Chiff and Fipple Forums

The most informative comment lately IMO was AlanB's. Alan basically said the chanter was unreedable, and I respect Alan's reedmaking.

Still, not cause enough to take a wood rasp to it

i know where you can get sheet platinum too - but I think it's right out :wink: Thunderbird Supply sells gold-filled sheet at something approximating 'affordable'; problem with ferrules is you wouldn't want to "machine a little off the outside" to clean them up after soldering the tubes th...

The harmonics aren't too difficult to hear unless they are above the human hearing threshold. See A. Benade chapter 14 for a discussion of how heterodyne components make harmonics important even if they don't match chanter notes exactly. Also, realize that every chanter note has its own set of harmo...

Hiya Kev. Yep, it's me. The 'cost of silver' thing may well have been true of 19th C. pipes (though I recently saw a real-silver and ebony set engraved 1809, stamped J. [John] Coyne). But this was an exception, agreed; often only the chanter was ebony and the rest of the sticks were painted/stained....

Hi ..That's also the reason why GHB hasn't a trebble drone, whose harmonics can't match with chanter notes, except D, for the first harmonic will be equal to back D. ? Don't quite follow your meaning in that last statement. Treble drone harmonics would be exact multiples of the tonic drone harmonic...

RE willy clancy regs - bear in mind that most of the available recordings were, ahem, not studio recordings. In some cases it's not WC playing the regs, it's Sean Reid playing regs while Willy plays chanter (on the same set). All good fun, but prolly not intended as a basis for judging technical ski...

NoE (sorry to hear it), actually my pipe maker walked me through the process. You are correct that the UP chanter is based on equal temperment, but it is then further detuned, as some notes in equal temperment just don't sound good against the drones.... djm Hmm, seems to be some misunderstanding. ...

The rate at which 'real silver' tarnishes depends a lot on the alloy too. Higher-silver alloys tarnish more slowly than 'sterling' (sterling contains a lot of copper, 7.5%). The main reason for the copper is to make the silver harder; pure silver might be a tad soft for keywork (though it can be wor...

One thing to consider is the wood's 'screw holding' properties. Snakewood is renowned for holding screws well, without splitting. On the other hand, the stresses in a piece of relatively brittle ebony might be a problem with pin fasteners - might be safer to drill the holes for the pins oversize, th...

Most of the keywork on chanters can be managed right-or-left handed, so if a RH chanter comes your way, consider it. I know a few RH players managing LH chanters quite well. However I do think LH players may want to reverse the bag and bellows sides rather than try to learn 'right handed'. The order...

the first few humidity cycles tend to be the killers. If a reed survives those, it'll probably live long. Repeated adjustments (particularly those involving knife blades ) ;) can be tough on a reed too. In climates with extreme variability it probably pays to have 'dry' and 'wet' weather reeds, and ...

by the way Boehm didn't discover or invent perturbations - in fact, the techniques pioneered by Boehm which led to 'modern' orchestral key systems led, in the long run, to a reduction in the use of bore perturbations as a tuning device in some instruments (notably the flute). Baroque recorders and o...

Last summer I played the first C set Caoimhin O Raghallaigh finished. Caoimhin has the ear and the idea of it and his set was brilliant and I would not at all mind playing that all the time, even if it's the only set he made so far. As for the K/Q beehive imitation, I played a C set Dave brought ov...

Elvind: Most players would recomment the 'closed' fingering first (as opposed to 'open'). Open fingerings are nice to have in the bag of tricks, but most players and teachers suggest that it's easier to start with closed and then 'open up' than to start with open fingerings and try to 'tighten them ...

Hi James: Good luck with the pipes. I have a couple of comments; I agree that sealing the fingerholes is mostly a matter of time and familiarity. You'll also need to get to know the 'right' level of playing pressure, which depends on reed and chanter - very slightly closing or opening the reed via t...