Alright. Now I have to change the Pipes.
I think the look of the GHB is cool, but there is so many of them around that when you see any other set of pipes it blows your head away.
My thought is to be faithful to the Medieval european tradition and have just two drones; a bass one and a tenor. The look of the bottom of the chanter will be molded on epoxy, just as the cover for the chanter bore, which will be a dragon's head made of epoxy too. The bag cover will be either worked on soft leather (I want it to be very elastic, so I'm not too sure about this) or in some nice medieval patchment, red and gold or something like that.
It will have lots of black and metal painting, with touches of very dark green and dark red. The joints will be made of leather and I will use lots of old rings and cheap fantasy jewelry hanging here and there. And the best bit is that since I spent so little on the set I don't mind if I ruin it.
I wont be able to compete with scotish pipers, but I just don't want to, or need to. I am aiming to do something different. If there was some website around to help people like me...
Monday, February 18, 2008
Polypenco practise chanter
However I found out that my suspicion was right: My practise chanter was out of tune, SOOOOO much... none of the stuff I had been practising for months plays on the real bagpipe. And since it is incredibly loud, I cannot be practising at home just blindly and producing a horrible noise.
I ordered another practise chanter, but this time it costed me £40, and it was a long polypenco chanter (the best choice for practise chanters, if you ask me). It is supposed to sound almost as good as blackwood and it is also the best to take all the moisture in the world.
When it arrived, to my delight, it was tuned with the real pipes and now I'm all happy with my cheap set of pipes.
Now, looking at the tutor and the video CD that came with the chanter I have the feeling that it is going to be very handy to learn to deal with some scotish tunes and practise all the grace notes, a necesary evil. However, this is not my goal. I don't need to learn scottish stuff in order to play it on performances, but to practice fingering.
Right now I have a long list of German bagpipe bands on my Ipod such as Furunkulus, Cultus Ferox, Corvus Corax, Saltatio Mortis, In extremo... (now that I notice, all their names are in Latin). Their melodies are hundreds of years old in some cases, much simpler but still in need of grace notes every now and then. I will use my practise chanter to learn the grace notes at the same time I learn to play all these popular melodies.
I ordered another practise chanter, but this time it costed me £40, and it was a long polypenco chanter (the best choice for practise chanters, if you ask me). It is supposed to sound almost as good as blackwood and it is also the best to take all the moisture in the world.
When it arrived, to my delight, it was tuned with the real pipes and now I'm all happy with my cheap set of pipes.
Now, looking at the tutor and the video CD that came with the chanter I have the feeling that it is going to be very handy to learn to deal with some scotish tunes and practise all the grace notes, a necesary evil. However, this is not my goal. I don't need to learn scottish stuff in order to play it on performances, but to practice fingering.
Right now I have a long list of German bagpipe bands on my Ipod such as Furunkulus, Cultus Ferox, Corvus Corax, Saltatio Mortis, In extremo... (now that I notice, all their names are in Latin). Their melodies are hundreds of years old in some cases, much simpler but still in need of grace notes every now and then. I will use my practise chanter to learn the grace notes at the same time I learn to play all these popular melodies.
The Pakistani pipes - part 2.
I set up the drones, the reeds, the blowpipe and the chanter (apparently I wasn't supposed to know how to set them up without a tutor, but hey).
They didn't work. I didn't even get the bag to be full of air or a minimun pressure. I had a look at the bag; it was made of sheepskin but I noticed an inner layer of plastic inside. How can the skin absorb the moisture through that synthetic layer? It also leaked air through the stitches of the seam. The flapper valve was leaking too, big time. Should I send the whole thing back to the providers? I read the reviews, and there was a lot of "item returned, awaiting for cash back for two months now" etc.
But there was the challenge. I ordered a bottle of Robertson bagpipe seasoning and took the whole bag to the lugagge shop in my neighborhood to have it re-stitched. It costed me £3 to have it done in five minutes. The seasoning costed around £12, including delivery, but it is something any piper needs to have anyway.
I seasoned the bag and I noticed a dramatic change on the amount of air needed to inflate the bag, but I still had a leak on the valve. I substituted it by a provisional valve made with two layers of regular A4 printer paper, covered by two oposite pieces of celotape (I made the valve at the office). The bag and the whole pipes were meant to work, but...
The chanter didn't sound. For some reason the reed was too tough, and then I found out that chanter reeds need to be broken into, sometimes moisturising, pressing, scrapping...
