Practise Chanter Advice-- Getting BACK into piping

[TheOfficialBren]

Here's one for our pipers:

[Questions after blurb]

I started piping lessons when I was a boy. My folks loved it (Mum, in particular, instilled a love of music from the cradle).

I had a pipe teacher who was a crap teacher but a really good piper. It was discouraging so I dropped the pipes for years and focussed solely on contemporary music (mostly Rock).

[Side-track: Shortly after this time I took up the Irish Whistle (still play it, have recorded with it several times). I'm not a virtuoso on this particular instrument but competant enough to use it on tracks that have been published.]

Now...flash forward to...well...now. I decided a while back that I wanted to get back into piping. I have no aspiration whatsoever to be a competition piper. I have never been a "sporting" musician, always an artist first and foremost. I mostly use my practise chanter in the recording studio to add some colour to tracks that I want to have an "ethnic" flair, mostly simple burls with droning single notes (sometimes harmonising overdubs when possible), a few throws and gracenotes. Nothing fancy. Here lately, though, I've decided that I'd like to actually become a competant piper; I'm not aspiring to be Eric Rigler but certainly some chops and a few tunes are desirable.

[Here are my questions:]

1) my practise chanter has always, even when brand new, been very difficult to blow. I even put a nice, brand new Gibson reed in it and it's still harder than the Dickens to get a steady blow for longer than five or ten minutes. This was always the case. Is it my technique or my intrument?

2) my chanter sounds "pitchy." I had to use Autotune when recording to correct some pitchiness. I suspect that either its holes were incorrectly drilled or pipes don't quite fit into a standard 440-based scale?

3) I've always had the habit of biting my mouthpiece. My piping instructor never corrected this even though I gather that this is a big no-no. It's a hard habit to break. Any advice?

4) Although there is no substitute for a warm body teaching the student (I can vouch for this having had drumming students of my own and having meen a music student many times myself), what and where are some good respurces to help get me back into piping? I'm assuming that starting back at the very beginning would be prudent since that's the advice that I offered my drumming students who had stopped drumming for many years and wanted to take it up again. Is this accurate? Is this a good place to start (http://www.bagpipe-tutorials.com/play-bagpipes.html)? (I know of PM Bill Robertson's reputation and his skill certainly is extremely high on the talent scale [haha, pardon the musical pun]).



Thank you, gents, for your advice.

[OC Richard]

Hey I'm in California, but perhaps nowhere near you. I'm in Orange County. I'd be glad to get together and do what I can.

About Practice Chanters themselves, one thing to be aware of is the dichotomy between traditional PCs and the neo-PCs which are most popular today.

Traditional PCs were designed purely as learning tools, and in addition long retained old traditional features once present on Pipe Chanters.

So, they had extremely high backpressure (resistance), far more than would be required given the output in terms of volume. I believe this was done in order to build up the strength of the tyro's lips in preparation for the pipes themselves.

The pitch and tuning of traditional PCs is more in line with Pipe Chanters of 100 years ago than Pipe Chanters today. Traditional PCs pitch around Concert Pitch, in the key of Bb, just as bagpipes used to. The tuning has the High G more or less a "neutral" 7th, halfway between G and G#, just as bagpipes do in early recordings (1890s-1930s). The "incorrect" scale usually seen on old traditional PCs (flat C#, sharp D, flat F#, sharp High G) results from drilling the holes in an equidistant manner (as is seen on early bagpipe chanters).

Modern PCs are completely different: the hole spacing varies quite a bit in order to bring the scale into tune, exactly as on new Pipe Chanters.

The pitch of modern-style Practice Chanters is much lower than on traditional ones, which is ironic, because the pitch of modern Pipe Chanters is higher! So just as modern Pipe Chanters have reached a pitch a quartertone between Bb and B, new Practice Chanters have dropped to a pitch halfway between Bb and A.

Some makers have greatly reduced the backpressure, especially Gibson. The Gibson "fullsize" PC strikes me as being more like a mouthblown Smallpipe chanter than a Practice Chanter. It's quite freeblowing and has a clearer, more musical tone. (Traditional PCs can sound more or less like kazoos or duck calls.)

Here is what two Gibson fullsize Practice Chanters playing together sound like, well in tune and very pleasant-sounding

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4lw8-3Jf9w

Yes Skype is a great alternative to in-person lessons. I would highly recommend Jori Chisholm or Neil Clark, two top-notch pipers doing Skype.

[pbutts]

1.It's pretty common to struggle with blowing in the beginning. Keep at it and you'll develop more stamina. Even with experience playing the oboe, it took me awhile....maybe it's the narrow blowpipe.

2. The bagpipe scale is pretty unique.... I believe the perfect 440 chanter is a special deal for pipers who play with other instruments.

3. Can't think this would be a big problem....

4. Skype's another good way to to get a teacher.

Best wishes!


