these pipers have very good, exceptionally good reed skills and their skills allow them to select and manipulate their reeds to get the sound and tone they are after. I could be wrong and it may only be pot luck but, I am not one to believe in coincidence.

Good reed skills fix many piping problems but because of the current environment, I believe we are de-skilling our selves by believing slick marketing with a plug’n’play mentality. I also feel pipers are just becoming lazy. McDonalds made us lazy with food and look at the results from that stroke of marketing genius. Well, apart from the obesity, I believe many pipers are now stuck in that rut. Lazy and skill less.

Test it, post a couple of questions on one of the bigger GHB forums, (not this one) and ask questions like, what is the disappearing A or what is the best reed for a Lawrie chanter or why to we need tone chambers and see what responses you get. It will do your head in and I feel will also prove that most players have no clue as to why their pipes actually work from a mechanical physics aspect, just “monkey see, monkey do” mixed in with some “Nose Tapping Black Arts”.

I recently spoke with an ex grade 1 piper that told me the pipers that set their HA up to 10 cents flatter than the tonic LA and E was so that the HA could actually be heard. His thought was that when your HA is really thin and weak as many are, it just does not get heard but if you flatten it a tad, it stands out a bit better. He also thought the HA was tolerated so thin and weak so the HG would not be too sharp. The HG and HA are controlled on the thinnest part of the reed so if you make the lip gap larger to get a cleaner HA you risk the HG going sharp and the HG will not respond to taping like most other chanter notes. From what I know about reeds I could not argue against any of the points he made.

I feel this HA thing falls squarely into the “Black Arts” category and if pipers had better reed skills, no one would have ever heard of the “Disappearing High A”. I also feel that to indoctrinate young pipers into this “Black Arts” ideology is one of the reasons the young are not even wanting to take on the craft. Yes, Playstation and Social Media are right in the mix of culprits also but many in the piping fraternity are not helping.

My answer, get some reed skills.

Cheers

G
Glenarley
Posts: 127
Joined: Mon Jan 04, 2021 2:20 am
antispam: No
Please enter the next number in sequence: 8
Tell us something.: My family has been making pipes and reeds for over 25 years both Uillean and GHB. I am being asked to share pass on information on to other pipers in this open environment.

Re: How to leard to blow the bag

Post by Glenarley »

The sharp high G.

This is a question/comment that has been sent to me from a GHB forum and the answers, to the greater extent, are just plain nuts.

I won’t post them all but I will use extracts of some answers to make a point.

Because we make GHB chanters and reeds we hear this urban myth all the time and it is just nuts. It also has pipers running about like a fa_t in a milk bottle, stop passing this myth about. There is no shame in saying you have no clue.

“So, just on a purely physics (?) level, why is High G so sharp again? And...do people who live in parts of the world that have higher levels of humidity plagued by this problem? If so, are chanters made for those climates almost exclusively? If so, is there a chanter out there that has been created that has a consistently flatter High G? Just really curious technically why this note is so amazingly sharp most of the time here in California.”

So poor old humidity gets it in the neck again, from who I feel are the ignorant and uninformed or just plain misled.

Bellows blown do get affected by humidity because the air being drawn into the bellows and passed through the reeds is atmospheric air at the region’s current humidity. This is why some uilleann pipers carry a sling psychrometer or a digital hygrometer with them when they travel. Some will carry different reeds for different humidity and some will just not play if the humidity is out of their range setting.

GHB use the saturated air from the human lung and saturated means 100% RH and because the GHB bag is a positive pressurised environment, the region’s humidity is not going to have an effect from low RH to high RH because it cannot enter the positively pressurised bag. It’s not rocket science!

I did the tests and had my results verified. Humidity is not a factor, temperature and altitude are factors. An orchestra will set up at 1 deg C = 3 cents pitch change. At altitude, (fairly high altitude) the air is thinner so the reed does not have the same air mass on the atmosphere side so the reed will have less resistance to close. There are numerous papers on line covering this issue for reed based wind instruments so I will not try to explain what I do not really understand, read the papers if it matters to you.

The most important “fact” that needs to be considered is that it is reasonable to believe that almost every, perhaps all GHB chanters left the maker in tune at a pitch with a given reed. If your chanter has a sharp note(s), (high G), you are using the wrong reed and or are blowing the chanter at the wrong pressure for its design. Change something and record the results.

