Practice Chanter Newbee

[tundramanq]

I got my Dunbar Regular length Poly Practice Chanter, regular Walsh reeds and Highland Bagpipe Tutor book ( the Blue Book) in the mail yesterday.
At this time I don't think I will be going to GHBPs. This was bought for personal intertainment and to learn something new.
Previous reeded experience was on the saxophone about 50 years ago. Only the notes on the pages are similar
Differences and observations:
1. As Bren noted in his string, the pressure is much higher than what the sax needed. This is great for clearing out your lungs - better than the spirometers the hospitals sell you or Talisker. I brought up a lot of pipe smokers lung crud after yesterdays practice.
2. I will be toning up muscles not normally used - my abs and rib muscles were a bit sore this morning.
3. This PC is a lot easier to blow today. It's either cleaner lungs or the plastic Walsh reed actually has a break in period - or both. I doubt that my muscles got significantly stronger over night.
4. All harmonic damping on the PC has to be done manually. The sax seemed to do it automaticly via all the linkages.
5. I can walk and chew bubble gum at the same time but doing a clean scale is weeks away Especially the D to E and back - 5 fingers moving on both hands together? OMG
6. It is a real blessing that the PC plays softly. My dog doesn't leave the room and my neighbors don't know of my new hobby - yet.
7.You can't snicker at yourself and maintain proper reed pressure at the same time.

[EagleJCS]

Suggestions to address item #5 - rest the sole/bottom of the practice chanter on a table (or your knee, if the PC's long enough). Allow the full weight of the PC to be balanced on this point and your lips. This frees the fingers to be able to move without supporting the PC. You want a very light touch - just enough to cover the holes. If you get little rings on your fingers, you're gripping too tightly. You want to feel the PC vibrating when you play.

Another key is to keep your fingers as straight as possible. Don't use your fingertips to cover the holes. Only the tips of your left thumb, left ring finger and right pinkie finger should be covering holes. The other fingers are actually cover closer to the end joints. (We've had a guy who used to play sax in the US Army band join the pipe band - this was his bug-a-boo.)

A third point to make is to get your right hand thumb opposite your right middle finger or lower (the edge of your thumb will be in contact with the PC instead of the flat). This will make embellishments such as grips or tourluaths much easier. It takes some getting used to and your hand will likely be sore until it gets accustomed to the position.

Have fun!

[pbutts]

Some great tips, Eagle.

The usual tip to get a tutor goes without saying, but since you mention that you are only in it for "personal intertainment".....here's one reason I find a real person invaluable: with so much going on -- fingering, air pressure, posture, rhythm, etc, etc. -- it really helps to have someone suggest what to focus on and to praise your progress on individual elements even when the overall effect can be discouraging.

Also if you plan to hold off on switching to the pipes, you'll want someone to help you select new tunes when you've mastered the tunes in the tutor itself.

As for fingering itself, there are lots of flexibility exercises you can do while you are sitting around doing other things in your life.

Watch for tension in your body....it has a way of radiating to your fingers making relaxed, but precise movements challenging.

Pay attention to where your fingers cover the holes. Eagle's tips are spot on. Start with the thumb and pinkies (as Eagle points out) and then see where the other fingers end up naturally. Everyone's fingers are a little different, so this is one you need to work out on your own then be conscious of what it feels like when the notes are clean. I find that I can "feel" a good performance by the airflow on my fingers.

Something I've never actually tried, but you might be aware of from your sax work, and that might help you enjoy playing tunes on the Practice Chanter is circular breathing. Since pipe tunes are designed to be played without stopping, using the continuous airflow of the bag and the background of the drones, breathing can be a challenge.

And finally, you can use your computer, smart phone, or tablet to record your playing. This can be really discouraging at first, but you'll appreciate your progress.

[tundramanq]

Hey John, thanks for the finger tips in the low A and E holes. The rest of my hands come down then naturally placed on the holes with a minimum of wrist flex. I actually made it up and down the scale on one breath -- almost cleanly
The book shows this in the picture but they didn't "point it out" in writing and I missed this "little" detail.

On pressure, I need to get my hand skin in better shape for the light touch. They are kind of rough and dry from getting the outside ready for winter. Thankfully the Delron this PC is made from, is impervious to Shea nut butter.

I do have a local pipe guru, Suzanne Lumb Kemp (Aden) with the "Mac-Tire of Skye Pipes and Drums" who has offered to help if I need it. You saved me a trip across town.

[Blupiper]

Tundramanq:

All these suggestions are spot on. My main and overriding suggestion is: Keep your hands relaxed at all times. That was my main problem in the beginning. "Chanter death grip" will make your playing more difficult, tire you out quicker and stiffen up your fingers. None of these are good things. Relax your hands to the point where you can almost, but not quite, take your thumbs from the back of the chanter. As with all things, it will take time.

