3 things:

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.

I done be getting tired of typing Henderson Harmonic Deluxe (HHD). So, I thought the Ezee tenors from the previous post were kinda hard to tune together. I probably don’t have them set exactly the same, but, tedious nonetheless. So, back in went the HHD tenors but I wanted to try a less, how shall we say, “ominous?” bass than the Crozier glass so in went the Canning polycarbonate (CPc) tongue bass reed. I think it’s a good sound. The first 3 tunes below were sight read as I haven’t memorized them yet, the remainder are up in my brain somewhere. Chanter tuning was in and out on F and C, my bad. Also found a new piece of software called MP3 Trimmer which is awesome! Trim MP3’s without reencoding them, how sweet is that? If you haven’t yet, you need to buy Gordon Duncan’s Tunes and A Few Tunes – And Mair. These are great music books, the best I’ve bought since Philharmonic, which you should buy too if you haven’t already (which Murray Blair doesn’t seem to sell direct so just pick it up from your local supplier). Also note, I’m going to try and start putting composer’s names in () so if you know one leave a comment please!

Angus MacKenzie of Dumbarton (Wm. McKelvie) and Caber Feidh (jig)

The Flying Scotsman (David Barnes), Brain Fart (my brain), Fleshmarket Close (Michael Grey), The Korgi (John Walsh)

Kate Martin’s Waltz, P.M. Donald MacLeod, Hen’s March

Of course, I’m using a Colin Kyo chanter as usual!

EDIT: The version of Fleshmarket Close I played was from sheet music from my days at Lyon College. Went over to check out Michael Grey’s blog and he recently released the book that contains the tune, which can be found here. Awesome, Michael you’re the bomb!