Flett from Flotta, Battle of Waterloo, Roderick MacDonald’s Favorite, and Balmoral Castle

Then I decided I’d suck at some 6/8′s I never play.

Bonawe Highlanders and Frank Thomson

I got a request this week for the sheets to Sgt. MacKenzie. The Pekaar Index didn’t come up with anything so I googled it and found out it is a song by Joe Kilna MacKenzie. There’s audio files of the tune everywhere and while the piping wasn’t the most consistent (mine certainly isn’t) I wrote the tune down from the recording and figured I’d play it here. Its claim to fame is the movie We Were Soldiers. I threw in a hornpipe at the end as that seems to be the most common solo pipe medley out there, play something slow then something fast. Go figure.

Sgt. Mackenzie and PM Calum Campbell’s Caprice

Then I felt bad for calling Chris Armstrong out on the whole Battle of Waterloo thing (he’s the PM of Scottish Power) so I played a tune he wrote that I was learning at one time to play with a band headed to the World’s (though I didn’t even make it to one practice – grad/med school between me and wife and 2 kids, I don’t know how I thought that was ever going to happen, hey, I got my Ph.D. a couple days before that band played at the World’s, fair trade I guess). Anyways, the first tune is Chris’:

Mr. F. Octave Anno, The Snuff Wife, and Rakes of Kildare

I substituted another taorlauth for a GDE on BAA but it’s messing up the G grace note to B following so I gotta work on that in Rakes of Kildare. Then I was like, I haven’t sucked enough at jigs today.

Pipe Major Jimmy MacGregor and Thief of Lochaber

So, I’ve got 2 of my Colin Kyo chanters going with Husk reeds now. So, I think I can safely say I won’t have to worry about getting reeds from Gilmour anymore. Yay! Cause those things are scarce!

I played the Henderson’s, the other pipe with the Husk/CK combo, the other day for 1.5 hours and the last tune I recorded was my first competition 2/4 march, which probably hasn’t been played since the first and last time I used it in competition. Since I haven’t sucked enough yet in this blog post, I figured I’d post what I sounded like sight reading a tune I haven’t played in 12 years at the end of 95 minutes of straight sight reeding every tune from Scots Guards between pages 106-156. Enjoy!

79th’s Farewell to Gibralter

My spare bag which ended up on the MacPherson’s is a small, grommeted Gannaway. I don’t like it. It doesn’t fit very well. It really cramps my top hand’s style. I’ve conditioned and seasoned it (well, I think I conditioned it, my memory sucks) and I noticed it was still a bit damp after not being played a while and there are these little cube crystals in there which I thought was odd. So, gonna let that dry out a bit and maybe re-season. Moisture was a bit of an issue tonight so I might have to get a tube trap for this set too. I much prefer the fit of my tied-in medium Gannaway that is on the Gellaitry’s.

If you don’t have the CD, I recently acquired the 2009 Silver Cap competition album and it is a must have solo album. It is mucho awesome-o. The format is a MSR-SA-HJ, that’s a slow air there in the middle. What’s neat is in addition to the world class players are some really cool tunes. The MSRs are all pretty traditional, the slow airs musical, but the hornpipe jig sets are fairly radical as far as tune selection goes. Were it just a straight up HJ competition at Glenfiddich, you wouldn’t have heard half these tunes. One of them was PM Calum Campbell’s Caprice which I thought was a cool tune, played by Niall Stewart, so I sat down for a few minutes the other night and transcribed the tune from the recording, if you have any corrections they would be appreciated. Pity, I’m about sick of it now though. The moisture in the bag was putting my chanter pitch everywhere and so it took a while to get a decent recording tone and finger wise, especially since I’m sight reading but it finally came together I think, after I played the tune like 10 times. In the same vein of practice I play Rakes of Kildare (out of Seumas MacNeill’s first book) a few times through until it didn’t royally suck (also sight read), so you’ll get to hear that like 3 times. I’ll get these two tunes down eventually. This certainly isn’t a wussy version of Rakes of Kildare, none of that whole bar of nothing but high G taps on high A in the 4th part, no sir. Drone volume might be a bit much in the recording but I’m back in the closet with the wife on night float so I don’t wake the kids and trust me, you don’t want me facing the mic. Just say no to solo bombards. Cheerios!