JMB

[tundramanq]

JMB, I have golfers elbow (tendonitis) going on in my left elbow. Any attempt to death grip, at least the left hand, gives me feedback PDQ. It does take a conscious effort to stay loose while thinking of fingerage.
I am thinking it would be nice if chanters had the holes offset for right and left hands so the wrists are in a more natural, less bent angle. I don't know if this would cause playing issues or not in the future. I see a lot of highly bent wrists and bent fingers watching pipers playing. I suspect one leads to the other in trying to ease the wrist angles. I can see this is less severe with a bag under the left arm "propping" it up. It would bring the straight fingers more onto the same plane with the chanter rotated slightly to the right.

[Calgacus]

Hi Chuck,

You say you're not going to go to GHBPs, but what about Scottish Smallpipes?

Here's my set, made by E.J. Jones in Texas.



...and here's how they can sound when played by someone who knows what they are doing (not me! )

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ui5h_ip_Un8

If you can watch to the end without your toes tapping, you win a prize.

[imrichmond]

I am thinking it would be nice if chanters had the holes offset for right and left hands so the wrists are in a more natural, less bent angle. I don't know if this would cause playing issues or not in the future. I see a lot of highly bent wrists and bent fingers watching pipers playing. I suspect one leads to the other in trying to ease the wrist angles. I can see this is less severe with a bag under the left arm "propping" it up. It would bring the straight fingers more onto the same plane with the chanter rotated slightly to the right.

I'm not really sure what you are seeing here, unless you are watching mostly pipers who never learned proper technique. When playing the pipes, the wrists should not be held at an angle, let alone at a severe angle. This is true also when playing the practice chanter. On the practice chanter, the wrists usually become bent at a significant angle because the player is holding his/her elbows tight to the body. The elbows should be held out from the body far enough that the wrists can be held straight and relaxed, basically in line with the thumbs. Holding the elbows tight against the body is a problem common to beginners and also often leads them to curl their fingers around the chanter. Similarly, when playing the bagpipe, the wrists are often bent because the player has the bad habit of pulling the chanter inwards towards the body. Both these errors cause tension in the fingers. In the case of the bagpipe, the problem can be caused by a bag that is either too large or the wrong shape for the player and/or a blowstick that is too long. A properly fitted bagpipe should cause no discomfort in the wrists and certainly should not cause them to be "highly bent".

[OC Richard]

1. the pressure is much higher than what the sax needed.

My theory is that traditional Practice Chanters were made with extremely high backpressure/impedence (far higher than is needed to produce a note of that volume) in order to build up the lip strength of the beginner in preparation for playing the pipes. The Gibson long PC is rather more "free-blowing" and more musical sounding, in my opinion, that traditional-style PCs.

2. I will be toning up muscles not normally used - my abs and rib muscles were a bit sore this morning.
3. This PC is a lot easier to blow today. It's either cleaner lungs or the plastic Walsh reed actually has a break in period - or both. I doubt that my muscles got significantly stronger over night.

A PC shouldn't be THAT hard to play! You can put a little rubber band around the blades of the reed to make the thing easier to blow and more quiet.

4. All harmonic damping on the PC has to be done manually. The sax seemed to do it automaticly via all the linkages.

Hmmm... not sure what you mean there. True that, on bagpipes, there are many expressive devices which must be done with the fingers which on "ordinary" woodwind instruments are done with the embouchure. These include bending notes and vibrato. Odd that the Highland pipe tradition doesn't do these things, when every other bagpipe tradition ones looks at, for example the Irish uilleann pipes, the Central French pipes, Bulgarian pipes, &c note-bending and vibrato are Standard Operating Procedure. One theory is that Highland pipers laid aside note-bending and vibrato when they learnt the traditional Gaelic art music of the harpers, the music now (ironically) called piobaireachd.

5. doing a clean scale is weeks away especially the D to E and back- five fingers moving on both hands together? OMG

Yes when going from D to E, every finger on the bottom hand has to reverse position. But that's nowt! When you go from D to High G all seven fingers on the front of the chanter change!

The trick in going from D to E is to make sure that the E finger is clear of the chanter before those three bottomhand fingers come down. In other words, there is the slightest nanosecond when all are raised. If the bottomhand fingers come down a splitsecond before the E finger is lifted, you get the evil "crossing noise" or "crossing note". (BTW in many other piping traditions, for example the Bulgarian and Asturian, these are done intentionally and are a vital aspect to the style.)

About avoiding these crossing notes, you can keep in mind this trick:
-when going to a higher note, let the uppermost digit involved in the new note initiate the movement
-when going to a lower note, let the lowermost digit(s) involved in the new note initiate the movement.

So, many beginners have trouble going cleanly from Low A to D, because they let the D finger lag behind a bit, getting a short C before the D. If they keep in mind to initiate the movement with the D finger this issue goes away.

Likewise it's common to get a crossing note when going from E to C. But it goes away if you remember to initiate the movement with the lowerhand fingers, so that they are clear a splitsecond before the E finger falls onto the chanter.

7.You can't snicker at yourself and maintain proper reed pressure at the same time.

Or when you burp: the pressure goes lower for a moment no matter what.