Happy New Year All,
Can I get a bit of info., on dry climate effects on reeds? Not the playability but the structural change in the reed. Does the cane shrink, do the lips open overly, does the reed close, but create leaks. What do you usually do to correct the reed itself or what do you apply in the making to hopefully avoid these probs.,? etc., Thanks.
Cheers
Alan
Dry Climate....
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Lorenzo
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Alan...I just sent you a lengthy email describing my years of anguish over climate, esp. lack of humidity.
Generally, when it gets hot and dry in the desert reeds close up (not even moving the bridle up will help), second octave goes flat, general overall pitch of instrument goes sharp, reed loses it's character, snappiness, sweet silky tone, and responsiveness. May as well just put it away unless you can settle for a lot less of in a reed. It is possible to make a real dry climate reed but it really has no life to it, comparatively. I just don't play when it's extremely dry and hot.
And don't y'all suggest plastic reeds. I wouldn't have one!
I've gone back and forth a lot between dry/moist climate. It's been a struggle for years, not understanding the importance of climate on reeds before trying to adjust. I ruined a few good reeds before I figured it out. Now I keep a better controlled atmosphere in the house and envite the band over to my place...which makes all the difference!
Generally, when it gets hot and dry in the desert reeds close up (not even moving the bridle up will help), second octave goes flat, general overall pitch of instrument goes sharp, reed loses it's character, snappiness, sweet silky tone, and responsiveness. May as well just put it away unless you can settle for a lot less of in a reed. It is possible to make a real dry climate reed but it really has no life to it, comparatively. I just don't play when it's extremely dry and hot.
And don't y'all suggest plastic reeds. I wouldn't have one!
I've gone back and forth a lot between dry/moist climate. It's been a struggle for years, not understanding the importance of climate on reeds before trying to adjust. I ruined a few good reeds before I figured it out. Now I keep a better controlled atmosphere in the house and envite the band over to my place...which makes all the difference!
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John Mulhern
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Pat Cannady
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Anima I think you'll have a lot fewer problems in KC then Brian or Lorenzo, who live up in the driest parts of North America. From what I remember of the climate in KC as a little boy, you won't want for humidity most of the year, unless you're staying in an overly dry house, a condition easily corrected with some humidification techniques and some careful monitoring with a hygrometer. Ideally you'd like the relative humidity inside the house to be somewhere between 50-65%.
Just try turning down the central heating a bit(65-68 degrees fahrenheit should be fine) and use cool-mist humidifiers for those really dry winter days. Try putting pots of water on your heating vents or on the stove in the kitchen. If you have a furnace humidifier, use it, too, just be sure the filter is clean and remember to change it periodically.
Just try turning down the central heating a bit(65-68 degrees fahrenheit should be fine) and use cool-mist humidifiers for those really dry winter days. Try putting pots of water on your heating vents or on the stove in the kitchen. If you have a furnace humidifier, use it, too, just be sure the filter is clean and remember to change it periodically.
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Lorenzo
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To kind of summarize some of what I said to Alan, and expand a little, per Diony's request (who spent all yesterday with his head in the clouds, snowboarding on Mt Hood!), the email I sent to Alan had to do with a lot of other aspects of reeds that he and I have been discussing, other than climate, esp. regarding staple size and rolled(tapered) vs. tube(cylindrical) in Quinn/Rowsome type chanters and why the rolled ones works best for some reason.
Until recently I had kind of given up on reeds ever playing right in a dry climate. When I got Tom K's reed in August, I had to alter it, but only slightly in the second scrape area, to get it to work right in my chanter, and for my climate (there are no seperate issues). I was in for the most pleasnt surprise of my life. BTW, some travelling pipers keep a 2nd or 3rd reed ready for a particular climate.
Generally, it's only after your first few years with a good chanter (+reed), and good conditions, that you'll be qualified to determine if a reed is excellent--and even then...unless you are currently playing reels up to speed on the UPS, and almost flawlessly, you probably won't understand the important details of reed performance (fast moving tunes require a better reed to keep up). It's one thing to get the notes, tone, volume, tuning, consistency, right bag pressure, etc., on a slow air. Quite another to speed things up and still get the reed to jump when needed, regardless of your ability. An excellent reed is only a small part of the equation. I think Tom said he spent 10 years sorting it all out.
BTW, if anyone hasn't yet tried an excellent reed...(whoever the maker, whatever the climate) you don't know what you're missing, you just think you do. I've spent years and years with both the good, the bad and the ugly...and now the excellent.