PM Calum Campbell’s Caprice (Joe Wilson) and Rakes of Kildare (arr. Donald MacLean, London)

Marcus McLaurin of the 772nd Tank Battalion, WWII (Patrick McLaurin) and Spanner in the Works (Hamish Moore, I’m told)

The Rossshire Volunteers (John Connon), Susan MacLeod (Donald MacLeod), Charlie’s Welcome (out of Scott MacAulay’s book, adaptation of Duncan Johnstone’s setting)

Lucy Cassidy (George McIntyre) and The Curlew (Donald MacPherson, Clydebank)

Crossing the Minch (Donald MacLeod) and Donella Beaton (George Johnstone)

I’ve added a direct link to the Bob Pekaar Tune Encyclopedia on the right side of the webpage at the top of the “Non-Bagpipe Blog-oid Links” section in case you want to locate any of the tunes I play.

The newest version of the McLaren synthetic chanter reed doesn’t seem all too different from the last version I played with. Noticeably, it now has 2 rubber bands instead of 1. Previously, I had only gotten it to work in the Kron Medalist, and I have found the same to be true pretty much even now. However, I had to remove one band to get the best result. Otherwise the Medalist resembled a smallpipe chanter with a rather muffled low A coupled with the rather strong high A offered by the synthetic reed. Removing one band allowed the volume of the low A to increase significantly. Removal of both bands resulted in a wonky E that could be blown over a wide ranges of pitches. Here is a very quick snippet of the Kron Medalist with the McLaren synthetic reed:

High Drive (Gordon Duncan) and Arthur Bignold of Lochrosque

Trying the reed in a couple other chanters was unsuccessful. The McC2 chanter played well with both bands on the reed, with no soft low A, but the high G was 30-41 cents sharp even with the hole over half covered with tape, probably a function of having 2 bridles on the reed. Hear the few notes played on the McC2 here:

1st part of Arthur Bignold of Lochrosque

but discover here why it isn’t going to work here:

1st part of the High Drive (Gordon Duncan)

Overall chirpiness is what kept the AyrFire chanter from working well with the reed as well. The McC2 and AyrFire required the use of both bands on the reeds to keep the E from going wonky; otherwise the combination might have worked if only one band could have been used to minimize the tape on high G, though I’m not overly confident about that conclusion.

PM George Allan (Donald MacLeod) and Braes of Melinish

Song for Winter and Maggie’s Pancakes (Stuart Morrison – fiddler with Tannahill Weavers)

Herringwife and Donella Beaton (George Johnstone)

But, I really wanted to clear up something in my last post (which has been edited), and that is my manipulations of the MacLellan reed were the source of the unsteadiness of the reed and not the oval low A hole as I suggested. In addition to trying the MacLellan reed that I disfigured in a Colin Kyo chanter, I also dislodged my favorite solo reed from my favorite solo chanter (gasp, I know) and tried it in the AyrFire chanter. Sure enough, the disfigured MacLellan was unsteady in the Colin Kyo and the AyrFire played fine with my solo Gilmour reed. Yay! Recordings below in my solo pipe (favorite, duh!), Gellaitry’s with Kinnaird drone reeds.

Although the MacLellan reed is now kinda bleh, I did notice when reeding the Kyo that I had to pull the reed out quite a bit and the pitch ultimately settled around 472 Hz. Which is pretty cool because my solo Gilmour is usually around 485 Hz, but it’s a really easy reed about to give up the ghost. The Gilmour in the AyrFire came in around 480 Hz. So, note to self: try some more MacLellan’s in the Kyo for a flatter pitch, and not a gut buster reed. The high G was a bit sharp and required a bit of tape, but that could be my fault with the reed manipulation stuff. I mean, the blades aren’t even aligned anymore. Another note to self: do not use pliers to hold reeds while you hammer a nail into the bottom of the reed (which doesn’t do anything by the way); just stick with the mandrel inserted far enough that it actually does something. Enough talk, more playing.

1. Colin Kyo – MacLellan reed – Delvinside - laminate chanter

2. AyrFire – Gilmour reed – Delvinside, Thief of Lochaber (arr. Donald MacLeod), I Laid a Herring in Salt, Troy’s Wedding, Kenneth MacDonald’s Jig (Norman MacDonald)

3. AyrFire – Gilmour reed – 74th’s Farewell to Edinburgh, Shepherd’s Crook, Miss Proud

4. AyrFire – Gilmour reed – Clumsy Lover (Neil Dickie, hornpipe), 1st Hype Cowboy Division (Murray Blair) - last time I played these was like 10 years ago

I did notice my fingers getting a bit tired so I switched back to the Colin Kyo with the Gilmour reed to see if it was just fatigue from playing so much or fatigue from the slightly different finger spread/spacing on the AyrFire. It would seem to not be fatigue from amount of playing but from adjusting to the AyrFire, so you get one more recording. I think the Colin Kyo still has the smallest finger spread of all chanters and that helps me play it well, and other chanters not so much, haha, hehe, doh.

