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