Do you really need a regulator?..... Beginners Question

[bobkeenan]

Pancelticpiper.... Thanks for the post. I just listened to joe mckennas playing. I LIKED the regulators. They seemed to come in and out very subtly. In fact many times I did not notice them until they had been played a while. And they blended perfectly with the chanter tune. I wonder why this sounded so good and yet with some other pro players it sounds like a honking car went by.

But.... If I could every play like this, I could see how adding regulators would add a lot to a tune.

[Kevin L. Rietmann]

The lightest set I ever played was Leo Rowsome's own set !!!

Ha! Heretic! Sort of. Kinda like a pope who's about to get excommunicated, more like.

Years ago Sean Folsom told me about visiting Leon and playing Leo's pipes - you didn't need the bellows, it was so light. I always wonder if Sean wasn't just a bruiser and couldn't tell the difference. Having attempted to play Sean's pipes shored up this hunch, too.

So Leo's pipes are lighter than yoiur Harrington - how does that work? You can drive the pipes by pushing on the bag with half a finger? By blowing on them?

You guys know there are more archival tracks of Tommy Reck on YouTube, right?

That's a shame about Tommy's pipes being on the fritz for so long. Pat Sky wrote here about fixing up his set for the LP - Tommy had taken them all to pieces for some reason, Pat had to make all new reeds for the thing. He said they got two regs going but not all three so Tommy opted to just leave them alone. It was funny how in the liner notes Breathnach made it seem like this was some deliberate artistic statement...

I notice on the LP they seem sharper than before - tone changed as well.

Will write a bit more tomorrow - am going out to play some Irish music. On the accordion and banjo.

[ennischanter]

What ever happened to the Reck set?


http://www.itma.ie/digitallibrary/sound/bucks-ennis

I found ennis playing this this..

It shows how his regulator playing varied..... Sort of

[geoff wooff]

The lightest set I ever played was Leo Rowsome's own set !!!

Ha! Heretic! Sort of. Kinda like a pope who's about to get excommunicated, more like.



So Leo's pipes are lighter than yoiur Harrington - how does that work? You can drive the pipes by pushing on the bag with half a finger? By blowing on them?






OOOOhhhh...... Pope... Heretic.... ??? What are you on Kevin ?

As you have never played my Harrington you'd have no idea of what degree of 'light' I am talking about... Still, there are.... light, lighter, lightest and ridiculight....

[Mr.Gumby]

Hm, it's been a while but I remember it as being in a similar range as my own C set. The same order as Pat Mitchell's with the Willie Clancy reed, which I have seen him pass around at tionols to see who could cope with the unbearable (to most) lightness of being.

Something I learned nearly thirty years ago came from dealing with a pipemaker who, if you'd get reeds off him, used to advocate very strong reeds 'look at what Keenan uses, you'd need two arms to play them'. At a pipers meeting during the early eighties I played his own set (at least the one he was playing at the time, makers' personal sets tend to get sold in lean times) and it was reeded so light it started playing tunes before i had even strapped it on properly. Which taught me never to believe a hard reed story when a maker tries to leave you with one of them. Playing a properly played in reed should never require an big effort.

[mke_mick]

Not to veer sharply on-topic (I'm much enjoying this thread!): for a recently-recorded example of tasteful and effective regulator use, you can hardly beat Pat D'Arcy's rendition of Sí Beag Sí Mór.

Veering slightly back OT: with respect to reed-hardness, I'm enjoying seeing genuine piping/zen masters declare that soft reeds are not only compatible with, but arguably necessary for advanced playing (i.e., for the Full Regulator Experience).

Having finally reached the point in my playing where I can handle a harder reed setup, I've been wondering "O.K., I can now function this way, but what's the point?" I suppose the obvious answer is "volume," (also "upper body conditioning?") but I am henceforth cutting myself more slack in enjoying reeds that don't cause me quite so much pain and tension.

Anyhow, even from a stupid "moral" perspective ("Difficult = Virtuous!"), playing soft reeds well takes skill. Even I have figured that much out: my best soft-playing reeds demand bag-pressure nuance for certain notes to lock in properly (e.g., especially little pressure for low notes & back D).

P.S. Seems to me that if you start a beginner on an easy-playing reed, they'll be less tempted to mess with it in an inexperienced, destructive way. (Maybe the trick is to only sell beginners'-reeds that have already been properly broken in?) Maybe wrecking reeds is all part of the journey, but why not avoid unnecessary early frustrations where you can?

Regards to all,
Mick

[NicoMoreno]

My experience is that harder reeds last better in the highly varying climate we live in (maybe it's worse here than in MN, but judging from friends' posts last month, I doubt it!)