Don't take anyone's word for it, try them all...and if I sound a little excited sometimes, it mostly because of years w/o. Imagine being able to play the tune but the reed won't keep up. That's all changed. Now the reed is ahead of me. I never knew what I was missing, but often wondered.
The combination of the right chanter, right climate for the reed, and the right reed is SO incredible! It REALLY can be about as easy as playing the tin whistle, once you get the hang of it!
When referring to dry reeds...I mean two things: 1)SUPER DRY (for 2 months out of the year), 2)REGULAR DRY (different than coastal pipers).
A SUPER DRY reed, that works in hot, dry weather, is so much thinner than anything resembling a normal reed that it would be considered a throw-away by coastal pipers.
While only the good reed makers understand the structural details (there's a whole lot more to it than we think or ever discuss), here's some of the symptoms that some of you dry climatics might recognize using a "coastal" or even NORMAL DRY reed on a SUPER DRY, hot day:
Hands get dry--so you have fingerhole hole leaks, reed squeaks because it has closed up and lost it's limberness (reed doesn't nec.leak--just too stiff), volume goes down, pitch goes high, octaves seperate (upper octave either goes up or down--can't remember), low D gurgles, upper F# and G stop barking (raising the chanter off the knee), cane drones clap shut one-by-one. You find yourself reaching for the lowly tin whistle.
Here's a second set of symptoms to compound the problem:
You have a NORMAL DRY reed on a cool, humid, foggy day (50 deg. F) and the reed gets over- moisturized because of it's slight thinness. The back D begans to sink. The low D goes flat. Volume becomes muted. Normal crispy, snappy reed action becomes soft, octaves jump slower or at least differently (can only open one finger instead of two to get the note). Upper F# and G don't bark right, reed plays too easy...one (cane) drone stops (usually the bass) because of lack of normally needed pressure.
I typically turn the tea kettle on first thing in the morning, and leave the bath door open when taking a shower--to moisturize the house. After breakfast, I'll often exercise the reed with non-tune stuff for 5-10 minutes, then play some easy slower tunes (jigs), climb around in the 2nd and 3rd octaves a lot (to loosen the reed and get it limber), and after 30-40 minutes...set the pipes down and go online or someting. When I come back to play the pipes...VOILA! Something has happened just sitting there. The reed "almost plays itself." Cane, like any wood, absorbs and released 80-90% of it's moisture through the end-grain, not the surface (unless the surface has been sanded). The air-stream, directed at the lips of the cane (end-grain), and the flat surface too(of blades), charges the cane with moisture from the air. Look at the end of good Spanish cane through a microscope...it looks like a bunch of miniture drinking straws.
I have to share some of Pat Sky's thoughts:
"I have been making reeds now since 1970. I have made thousands: straight tubing, tapered staple, rolled, long, narrow, you name it; and depending on the chanter most types will work."
"Ben Koehler and I once stood by and watched Eugene Lamb make a reed. His method was to take a tube, anneal it and make it flair. Then he shaved the reed so that the scrape covered only 1/3 of the tip of the reed, like this:
___________
| ______
| | ______
|_ /_______/
"I turned to Ben and said "If this reed plays then everything I thought I knew about reeds goes out the window" Ben said "I agree". Well the reed played great and Ben and I slinked out the door."
"After all of this time, I consider myself a very good reed maker, however I am humbled and still do not truely know what makes reeds tick; both Koehler and Quinn feel the same way." -Pat Sky
Until recently I had kind of given up on reeds ever playing right in a dry climate. When I got Tom K's reed in August, I had to alter it, but only slightly in the second scrape area, to get it to work right in my chanter, and for my climate (there are no seperate issues). I was in for the most pleasnt surprise of my life. BTW, some travelling pipers keep a 2nd or 3rd reed ready for a particular climate.
Generally, it's only after your first few years with a good chanter (+reed), and good conditions, that you'll be qualified to determine if a reed is excellent--and even then...unless you are currently playing reels up to speed on the UPS, and almost flawlessly, you probably won't understand the important details of reed performance (fast moving tunes require a better reed to keep up). It's one thing to get the notes, tone, volume, tuning, consistency, right bag pressure, etc., on a slow air. Quite another to speed things up and still get the reed to jump when needed, regardless of your ability. An excellent reed is only a small part of the equation. I think Tom said he spent 10 years sorting it all out.