To test this, we can get a chanter that is in tune at whatever pitch at say 30” H2O pressure and then over blow this chanter to say 36” H2O and we will see that some notes change pitch at a different rate than others. It is called “design”. The maker’s “design”. Most makers will not tell you the design pressure or the design pitch of the design reed they used to make the chanter; it would be commercial suicide to do so. This is where the piper needs to do some of that piper stuff! It is called reed skills. Trouble is, with the current plug’n’play environment, pipers have become deskilled so out pops the “Nose Tapping Black Arts” experts sending the unaware down that bloody rabbit hole.

Just on the high G for example, ever noticed how it does not really respond to taping until you cover at least half the hole? The high G is a flow sensitive hole, that’s why. Ever notice how little tape you need on the E hole to get it to respond? The E hole is the only high note that plays as a single open hole note. All the other notes have multiple holes open to be in tune. Imagine giving a uilleann chanter to one of these GHB pipers, many would blow a fuse trying to work it out as the sensitivity of the octave jump pressure would just do their heads in.

On the too sharp high G the reed is vibrating too fast with the hole in the current location. Look at the different chanter makes and you will see the different design distances between the G and F holes. Even on the new edgy high pitch chanters, say G1 and Shepherd Classic 3. The G1 has a completely relative location for the high G hole compared to the Shepherd yet they are both set to the same high pitch, and they play anywhere in the world to boot. Now check the reed pitch of the reeds they are using. Both are different, because of design. Not because you live in California. Just learn some basic reed skills and most your GHB chanter problems will just melt away. Remove a little bit a couple of mm from the lips and notice the difference. Better yet, just get a reed with the correct pitch.

I still remember Bob Shepherd, (RIP) telling me in his school master’s tone, “it’s all about the reed making fundamentals”. Turns out he was right.

Lots of pipers have issues with a sharp high G, just look how many of them have half the hole taped and then cannot play a log to high G grace note without the “chirp”, no enough reed skills.

A. “With any reed you tried, High G was a mile sharp. BUT with the Hardie reeds that came with the chanter, the High G was good! Those reeds had a flatter High G built into them.”

Reed skills, not location.

A. “I have modified chanter throats to fix this in chronic chanters, though it does affect other notes so you gotta be careful.”

So, let’s see, we could buy a different $15 reed or we could drill out a $250 - $450 chanter throat and run the risk of manufacturing some expensive firewood. Great advice.

A. “I do battle sharp High G's, seems all of my chanters have needed 1/3 to 1/2 the hole covered it. Drives me bonkers. Not sure what will happen though if we move where there's much less ambient humidity such as the Midwest or parts of Texas and far more distinct temperature and seasonal swings.”

Clearly this person has been misled, think about it, on a hot sunny day 40% RH. On a rainy-day 95+% RH. Notice how you still have the sharp high G on both days? You don’t need to get the slide rule out to do the sums. The pitch on the chanter balance may change because of temp so you may have to move a little bit of tape to trim tune but the sharp high G is still proportionally sharp. Reed skills, not RH.

A. “That's a good question. I think sometimes we ascribe too much genius to pipemakers, and pay rather less attention to the extent to which designs are copied from one maker to the next. I suspect chanter hole positions tend to be left alone as long as a roughly equal number of complaints that the note is too sharp or too flat come in.”

I think this comment, whether in good faith or not, is just an offensive slagging of pipemakers. Sure, “if you want to do something well, find someone that is and copy them”. But to suggest that a pipemaker would copy another maker’s design and then not test or try to improve it is not reasonable and speaks poorly of pipemakers. Do not take notice of this comment!! It is just proving my views about some of these "Helpful Harry's". Give this bloke a uilleann chanter and watch his face fall clean through his backside.

Sometimes we get a piper that is prepared to listen and learn and by demonstrating some of the issues and processes we resolve many playing and equipment problems. The down side is when the person you just helped goes back to those that gave poor advice, (some of them very skilled pipers) and tells them that I said they were lying wan__rs, (completely misrepresented and out of context) it kind of sets a tone.

Real good for my social interactions so why do I bother. To keep the craft alive, that’s why!

Cheers

G
Post Reply