I just liked the reed a couple of times, pressed with my fingers for five minutes, put it back into the chanter and plug it.
IT WORKS!! and it sounds GOOD!!
However...
They didn't work. I didn't even get the bag to be full of air or a minimun pressure. I had a look at the bag; it was made of sheepskin but I noticed an inner layer of plastic inside. How can the skin absorb the moisture through that synthetic layer? It also leaked air through the stitches of the seam. The flapper valve was leaking too, big time. Should I send the whole thing back to the providers? I read the reviews, and there was a lot of "item returned, awaiting for cash back for two months now" etc.
But there was the challenge. I ordered a bottle of Robertson bagpipe seasoning and took the whole bag to the lugagge shop in my neighborhood to have it re-stitched. It costed me £3 to have it done in five minutes. The seasoning costed around £12, including delivery, but it is something any piper needs to have anyway.
I seasoned the bag and I noticed a dramatic change on the amount of air needed to inflate the bag, but I still had a leak on the valve. I substituted it by a provisional valve made with two layers of regular A4 printer paper, covered by two oposite pieces of celotape (I made the valve at the office). The bag and the whole pipes were meant to work, but...
The chanter didn't sound. For some reason the reed was too tough, and then I found out that chanter reeds need to be broken into, sometimes moisturising, pressing, scrapping...
I just liked the reed a couple of times, pressed with my fingers for five minutes, put it back into the chanter and plug it.
IT WORKS!! and it sounds GOOD!!
However...
The Pakistani pipes - part 1.
I found a nice set of bagpipes for £50 in ebay. It was promoted as Rosewood bagpipes, blah blah...
Now, I don't know if you are aware but rosewood doesn't sound too bad on bagpipes. That's about it. It is OK but is not the kind of stuff you want your bagpipes be made of.
The reason is very obvious only when you have had a set of bagpipes already on your hands, and the word is "moisture". Rosewood is wonderful to make string instruments, but when it comes to wind, forget it.
With all these reasons I still went for it. Under my point of view, if an instrument splits open because of moisture after a couple of months of use and it only cost you £50 and most of the pieces are reusable, you still win. And what causes this? the cause is that the next step in price is about £200 and still is made of rosewood, the step after is about £800 and although the drones are made of blackwood, the chanter is still polypenco, and so on.
The £50 bagpipe sounded good to me because I assumed that the thing wouldn't work from the start and I had to apply all my knowledge to make it play. This is not a line of thought recommended to people who are not handy with tools and glue. So if you are planning to buy this pipes but you don't know what is the structure of a flappervalve or how to fix it then just save a lot of money while sticking to your practise chanter.
Another thing, many advertised or so called "rosewood" bagpipes are actually made of whatever wood was found around the furniture making company and painted with brown varnish...
My set of bagpipes arrived. I was very pleased with the reeds, made of real spanish cane. The bag is made of real sheepskin and the wood does really look like rosewood, even in the inside. How fresh it is, I don't know. Some day I might start playing and then a branch will sprout out of the side of one of the drones, but I don't know.
Now, I don't know if you are aware but rosewood doesn't sound too bad on bagpipes. That's about it. It is OK but is not the kind of stuff you want your bagpipes be made of.
The reason is very obvious only when you have had a set of bagpipes already on your hands, and the word is "moisture". Rosewood is wonderful to make string instruments, but when it comes to wind, forget it.
With all these reasons I still went for it. Under my point of view, if an instrument splits open because of moisture after a couple of months of use and it only cost you £50 and most of the pieces are reusable, you still win. And what causes this? the cause is that the next step in price is about £200 and still is made of rosewood, the step after is about £800 and although the drones are made of blackwood, the chanter is still polypenco, and so on.
The £50 bagpipe sounded good to me because I assumed that the thing wouldn't work from the start and I had to apply all my knowledge to make it play. This is not a line of thought recommended to people who are not handy with tools and glue. So if you are planning to buy this pipes but you don't know what is the structure of a flappervalve or how to fix it then just save a lot of money while sticking to your practise chanter.
Another thing, many advertised or so called "rosewood" bagpipes are actually made of whatever wood was found around the furniture making company and painted with brown varnish...
My set of bagpipes arrived. I was very pleased with the reeds, made of real spanish cane. The bag is made of real sheepskin and the wood does really look like rosewood, even in the inside. How fresh it is, I don't know. Some day I might start playing and then a branch will sprout out of the side of one of the drones, but I don't know.
