Category Archives: Great Highland Bagpipe Solo

People playing solo great highland bagpipes.

Robertsons with Canning and other Rocket reeds

Drone Sounds of the GHB, For Sale, Great Highland Bagpipe Solo

This post is the 2nd in a series about a set of Robertsons on loan to me that are for sale. The previous post featured several recordings with Robertson spec Rocket drone reeds with carbon fiber tongues. The general impression was that the tenors were too quiet and the bass too loud, relatively speaking, and the overall blend was lacking. We rectify that today with two sets of different drone reeds: Canning and the Naill spec (I think) Rockets that up until a few weeks ago were the reeds dedicated to my Hendersons until they were supplanted by Atherton MacDougall spec Rockets. You can tell, I love getting my hands on Rocket reeds (they all come second hand to me).

In both cases, you’ll hear a marked improvement in tenor volume and overall blend. First the Cannings. For each recording in this post I start with a slow tune and face the mic with 4 different orientations that roughly change with the change in parts, taken in the following order: mic behind the drones, mic on my left (tenor side), mic chanter side, mic on my right (bass side); then I take a generic stance with the mic off to my left side (half way between mic chanter side and tenor side) for the faster tunes.

Fair Maid, Iron Man, Balmoral Castle, and Orange and Blue – I don’t play strathspeys often enough.

Wth my Naill spec Rockets:

Gallawa’ Hills, The Curlew, and Alan MacPherson of Mosspark – I was trying to start into Kalabakan (see next set) but I played the Curlew instead, then my brain farted again and I played Alan, whatcha going to do (when they come for you).

The Mermaid, Kalabakan, and Broken/Crooked/Old/Boogery/Slimy Bridge – I can’t ever remember what the name of the last tune is.

David Murry is the owner of the pipes and he’s selling them. You can contact him for more info and price at: (contact info deleted after sale). I’ll note if you need a bag I have a lead on small and large sized Gannaways that I think both have grommets and zipper. There is no blowpipe or chanter but the set of drones and stocks are both complete.

Adrian Melvin chanter reeds and more Rocket reeds to play with

Great Highland Bagpipe Solo, Reviews

Here’s a few clips of my carved up Colin Kyo chanter with an Adrian Melvin ridge cut reed. In an unmodified CK chanter the bottom hand comes off too sharp because the reed can’t be sunk enough to bring the top hand up sharp enough. In talking with Adrian, the reed I’m using is older and his newer ones balance much better in the CK chanter, so we’ll be ordering some direct to give them a shot for the band. CK chanters have a narrower reed seat than most chanters so if you play just about any other chanter, it isn’t necessarily something you’d have to worry about, especially since they’re better balanced now than before. His reeds have just a great crack on them. Having ordered easy strength, dry it was too hard but slobber on it a bit (quite literally) and squeeze the thick part of the ridge a few times and voila, perfect strength without any loss of crack. The crack and response from this reed is superb. Might give them a go if you haven’t already. Additional to the Melvin chanter reed, this post features Atherton MacDougall spec Rocket tenor drone reeds and a Naill spec Rocket bass drone reed in my 1950s Hendersons. The MacD bass reed was tuning on a nanometer so I switched back to my standard Naill one.

King of Loais, PM Calum Campbell’s Caprice, The Big Yin, and Scotaire Hornpipe – the first tune was chosen to feature the F which is just really sparkling with these Rocket tenors and Melvin chanter reed, as are B and D. I don’t know if it’s the chanter reed, the drone reeds, or both, but live this pipe is singing.

Skyeman’s Jig (arr. Duncan Johnstone) – out of John MacFadyen’s first book mentioned in the previous blog post. First jig in a set of jigs that ended in my drones being too far out to post the rest of the set (about time to reseason the L&M bag on these pipes, they’re getting temporally unsteady) and additionally the kids got home, opened the door, yelled at me, slammed the door, and I boogered up a few times, so, you just get the first tune, lol.