5. Colin Kyo – Gilmour reed – Up ‘an Adam (Murray Blair) - sight read, blackwood solo chanter

Fairy’s Hornpipe, Jolly Beggarman, Pigeon on the Gate, Fleshmarket Close, Kelsey’s Wee Reel - Da MacPherson’s

Fairie’s Hornpipe, Jolly Beggarman, Pigeon on the Gate, Fleshmarket Close, Kelsey’s Wee Reel - Ze Henderson’s

Miss Ishabel T. MacDonald – AyrFire chanter – MacLellan reed – MacPherson bagpipes – Henderson Harmonic Deluxe reeds

Mrs. Lily Christie – AyrFire chanter – MacLellan reed – MacPherson bagpipes – Henderson Harmonic Deluxe tenor reeds – Kinnaird bass

The Sweet Maid of Mull – AyrFire chanter – MacLellan reed – MacPherson bagpipes – Kinnaird reeds

Bonnie Dundee – AyrFire chanter – MacLellan reed – MacPherson bagpipes – Kinnaird tenor reeds – Henderson Harmonic Deluxe bass

But before we get to that, you actually do have to start with the chanter. That is, which one are you playing? What reeds are you playing in it? Where do high A and low A produce an octave gap without any tape on either? Are there any notes consistently flat with this chanter/reed combo? Why all these questions? Well, you need to pick a pitch. What frequency will you choose to tune your low A to? Ideally, it’s the pitch that your low A and high A tune to without any tape on either, and you’ve got no flat notes, only sharp notes, in between. But, that is usually a pipe dream, pun intended. Pipe chanter reeds are variable enough even among the same maker that there is going to be some variability. You’ve also got these new fangled band chanters with oval holes, effectively pre-carved, for your convenience. So, what then? Pick an average pitch that is readily attainable. Some chanters may have the reed sunk in a little farther to get the low hand up to pitch requiring tape on the top hand, some chanters will need the reed a little farther out to get the top hand flat enough with some tape on the bottom hand. It goes all ways. The last thing to consider: chronically flat notes. Sure, you can carve, go for it. If you don’t want to, there is an alternative. Set your pitch to where that note is in tune, provided it isn’t too flat, and tape all the other notes down to that one note. In a band setting, this ensures that you have maximum flexibility in tuning chanters because you’ve got tape on just about every hole. Also consider that a lot of reeds produce flat C(#)’s and F(#)’s prior to being broken in. While a dental elastic band bridle can bring those notes up to pitch while also making the reed easier, well, that’s just one more part of the equation. But, you’ve got a bunch of people in the pipe corps, and their reeds may be at varying stages of being blown in at any given time. If the C and F aren’t too flat with new reeds, set the pitch where C and F are in tune, and as the reed is broken in, add tape to C and F. That way, even the guys breaking in reeds aren’t flat on C and F. Now, someone is going to mention that all you have to do is give the reed a little squeeze and the C and F will come up to pitch. Yeah, okay, maybe sometimes. But you know what, there are a lot of not so great reeds out there. I can’t count the number that I gave a little squeeze to and they immediately died. I don’t mean I pulverized them, just a gentle squeeze and they lost all decent tone. They would still play but lackluster is the adjective of choice. Plus, who wants to go squeezing their reeds all the time. Put the pipes down for a few minutes while the PM blabs on about something for a minute and your reed has opened up in the meantime. Also, squeezing the reed is going to change your overall pitch. So, you’re only in tune after you’ve squeezed the reed. Or, is your C and F now in tune but the rest of your scale went sharp too? Ah! Too many variables. The less varied hand manipulation you have to do to each reed in the band the more likely you’re going to be in tune. One guy has to squeeze his reed 5 times, you’ve got to squeeze twice, oh the pain never ends. The less that guy on the other side has to fiddle with his reed manually, the better. Put the chanter in and play, that’s the goal. Okay, you could use the bridle to bring C and F up (I do), and also ease the reed. Put a couple wraps of the band no more than half way up the reed (any higher and you’ll start squeezing the reed in such a way that the blades may start to separate). As the reed breaks in you should be able to pull the bridle off and the C and F will still be up to pitch (and maybe now require tape if you’ve chosen a flatter pitch) and any strength in the reed you lost during the break in will be regained to some degree once the bridle is removed. Note though, a bridle on the reed is going to really bring up the pitch of the top hand, so you may have to reseat the reed as the bridle is removed. But I digress, you could just pick a pitch where those pesky C’s and F’s on new reeds are in tune and you’ve probably taped low A and high A down to match, along with the rest of the notes. The sign of a bad chanter/reed combination: still flat C’s and F’s with reeds that are broken in. Seek ye a different reed or a better chanter to suit. Okay, you can carve, don’t forget that. Point of all this is: you need to pick a pitch that you can get any of your chanters to with your choice of reed. <- that’s a period. Those are just some of the things to think about.

