my pennychanter arrived- advice on low D?

meir · Post by **meir** » Thu Dec 05, 2002 6:35 am

have been playing whistle for a year, never played ups before. my pennychanter (ordered fully assembled) was pretty much playable out of the box. from the little i know about UPs, only a good instrument will do that. was able to get steady F sharp, G,A and B and back D, and F sharp and G in the second octave. practicing those will keep me busy for a while.

low D gurgles, even when i back off on bag pressure. any tricks for that, or will it just improve with practice? i tried the small piece of u shaped plastic in the bell- no real difference. i have one long rush in the chanter.

btw, for those of you who are not familiar, dave included an excellent booklet free of charge, which introduces one to the basics of reed care, intrument assembly, your first notes, posture, etc. i have the npu tutor, and dave's booklet is an excellent compliment to the video- sort of a pretutor. so far, dealing with dave has been excellent. the wait was longer than i would have liked, but it gave me the chance to actually master 15 tunes on the whistle, so not bad.

meir

Tony · Post by **Tony** » Thu Dec 05, 2002 7:00 am

Seth Gallagher has a guide to reedmaking on his website and there is a trouble shooting chart at the bottom of the page.
http://www.uilleann.com/reeds.html
To cure a gurgle (on my chanter) I need to open the reed lips slightly. Sometimes it's done by pinching the sides of the bridal a bit, other times it's moving the bridal up 0.3 - 0.5mm
Carefully mark the location with a pencil so you can visually check the amount of adjustment of the bridal.

Roger O'Keeffe · Post by **Roger O'Keeffe** » Thu Dec 05, 2002 8:12 am

I'd be very slow to tinker with the bridle, especially for a beginner. It might be a temporary weather-induced thing.

You can also try putting a piece of cork that's big enough to stay comfortably wedged into the tube attached to the chanter head which plugs into the neck of the bag.

_________________
An Pluiméir<marquee>Ceolmhar</marquee><br>

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Roger O'Keeffe on 2002-12-05 10:45 ]</font>

meir · Post by **meir** » Thu Dec 05, 2002 8:54 am

thanks to both of you. i will try the cork idea and moving the bridel up slightly. any manipulation that has the words "squeezing"
or "pinching" scares me, so i will probably avoid that for now.

meir

marcpipes · Post by **marcpipes** » Thu Dec 05, 2002 2:46 pm

How dry is the room you practise in? Try running a humidifier in there for a bit and you may notice an increase in stability. If you don't have a humidifier, put the kettle on and play in the kitchen.
Marc

Pat Cannady · Post by **Pat Cannady** » Thu Dec 05, 2002 3:07 pm

Good suggestion. Low relative humidity (less than 50%) is very bad for your bottom d.

Ailin · Post by **Ailin** » Thu Dec 05, 2002 4:28 pm

I have a Daye set that I keep in a case when I am not playing it. I keep a slightly damp sponge in the case in a clean margarine tub with a few holes punched in the lid. This seems to do wonders for the reed when I find that it seems a bit dry and not playing right. You will find that moving the bridle even the slightest amount will effect the intonation on a Daye reed, so be very careful. Once I got mine set right by someone who knew what they were doing, I have left it there ever since, and the only thing else I do is to occasionally
re-dampen the sponge. Hope this helps!
Ailin

anima · Post by **anima** » Thu Dec 05, 2002 4:38 pm

Can you elaborate on the cork thing? How does that help a gurgling bottom D? Isn't the cork upstream of the reed?

Jeff
confused (and dazed) in humidity challenged Kansas

Roger O'Keeffe · Post by **Roger O'Keeffe** » Fri Dec 06, 2002 2:45 am

I know nothing about the physics of the "cork in the neck of the bottle", but it works in some cases at least. It could be either due to simply restricting the air flow, or creating some sort of reflected wave, but I'm just speculating. Arie de Keyzer did it with a chanter and reed which he made for me, he didn't know why it should work either, he just knew that it did!

If you view the connecting tube end-on, the piece of cork occupies probably about two-thirds or three-quarters of the section, and is about a quarter of an inch long.

meir · Post by **meir** » Fri Dec 06, 2002 7:16 am

thanks for above. i a certainly a victim of the current winter storm in terms of low humitidy. will try the sponge thing.

meir

Cayden · Post by **Cayden** » Fri Dec 06, 2002 8:02 am

Gurgle on bottom D [or 'autocran'] usually means the throat is too wide.

You can lining the throat with a bit of paper. A bit of wire or a matchstick in the bottom of the chanter can be an emergency fix. Some pipemakers sell chanters with a matchstick glued in the bottom, how's that for solving a design problem!

meir · Post by **meir** » Wed Dec 25, 2002 2:35 pm

thanks to al of you.

i combined peter's and roger's suggestion by rolling up a small piece of paper and inserting it in the tube of the windcap, where it connects to the bag. the physics of this escapes me, but i swear it helped at least a little. i have humidified the reed quite a bit when not in use. and i have practiced backing off on my bag pressure. gurgling is much better. DD feels it should not gurgle at all and is making me a new reed.

more novice questions:

it is normal to have to back off pressure on the bag to get an in tune lower octave C natural (compared to the pressure necessary for a lower octave C sharp?

is it normal for the second octave E to be very unsteady, and what can be done to help this?

merry christmas to all

meir

Cayden · Post by **Cayden** » Wed Dec 25, 2002 3:43 pm

On 2002-12-25 15:35, meir wrote:
thanks to al of you.

i combined peter's and roger's suggestion by rolling up a small piece of paper and inserting it in the tube of the windcap, where it connects to the bag. the physics of this escapes me, but i swear it helped at least a little. meir

I actually meant the throat of the chanter, just below the reed, not the windcap

janice · Post by **janice** » Wed Dec 25, 2002 5:35 pm

Hi Meir-
I've got 2 pennychanters. I do a variant on the sponge trick-I keep 2 sndwich bags with moist paper towels in them in my case and close to the chanter.
I had that same gurgle problem with my second chanter (which came through the mail) that you describe. I was able to get it to work semi OK, but only after much doctoring (Dave sent me another reed).
Chalk it up to humidity (or lack thereof).

Lorenzo · Post by **Lorenzo** » Wed Dec 25, 2002 6:48 pm

I fixed the low D buzz in my chanter by stealing an idea out of dds penny chanter.

I found a piece of brass tubing that fit perfectly in the throat of the chanter, cut off a piece about 1 1/4" long, cleaned the inside of both ends out with a rat tail file, flared one end w/needle-nose pliers(to crate friction in the bore) and dropped it into the throat from the bell end.

It lodged in the perfect place with a little coaxing and guess what? A ROCK SOLID bottom D. I also added a short wire below that. Before, the low D fluttered like a sail with no battons. From bad to excellent within 15 minutes.