BTW, if anyone hasn't yet tried an excellent reed...(whoever the maker, whatever the climate) you don't know what you're missing, you just think you do. I've spent years and years with both the good, the bad and the ugly...and now the excellent.
Don't take anyone's word for it, try them all...and if I sound a little excited sometimes, it mostly because of years w/o. Imagine being able to play the tune but the reed won't keep up. That's all changed. Now the reed is ahead of me. I never knew what I was missing, but often wondered.
The combination of the right chanter, right climate for the reed, and the right reed is SO incredible! It REALLY can be about as easy as playing the tin whistle, once you get the hang of it!
When referring to dry reeds...I mean two things: 1)SUPER DRY (for 2 months out of the year), 2)REGULAR DRY (different than coastal pipers).
A SUPER DRY reed, that works in hot, dry weather, is so much thinner than anything resembling a normal reed that it would be considered a throw-away by coastal pipers.
While only the good reed makers understand the structural details (there's a whole lot more to it than we think or ever discuss), here's some of the symptoms that some of you dry climatics might recognize using a "coastal" or even NORMAL DRY reed on a SUPER DRY, hot day:
Hands get dry--so you have fingerhole hole leaks, reed squeaks because it has closed up and lost it's limberness (reed doesn't nec.leak--just too stiff), volume goes down, pitch goes high, octaves seperate (upper octave either goes up or down--can't remember), low D gurgles, upper F# and G stop barking (raising the chanter off the knee), cane drones clap shut one-by-one. You find yourself reaching for the lowly tin whistle.
Here's a second set of symptoms to compound the problem:
You have a NORMAL DRY reed on a cool, humid, foggy day (50 deg. F) and the reed gets over- moisturized because of it's slight thinness. The back D begans to sink. The low D goes flat. Volume becomes muted. Normal crispy, snappy reed action becomes soft, octaves jump slower or at least differently (can only open one finger instead of two to get the note). Upper F# and G don't bark right, reed plays too easy...one (cane) drone stops (usually the bass) because of lack of normally needed pressure.
I typically turn the tea kettle on first thing in the morning, and leave the bath door open when taking a shower--to moisturize the house. After breakfast, I'll often exercise the reed with non-tune stuff for 5-10 minutes, then play some easy slower tunes (jigs), climb around in the 2nd and 3rd octaves a lot (to loosen the reed and get it limber), and after 30-40 minutes...set the pipes down and go online or someting. When I come back to play the pipes...VOILA! Something has happened just sitting there. The reed "almost plays itself." Cane, like any wood, absorbs and released 80-90% of it's moisture through the end-grain, not the surface (unless the surface has been sanded). The air-stream, directed at the lips of the cane (end-grain), and the flat surface too(of blades), charges the cane with moisture from the air. Look at the end of good Spanish cane through a microscope...it looks like a bunch of miniture drinking straws.
I have to share some of Pat Sky's thoughts:
"I have been making reeds now since 1970. I have made thousands: straight tubing, tapered staple, rolled, long, narrow, you name it; and depending on the chanter most types will work."
"Ben Koehler and I once stood by and watched Eugene Lamb make a reed. His method was to take a tube, anneal it and make it flair. Then he shaved the reed so that the scrape covered only 1/3 of the tip of the reed, like this:
___________
| ______
| | ______
|_ /_______/
"I turned to Ben and said "If this reed plays then everything I thought I knew about reeds goes out the window" Ben said "I agree". Well the reed played great and Ben and I slinked out the door."
"After all of this time, I consider myself a very good reed maker, however I am humbled and still do not truely know what makes reeds tick; both Koehler and Quinn feel the same way." -Pat Sky
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brianc
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It is possible to make a real dry climate reed but it really has no life to it, comparatively. I just don't play when it's extremely dry and hot.
-- Lorenzo
....
I have a reed that was made here in Colorado, with cane that I'd purchased from NPU back around 1997, and the can was allowed to sit around in Colorado for nearly 2 1/2 years. Now, this is in Denver, (where dry means 10% relative humidity, be it summer or winter) and it's been going strong (knock on wood) for better than two years. This particular reed has made 3 trips to Ireland, and 2 to Maine (both of those trips in the winter).
There's my $0.02.
-- Lorenzo
....