So, you’ve picked a pitch. Great! It’s only good for one day. Why? The ambient weather conditions will always dictate your absolute pitch. So what’s the skinny, go with it. Forget your absolute pitch “On The Day”. Everybody’s chanters are pretty much going to change pitch the same, so don’t worry about it. BUT! For now we’re going to assume you’ve got your absolute band pitch. We’re going to say you’ve picked the number 480 Hz for your band’s low A. Yay! Rough tune every band member’s chanter by mouth blowing the chanter at a tuner set at your band’s pitch. If you set the tuner to 480, it should read A when you play low A or high A. If you set the tuner to 454 the tuner should say Bb. It’s the same thing. 440 Hz is the standard A these days and Bb is roughly 466: 466 – 440 = 26 Hz. 480 – 26 = 454. Ta da! Don’t get confused. Some people use the Bb convention (454) and some people use the A convention (480). Just pick one. Probably best if you’re going over 480 for your pitch to use the Bb convention because Korg tuners don’t go any higher than 480 so you’re forced to use the Bb reference unless you want to memorize a lot of offsets in cents, which you shouldn’t want to do because you already have to memorize the normal offset in cents for each note required by the just intonation scale. If you have no idea what that means, you need to read this. Of course, you might be using one of those bagpipe specific tuners which have the offsets from normal equal temperament tuning already built in; if so, great! Back to the subject at hand, rough tuning the chanters. Yeah, this is really approximate. Why? Because everybody is unique and “special”. Once you get their chanter in their pipe, everybody is going to blow different than how you did by mouth. No worries, I’m just operating under the assumption that you might be ‘hearable’ by the public during your band rehearsal and we don’t want you sounding like total crap.

Get everybody playing together. None of this walk around separately warming up your pipes, wasting time. Why? Some guy is going to play the whole time straight. Some other guy is going to diddle with his drone reed and play 30 seconds. Some guy got to practice 30 minutes early and hasn’t quit playing yet. This has got to stop. Everybody get your pipes out, and play, together. If you’ve got a dedicated non-player to tune drones, that’s cool. I bet 99% of bands don’t. Oh well. In that case, the PM or PS should be the tuner guy. Meaning his pipes are on the table not doing anything while he/she is going around the circle with a Korg tuner set to the reference pitch tuning everyone’s drones to pitch.