Moving back to London
I moved back to London over September of 2007. I was very happy that I finally got back to my normal life. I got a job soon after and I started having a look at bagpipes in ebay.
At this point I had spent a ridiculous amount of time making drones or components of bagpipes on pvc and not being too happy with the outcome. I wasn't too sure I was doing the right thing. I needed a reference, and I thought "none of these pakistan made bagpipes can be worse than my pvc and vinyl abortions". I was right, to some extent.
At this point I had spent a ridiculous amount of time making drones or components of bagpipes on pvc and not being too happy with the outcome. I wasn't too sure I was doing the right thing. I needed a reference, and I thought "none of these pakistan made bagpipes can be worse than my pvc and vinyl abortions". I was right, to some extent.
Epoxy Chanter
I molded an epoxy chanter. In one of our visits to London I took advantage of the availability of components in the city and bought few bars of "Milliput" and made the chanter.
To that purpose I printed a picture from the internet, scale 1:1. I followed the instructions, everything was fine. It looks really nice and I needed to try it.
In some point I used the reed from the practice chanter on it, and guess what, the fingering didn't make any sense. None of the notes were right. What did I do wrong?
Anyway, the sound was horrible. The Epoxy is strong as stone, and it can take as much moisture as a frog, but the composition of the material just gives away a poor, ducklike sound.
Months later I found out that the problem was not the fingering, but the reed. If you try to use a practice chanter reed on a real bagpipe chanter nothing will make sense, since the one is made to measure the other.
To that purpose I printed a picture from the internet, scale 1:1. I followed the instructions, everything was fine. It looks really nice and I needed to try it.
In some point I used the reed from the practice chanter on it, and guess what, the fingering didn't make any sense. None of the notes were right. What did I do wrong?
Anyway, the sound was horrible. The Epoxy is strong as stone, and it can take as much moisture as a frog, but the composition of the material just gives away a poor, ducklike sound.
Months later I found out that the problem was not the fingering, but the reed. If you try to use a practice chanter reed on a real bagpipe chanter nothing will make sense, since the one is made to measure the other.
The PVC nightmare
Soon, I came across a whole load of information about PVC bagpipe making, and then my nightmare began.
Having spent my childhood amongst a million tools my father used to have, or living in places where you can just go down the road and buy anything from the hardware centre it was really frustrating living in Munich, where every single type of screw is sold in a special little shop... and such shops are scattered all over the city and nowhere to be found in the internet.
Components like epoxy were impossible to find. I tried everywhere, including OBI and IKEA... nothing.
In the end I gave up the idea of building my own chanter and drones.
I did manage to learn about construction of pipebags in vinyl and plastic reeds. I made a practise goose with a really good bag, with no moisture problems. I used contact cement (others advice to use transparent silicon, the one which smells like vinegar) on the seam and then stitched it together with strong thread, two layers. The thing was airtight from the very beginning.
The idea for the flapper valve came on a dream, actually. I used some transparent flexible plastic (the one from the blisters you can by things on display, although some salads also come in a kind of container that is really good too) The valve was airtight like nothing else in the world could achieve, but it raspberried when blowing in :S
All together the thing was almost umplayable, because the chanter was the practice chanter I had, and the blowpipe was made of epoxy putty. The thing was so heavy that I had to lift it constantly with my lips, which is insane if you add the pressure of your blowing, etc.
Having spent my childhood amongst a million tools my father used to have, or living in places where you can just go down the road and buy anything from the hardware centre it was really frustrating living in Munich, where every single type of screw is sold in a special little shop... and such shops are scattered all over the city and nowhere to be found in the internet.
Components like epoxy were impossible to find. I tried everywhere, including OBI and IKEA... nothing.
In the end I gave up the idea of building my own chanter and drones.
I did manage to learn about construction of pipebags in vinyl and plastic reeds. I made a practise goose with a really good bag, with no moisture problems. I used contact cement (others advice to use transparent silicon, the one which smells like vinegar) on the seam and then stitched it together with strong thread, two layers. The thing was airtight from the very beginning.
The idea for the flapper valve came on a dream, actually. I used some transparent flexible plastic (the one from the blisters you can by things on display, although some salads also come in a kind of container that is really good too) The valve was airtight like nothing else in the world could achieve, but it raspberried when blowing in :S
All together the thing was almost umplayable, because the chanter was the practice chanter I had, and the blowpipe was made of epoxy putty. The thing was so heavy that I had to lift it constantly with my lips, which is insane if you add the pressure of your blowing, etc.
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