(ha....glad to see Richard jumped in while I was tapping away on my iPad)

[OC Richard]

I should point out that the way bagpipes are tuned nowadays has nothing odd or unique about it.

It's called Just Intonation, which has been around forever and can be heard all the time, for example when you hear acapella choirs sing, or brass ensembles play, etc. We have to remember that Equal Temperament (the equal division of the octave into 12 segments) is quite recent.

Just Intonation means tuning the scale strictly based on the laws of acoustics, the Harmonic Series, and the lowest possible ratios.

Here you can read about it http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just_intonation

Yes as you say you will probably need to go back to the very basics in order to make sure you haven't acquired any habits which will impare your progress.

It's amazing how often I hear guys who have been playing 40. 50 years who never learned correctly in the first place, and their playing is chock-full of errors that any competent teacher would have identified and corrected from the get-go.

[TheOfficialBren]

Thank you a whole heap, gents!

Would I be advised to get a new chanter? The one that I have is kind of crap to be honest. Where the plastic portion of the mouthpiece connects to the wooden part of the mouthpiece feels a bit wobbly. Might some of the difficulty blowing be air leakage? Duck call is exactly the sound that I get. Exhausted is what my body gets. Befuddled and confused is what my brain gets. Disturbed is what my ears get.

The difficulty blowing has always been present, even when I was a few months into weekly lessons and playing every day. I was never able on this particular chanter to get more than a few minutes at a time before I felt winded and my lips were numb. The chanter that my instructor loaned me before I got my own was MUCH easier. It might have been a Gibson. It sounded great, played smoothly, and blew effortlessly. Mine is a Pakistani knock-off of the nameless variety. :hides:

To put it into perspective, I'm a pretty healthy guy. I play the drumkit with great proficiency, speed, power, and great stamina (we are talking hours upon hours per session--I sometimes run my live band a little Buddy Rich-esque). My gut says it's the chanter but perhaps I should bring it to a piper to inspect just to be sure.

Those are very interesting points about the scale. I was unaware of that. Sheer proficiency got me through music school rather than academics. My emphasis was on songwriting and production rather than theory.

This forum is a wealth of great knowledge. I will have to check out those links you chaps have provided.

Richard, I am in Southern California but quite a bit north of OC. Perhaps we can arrange a time to Skype?

Again, many thanks (not intending to be redundant, just sincerely grateful).

[ohiopiper]

If in doubt about the quality of the chanter, and especially if you actually want to learn the pipes, a new PC can be had for about a hundred dollars. That's a good quality one from a reputable maker. As with all things bagpipe. avoid E-Bay and buy from bagpipe specific vendors. I'll put a plug in here for Oliver Seeler at www.hotpipes.com you can spend days reading everything he has on his site regarding the tuning of pipes. He also sells some stuff of known good quality.

I agree it's best to start from the beginning. Bagpipes are an instrument that is easy to play badly. This is what gives them such a bad rap in the public eye and why so many pipers will tell someone, without question, to get personal instruction. The scale is unique (non-concert), the pitch is unique (our "A" is roughly B flat plus a little) and the fingering is not intuitive. There is no volume control and no rests (silence for any portion of the time signature). All expression is done with timing and ornamentation. A handful of those are somewhat complex when you're not familiar with them.

If someone has a near perfectionist personality, an above average ear, access to recordings of excellent piping and decent written and pictoral instruction, it is possible to become a passable piper. But with so many musical directions to go in, you may find it impossible to devote the effort to this all by your lonesome. Thus, I will repeat the mantra that is the default answer because it's often the best way: Find a teacher. In person or skype, instruction is better than going it alone then having to unlearn bad habits.

[Calgacus]

Hi Bren,

Some great advice already from other members, and I can't really add anything more, so just to reinforce what's been said already...

1) Invest in a new PC from a reputable maker. Don't buy anything to do with bagpipes from the same sort of source as you bought your last PC.

2) See, you learned something already :-D The bagpipe scale is unique and wonderful. Although it is currently trendy to mix bagpipes with other instruments, I think it shines as a solo instrument because tuning to any other scale ruins the unique harmonics of the bagpipes.

3) The biggest risk here is to your teeth. If you really get in to playing the pipes, this will damage your teeth over the years. It would also be costly if you bought pipes with a wooden mouthpiece, but Delrin mouthpieces are tough and cheap.

4) Get a teacher! Either in person, or by Skype, I feel a real live tutor is an absolute necessity and I do not believe that it is possible to become a competent player without one. Also listen to lots of solo pipe music recordings by the top players. Immerse yourself in how the bagpipes should sound when played well. Once you can squeeze out a few tunes, record yourself and listen to the recordings. This will help you hear which techniques you need to work on to get closer to emulating all those great pipers you have been listening to!