"Harder" is subjective though. And why it's harder is, too.

[mke_mick]

My experience is that harder reeds last better in the highly varying climate we live in (maybe it's worse here than in MN, but judging from friends' posts last month, I doubt it!)

"Harder" is subjective though. And why it's harder is, too.

I suspect Detroit and St. Paul have similar seasonal humidity/climate shifts. But my softer reeds seem to do fine here; I just have to adjust the bridle, sometimes fairly radically, when those shifts happen. The winter --> summer transition is most difficult for me. (Note the absence of spring -- this morning it was 37 degr. F., and tomorrow it's expected to get up to 90 (F). We really don't have much in the way of 60's - 70's-type weather here. ).

Anyhow, it was very telling to me, seeing Paddy Keenan play here a couple of months ago. Over the course of a brilliant concert he adjusted his chanter reed after nearly every set of tunes (grumbling good-naturedly each time). Obviously he's reputed to play harder reeds, but the lesson to me was to never think my reed can go without adjustment indefinitely, even within a single playing session.

Not that I'd assume you lacked that lesson! Just speaking for myself. And I'm in no position to judge actual reed longevity, being in only my third year playing the instrument, albeit obsessively.

Regarding variables behind hardness/softness: I wonder, does one get more durable soft-playing reeds, by favoring playing-in and bridle-tweaking, versus scraping them wafer-thin? Then again, our fellow Midwesterner Tim Britton makes pretty thinly-scraped/sanded reeds that seem to last (and adapt) quite well...

Cheers,
Mick

[Cathy Wilde]

My chanter reed generally plays pretty easily. Unfortunately right now, my drones have turned into total air-hogs. I don't mind having to use more pressure as long as it's all of a piece, but the unbalanced-ness of my present scenario is driving me crazy. Where is that stupid leak???? Where??? Where???? ARRRRRGH!

(I fear it's in the drone switch plunger rod assembly or the bored-out area it lives in. O curse-d boxwood! Welcome to piping ...)

[NicoMoreno]

Agreed about adjusting, of course one has to do that. But a telling example is that I have a reed in a D chanter that is fairly hard, and was made in winter in Southern Ontario. I also had a lighter reed, made in spring, I think (actually I've had several lighter reeds made in many seasons, but let's just compare two for now). I played the lighter reed all through summer, into fall, until winter started to hit, and the reed suffered too much to adjust. I switched out the reeds, everything was fine. Fast-forward to the following spring, when I think to myself, time to try the summer reed again! No dice, it's dead and gone, never to work again. Four or so years later, that hard winter reed is still going strong.

(The reality is that there are so many variables that we may never know one way or another whether (weather?) hard reeds last better or not. It's just an impression of subjective experience.)

[Kevin L. Rietmann]

OOOOhhhh...... Pope... Heretic.... ??? What are you on Kevin ?

As you have never played my Harrington you'd have no idea of what degree of 'light' I am talking about... Still, there are.... light, lighter, lightest and ridiculight....

Just kidding around a bit. You've always championed flat pipes as the superior instrument in every way imaginable and then to say the best (in this one specific sense) you ever played was Leo's might come off as controversial to some. Maybe. "Quarrelsome Pipers," you know? It's also interesting to hear, coming from yourself.

Obviously I've never played your pipes but have enjoyed playing a few sets that were hard not to play all over the keyboard on, they were so easy to work. Not my own unfortunately, since for my Bb pipes I've always insisted on 5 regulators minimum, with all the attendant extra leaks that entails. So I have to settle for really really easy. Acceptable tradeoff, sez I.

Thanks for chiming in here, Geoff.

[ennischanter]

Do you have a picture of them!?!?

5 regs, wow!



How light can a set get? Could they ever be played with just the weight of the bag? Must be some fragile reeds I bet!

[bobkeenan]

Not to veer sharply on-topic (I'm much enjoying this thread!): for a recently-recorded example of tasteful and effective regulator use, you can hardly beat Pat D'Arcy's rendition of Sí Beag Sí Mór.

Veering slightly back OT: with respect to reed-hardness, I'm enjoying seeing genuine piping/zen masters declare that soft reeds are not only compatible with, but arguably necessary for advanced playing (i.e., for the Full Regulator Experience).

Having finally reached the point in my playing where I can handle a harder reed setup, I've been wondering "O.K., I can now function this way, but what's the point?" I suppose the obvious answer is "volume," (also "upper body conditioning?") but I am henceforth cutting myself more slack in enjoying reeds that don't cause me quite so much pain and tension.