There is no stig. The idea of a master chanter that everybody tunes to is all well and good I guess, or not. That guy is doing a lot more playing than everybody else, which can be a bad thing. This guy is usually one of your best players, you don’t want to wear him out. Also, you’ve got him playing and everybody else sitting around until it’s their turn. Man, everybody else’s chanter is going to go flat while their sitting around and you aren’t going to have a clue where their chanter really is pitch wise when it comes to be their turn. So who’s the stig? Well, drones don’t lie. You had someone go around and tune each person’s drones during the warm up to the reference pitch. After the first 5-10 minutes of playing you’re going to know whose chanters really aren’t so close. Go around the circle and have each person play a little snippet. Scotland the Brave is great for this. You hit low A, C, E, and high A in the first 2 bars and big D’s and F’s in the 3rd bar. Takes no time at all to figure out how far out a chanter is from that person’s drones. Note: guy with the tuner should be making sure the guy who is playing has drones that are still set to the reference pitch as some drone reeds will change pitch just like chanter reeds in the first few minutes of warm up. It’s that easy. Go around once, play as a band some more. Go around again. Check against the drones! All too often, bands will check chanters against a master chanter. Most notes are pretty close, one note a little off, move that piece of tape and good enough. But hey, that guy’s reed really could just be pushed in a little farther. Also, forget the scales. There’s this E, B, low A, low G, low A, B, C, D, E, F, high G, high A thing going around. Why, I have no idea. No one blows the same with this little dinky scale exercise as they will playing a tune. So don’t bother trying to tune to it. You’ll only set yourself up for disappointment. So, here is where your ears don’t lie. You gotta be able to tell if the guy’s chanter is just a little out of tune with his drones. You’re looking for general flat or sharpness. The chanter balance is either flat, in tune, or sharp to the reference pitch as indicated by the drones. Until you get the right balance, farting around with fine tuning is pointless because you haven’t even gotten the reed at the right depth in the chanter yet. Also, don’t be afraid to use hemp. I don’t know how many people I see who move reeds in and out without changing the hemp. This is crazy! But, I will say threaded reed seats do allow this a little. But here’s the deal yo, you want that reed in there and seated well. You ain’t gonna impregnate anything if you’re not all the way in and the last thing you need is your reed dancing a jig in the reed seat. Seriously, take a wrap of hemp off or put another wrap of hemp on and stick it back in. AS FAR AS IT WILL GO. With that in mind, most of my hemp is at the bottom of the reed to facilitate such adjustments. I guess if your reed seat is so gigantic that the hemp further up the reed wrapped around the binding instead of the bottom of the staple actually affects how far in the reed is, well, go ahead, though this just sounds iffy to me. The point is, put that (expletive deleted) thing in there, please. For the sake of eliminating variables, all the way in. The hemp will control how far it goes in.

Pipe bands are pipe bands, every person is different. You’ll quickly learn who under blows relative to you and vis versa. Easy reeds tend to tune sharper, harder reeds flatter. It’s all in the juggling act. You’ll figure it out. Also, tuning up this way is less irritating to the drummers. Why? Well, there’s none of this band of solo meandering pipers looking for a place to tune their (relatively) out of tune chanter. You’re always playing as a band, be it warmup or full rehearsal.

So, you’ve tuned up the band. Rule #1. Don’t touch it. The fastest way to piss of the PM is to say you moved the reed during the week. Your intentions are meaningless. Don’t touch it. Play it, but don’t touch it. The last thing any band wants is to have to go through the tuning process at every rehearsal. That, is a pain in the woohoo. Like I said, ambient conditions are gonna change your pitch. So don’t go fiddling with the reed to reacheive band pitch in your 60 degree garage when you practice with the band on Sunday afternoons when is 95 outside. It ain’t gonna happen. Just retune your drones and move on, maybe move some tape a micrometer, at most. Same thing when the whole band gets together. You’ve replaced your cozy 73 degree church auditorium for the competition circle in Baghdad and it’s 120 degrees outside. Don’t go chasing after your band’s set reference pitch. Cause all you’re going to end up doing is retuning everybody’s chanter and wasting a lot of time and effort. Warm the band up and try to set the drones about normal. First thing you notice is they’ll be all out of tune. That is, the chanters won’t be in tune with the drones. So after warm up, go around the circle measuring everyone’s low A and figure out if everybody is flat to reference pitch or sharp. If it’s colder than usual, you’re going to be flatter. If it’s hotter than usual, you’re going to be sharper. Once you’ve got where everybody’s low A has moved to, go around again and retune to today’s reference pitch. Ta da, you should be done. Not always as sometimes the weather has just funkified everything and you’ve got to move a few reeds. Maybe it’s really humid and everybody’s hard reed just turned to mush and they’re overblowing and you’ve got to pull the reeds out a bit, it happens. The point is, your reference pitch in your cozy band hall may always be 480, but on a chilly St. Patrick’s day parade morning, you’re going to be around 473 more likely just because the air is colder.

A last little personal note. How many bands are there out there in the great wide open that exist primarily because of one or two highly skilled players trying to organize the masses in a band. Yeah, I’m talking to you, some odd 25 year old chap been playing half your life leading 8, 40 something year old guys who have an average of 4 years on the pipes. Don’t put your tuning as a priority above everybody else. Even if you’re the guy going around tuning the band, you’re not responsible for tuning your drones. Your drones should be tuned to the reference pitch just like everybody else’s with a tuner, by somebody else, while you’re playing a tune. None of this finger gymnastics tune by ear non-sense. You blow differently playing a tune than gymnastics just like everybody else. Also, your chanter isn’t the stig anymore, that job has been moved to each person’s drones. Also, it makes you look like an @$$ when you go around spending 10 seconds to tune each guy’s drones with a tuner and then you make them wait 5 minutes while you prepare like you’re about to go on stage at the Glenfiddich. Ideally, once you’re done going around the circle, hand the tuner off to some random guy in the circle, join the band in playing and have him tune your drones. Pick a new guy each time. You never know when you’ll need your non-standard pipe sergeant to do the dirty work. It might be the guy you cut on the day of competition. Sure would be nice if the guy not playing knew how to tune the band’s drones, wouldn’t it? Then you could focus on the playing and music and not the hive of bumblebees 8 sets of out of tune drones sound like.