I have a reed that was made here in Colorado, with cane that I'd purchased from NPU back around 1997, and the can was allowed to sit around in Colorado for nearly 2 1/2 years. Now, this is in Denver, (where dry means 10% relative humidity, be it summer or winter) and it's been going strong (knock on wood) for better than two years. This particular reed has made 3 trips to Ireland, and 2 to Maine (both of those trips in the winter).
There's my $0.02.
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Lorenzo
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Brian...I'd love to see a reed that works right both in Denver and Ireland! 
It would be fun to get together and exchange reeds and chanters for a while.
I've lived in Colorado a couple different times. Once in Estes Park, the other in the San Luis Valley of So. central Co., and I spent a season piping on a 1/2 set of Robbie Hughes pipes in Durango that kinda worked good after we got the crazy glue off the reed(an old trick of Vultures in the Evening).
Laurie Franklin, of Montana, and uilleann piper (Gallagher pipes), was suggesting we have an "Inland Tionol" this summer for disgruntled dry climate pipers. Sounds good to me...anyone live on a lake?
It would be fun to get together and exchange reeds and chanters for a while.I've lived in Colorado a couple different times. Once in Estes Park, the other in the San Luis Valley of So. central Co., and I spent a season piping on a 1/2 set of Robbie Hughes pipes in Durango that kinda worked good after we got the crazy glue off the reed(an old trick of Vultures in the Evening).
Laurie Franklin, of Montana, and uilleann piper (Gallagher pipes), was suggesting we have an "Inland Tionol" this summer for disgruntled dry climate pipers. Sounds good to me...anyone live on a lake?
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marcpipes
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Oddly enough living two blocks from the Detroit River, and three miles from Lake Erie does not insure decent humidity. For being the Great Lakes State, Michigan can be strangely dry (unless you need it that way, then it becomes a crippling steambath). Still, D. Dayes reed seems to hold up somewhat well. Is there any way a sponge could be set safely up on or near the bellows air inlet to adjust humidity?
Marc
Marc
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brianc
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Oh, you meant a reed that WORKS in both places!?!
Actually, while in Ireland, (Oct/Nov) it was fairly rainy (gosh, what a shocker, hmm?) and overall, it was flat. The easy fix was to remove a bit of the hemp and push the reed just a bit farther into the chanter, and I'm back within 2 counts of 440.
Once I returned to Colorado, I let them sit a couple of days, and within 1/2 hour I'd returned the reed to its approximate original location and there you have it. Now, having said that, it has always played a touch on the sharp side, but not to where I'm in the stratosphere, but on days that are more humid (30% is "pretty humid" here) then all is well. I'd rather it be a touch sharp then end up readjusting the seating of the reed every other day.
BC
Actually, while in Ireland, (Oct/Nov) it was fairly rainy (gosh, what a shocker, hmm?) and overall, it was flat. The easy fix was to remove a bit of the hemp and push the reed just a bit farther into the chanter, and I'm back within 2 counts of 440.
Once I returned to Colorado, I let them sit a couple of days, and within 1/2 hour I'd returned the reed to its approximate original location and there you have it. Now, having said that, it has always played a touch on the sharp side, but not to where I'm in the stratosphere, but on days that are more humid (30% is "pretty humid" here) then all is well. I'd rather it be a touch sharp then end up readjusting the seating of the reed every other day.
BC
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Roger O'Keeffe
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"Dry climate" in sodden, waterlogged, awash Belgium? Yes, it happens here too - a bit like Michigan, I guess. It's currently 12°C, lashing rain all week and there is widespread flooding, so much so that the government is now talking about requiring insurers to cover flood risks. But within the next 24 hours they're expecting temperatures to drop to -6°C, which means that my reed will collapse half way through the second part of whatever tune I try to play.
I asked Andreas Rogge for two reeds of different strengths to deal with the problem when I bought my pipes, but he was rather busy at the time so I've been making do with just the one. I had asked for a fairly quiet reed, and when it's going well it's lovely and sweet, but its thinness is its vulnerability, and it dies both in cold dry conditions and in excessively hot and humid conditions. Pity my job doesn't have an out-office in West Clare....
I asked Andreas Rogge for two reeds of different strengths to deal with the problem when I bought my pipes, but he was rather busy at the time so I've been making do with just the one. I had asked for a fairly quiet reed, and when it's going well it's lovely and sweet, but its thinness is its vulnerability, and it dies both in cold dry conditions and in excessively hot and humid conditions. Pity my job doesn't have an out-office in West Clare....
An Pluiméir Ceolmhar
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brendan ring
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