When I first acquired my Colin Kyo bagpipes from a friend they were “tied” into a grommetted Gannaway bag. At the time this did not bother me. On a tangent, I’ve longed neglected my old Henderson pipes due to difficulties with reeding the drones. With X-treme tenor reeds, a short, inverted Ezeedrone bass reed, and a new bass bottom with a bigger bore the Hendersons have been singing tied into an old L&M bag I got off of someone for $50. So, I’ve been playing my old Hendersons a lot. In addition, my Glencoe and Terry sets are also both tied into old L&M bags. I LOVE THEM. Anyways, my Colin Kyo pipes weren’t being used much due to the bag issue as I came to dislike the bulk of the grommets on the Gannaway. So, on the hunt for old L&M bags I came across one that never even had the holes cut. Sweet! So, I’m set to go now. And they sound fantastic with their new bag.

The problem started when I thought a live Facebook broadcast of a practice session of me playing my newly set up Colin Kyo bagpipes was a good idea. Lots of people tuned in, but when I went back to listen to it, there was a lot of audio quality loss. This was a Facebook thing as I guess they think video is more important. The source of the audio was my Zoom H2 recorder wired into the lightning port of my iPhone via a Blue Mikey Digital. So, this post is to offer the audio simultaneously recorded by my Zoom H2 during that session so you can hear what the pipes really sounded like. I haven’t included all the recordings because the first few were during warm up and had me sorting the chanter tuning. I last played the chanter with the bag unseasoned and so it was setup for a wet reed (pushed farther in the seat), but the bag having been seasoned since then left the reed dry and therefore sharp, and then flat because I pulled it out too much, and then just about right.

Colin Kyo drones + Colin Kyo chanter + regular Ezeedrone reeds + 5+ year old Gilmour chanter reed that just won’t quit.

Kind of Laois & Rakes of Kildare

Mo Ghile Mear, Neili’s Polka, & Ger the Rigger

Angus MacKinnon & Frank Thompson

The Big Yin & Picnic in the Sky

Patrick O’Connor’s & Tom Billy’s Polkas – picked these up from Jerry O’Sullivan at the Spanish Peaks Piping Retreat

I’ve finally gotten back into playing my first set of pipes, a set of 1950s Hendersons. Years ago I played them with Selbie drone reeds and they sounded good, very good, for quite some time. Over the last few years, as I’ve acquired other bagpipes, they’ve fallen by the wayside, to rest in the back of a drawer (I have a chest of drawers dedicated to bagpipes). But, I’ve decided that maybe the 1960s Sinclairs aren’t going to be my band set after all since we’re not going to tune to Bb since that’s a pain; not all Bb chanters actually tune that easily to Bb. So, we’re moving up a few Hertz to 473 Hz and I reevaluated which pipes I was going to play and I’ve been trying my old Hendersons again. I am borrowing the bass bottom joint from my Kron Standards in place of the Henderson’s; the Henderson bottom joint is bored the same as the tenor bottoms which I find odd. The slightly larger Kron Standard bass bottom bore gives a little more power to the bass. We’re talking going from an ID of 0.310″ to about 0.322″. I’d like to get another bass bottom joint at around 0.340″.

I’m running them with X-TREME tenor drone reeds and an inverted, short Ezeedrone bass. I find they are quite stable and don’t need much movement to retune them. That, and they’re tied into an old L&M bag I bought off someone for $50 several years ago; the bag is a dream. New Colin Kyo chanter, Husk reed.

The competition in Salado, TX is coming up soon so I’ve been thinking about what tunes I’m going to play solo. I’ve got plenty to pick from, just have to settle. Here is what I practiced today:

Jeannie Carruthers, Inveraray Castle, and The Rejected Suitor

The Redundancy and Donella Beaton

Captain Calum Campbell’s Caprice, The Big Yin, and Picnic in the Sky – granted, not competition music but a new set of mine