The drones are the foundation of a pipe corps. They all have to be playing at the same pitch. Tune them with a tuner while the band is playing tunes. Forget stopping off drones and playing scales to the stig’s master chanter. you’re going to blow different and you’re going to miss the balance of the chanter because you’re analyzing it note by note instead of the average against the drones. I’m also gonna bet since you’re comparing chanter to chanter, you’ll just be tuning each person’s drones individually to their chanter, under the assumption their chanter is in tune. Nope! You’re going to get a hive of bumblebees, at least that’s what the drones will sound like.

Some variations on a theme. Some bands will have the stig play, then have another player start up next to them playing, and then the tuner guy will tune that person’s drones by ear to the stig’s drones. I guess this works too, but it can be tough. Eliminate the variables and use a tuner. Buy a Korg, those things work. Don’t need to plop down the dough for a bagpipe tuner when all you’re doing is looking for a little green light. That being said, I use the tuner for individual notes when each guy is going around testing his chanter against the drones. But again, we’re not playing scales. In going around, each player should be playing a tune, no scales! Drones don’t lie, and neither do tuners. Maybe the stig’s F is a teeny bit flat. No worries if you’re standard is the tuner. If some note sounds off have them play up to that note and hold it. Given the offsets in the pdf above, there’ll be no guess work whether it is sharp or flat and you can fix it quick. I just thought of another reason the stig is a bad idea. You have to assume this guy is blowing the exact same for every guy in the band who is coming up one at a time. You think after 10 pipers of the same boring old scale he’s going to be blowing the same for the last guy as he did the first, the second time around? I don’t think so. Drones don’t lie, just make sure they’re in tune on the quick solo checks.

So, those are my thoughts. I started as a PM of a band and I tuned them like I tune solo. Meaning, I tuned myself and then tuned their chanters to mine and then their drones to them playing low A, just like I tune myself. Big mistake. We’ve switched to tuning the drones, I’ve dropped my ego and let somebody else tune my drones, and we’ve got a solid drone sound on which to build a great chanter sound. It also helps teach pipers to listen to their drones and blow tone. One of the hardest things to do is play between two players who have a different pitch than you, and if their drones are tuned to their chanters and not a standard, it’s all the harder. You’re (subconsciously) always trying to find them to blend in. If you’ve got the drones all set, there’s a foundation on which to base your ‘blowing tone’. If you’re finding you’re having to blow harder to get your chanter up to pitch to your drones, your chanter is flat. If you’re really having to back off, your chanter is sharp. This you would never be able to tell if your drones were just tuned to your low A on an individual basis. Drones don’t lie.

1. Practice chanter reeds. Sometimes we just have to settle for playing the practice chanter. The Naill pc I won the other day came from the COP with a Caberfeidh pc reed. It is red and it sounds nice. It has a smoother tone than your average Walsh reed and while only slightly harder to blow, doesn’t come anywhere near what pressure is required for your average Gibson/Abbott reed. It is also flatter than the Walsh pc reed by a bit. Here’s a recording of the Naill pc Caberfeidh reed first, followed by a new longer bladed Walsh reed, and finally an older, well broken in Walsh reed that has smaller blades than the new variety.

PC reeds recording

2. Do not use variable bit rate MP3 recording mode on your Zoom H2. It will sound bad. MP3 320 kbps for me now! Case in point:

Arthur Bignold of Lochrosque, Highland Harry, Bessie McIntyre

3. I know a couple of people working on various electronic bagpipe projects so here is a recording of drones and chanter separate. I played a bit, got them all in tune, then plugged the chanter with that Kinnaird plug thingie and played the drones and then popped off the drones and played the chanter, all without stopping. Take samples toward the end of each note on the chanter because I took a breath at each switch and I’m not the steadiest blower, except for E as it’s a tiny bit flat, take the front end of that note (my bad). It’s a big file and unedited, have fun!

Drones then chanter .wav file

In case you’re wondering, they’re my Gellaitry’s with Colin Kyo chanter.