Anyhow, even from a stupid "moral" perspective ("Difficult = Virtuous!"), playing soft reeds well takes skill. Even I have figured that much out: my best soft-playing reeds demand bag-pressure nuance for certain notes to lock in properly (e.g., especially little pressure for low notes & back D).

P.S. Seems to me that if you start a beginner on an easy-playing reed, they'll be less tempted to mess with it in an inexperienced, destructive way. (Maybe the trick is to only sell beginners'-reeds that have already been properly broken in?) Maybe wrecking reeds is all part of the journey, but why not avoid unnecessary early frustrations where you can?

Regards to all,
Mick

Just listened to D'arcy's Sí Beag Sí Mór. I had not heard him play before ( I have led a sheltered life). Wow.... he is really good. But I have a question. What is the big bass sound that comes in midway through the song. It sounds too low for a drone.... is that one of his regulators. It really added a powerful background to the tune.

[geoff wooff]

You've always championed flat pipes as the superior instrument in every way imaginable and then to say the best (in this one specific sense) you ever played was Leo's might come off as controversial to some. Maybe. "Quarrelsome Pipers," you know? It's also interesting to hear, coming from yourself.

Obviously I've never played your pipes but have enjoyed playing a few sets that were hard not to play all over the keyboard on, they were so easy to work. Not my own unfortunately, since for my Bb pipes I've always insisted on 5 regulators minimum, with all the attendant extra leaks that entails. So I have to settle for really really easy. Acceptable tradeoff, sez I.

Thanks for chiming in here, Geoff.

Now, I did not say that the lightness of the blowing of Leo's pipes constitutes a 'best I've ever played'. Lightness for lightness sake might not be a totally usefull goal...

I tend to set up each New set to be as hard as I can manage comfortably.... Usually when the Customer arrives they find the pressure quite normal or light, depending on what they are used to. So, I work on the Reeds-to-Play-In system.... A light Reed is not necessarily a shaved down to wafer thin type... but a Scraped in good places and allowed to Play-In variety.

As to why Five Regs. should cause any more leaks than three or any leaks at all ?? Still you must be some sort of Martyr or masocist to have a Bb with Five honkers, surely ?

Good luck with that Kevin,
Geoff.

[Kevin L. Rietmann]

Leo's set is nothing I'd want to listen to all day long - but that's true of concert pipes in general for me. Never cared for his drones so much, always thought Taylors had a richer sound. Played Mickey Zekley's Taylor or copy pipes once, they had a very nice buzzy tone.

Love to listen to Leo anyway - big fan. Wonder how he got that chanter to play so easy without the motorboat bottom D and faulty high E problems. Maybe being halfway to Eb helped...I was told he had a rush in the bore - big guill - so there's that. Craig Fischer told me way back when that he thought Leo was a great reedmaker, and could fix shortcomings and faults with a barrage of reeds, one of which might do the trick.

I play an old Patsy Brown Taylor copy and found out that if you mask the Eb with tape the reed can be light and the high E doesn't snarl. Maybe Leo incorporated something similar from the start. Another thing I was told about Leo's work is that the earlier examples are a bit more prized - closer to his Dad's pipes especially with the chanter which were more faithful to the Taylor he copied to get started. Later Leo is more experimental in nature, and not just the chanter. Tom Creegan's set for instance has an all brass tube bore at the start of the bass drone. Stuff like that.

Ah, sure with my giant set all those extra pads and screwholes add up eventually to a bit of leakage. I made a jumbo bag myself to compensate a bit for that. I can knock out a tune on the thing, here's a couple reels if you want to hear them. "Masochist," well it's a finicky instrument start to finish so if you want to play and be in tune and use the regs you're going to have to beat your head against the wall at some point anyway, right? Those pictures of jumbo sets like the big Moloney Brothers or Joe Shannon's fascinated me from the start, too; what kind of sounds would you get out of pipes like those? The extra effort never put me off, I've been making reeds for a long time and actually enjoy "getting under the hood." The fellow who got me started with the pipes compared them to classy old English cars - really cool, unique, handmade. And constantly breaking down. 'Nuff said.

I always had to have a Bb set - Willie Clancy on that one Pipering LP won me over forever. Never worried about the span, I used to play the bass guitar. Picked up the concert pitch chanter once after it had been gathering dust for a few years, it was hilarious, like trying to play a pencil. When Brad Angus and I first began talking about a big Bb I told him make me the lowest pitch set you can - B, Bb, A. H? M? He did begin work a couple years ago on a low G set, that was...interesting. It could be done but I really think you'd need some mechanical assistance, keywork on the lowest fingerholes maybe, like on one of those old Siccama flutes.