I was singing a melody to myself the other day and it dawned on me the similarity between it and my recent composition, Burden of Innocence. I was afraid initially that I had totally ripped off some other tune. Alas, I didn’t, but I did spend a few minutes to jot down the other tune from the Battlefield Band recording.

Happy Days (John McCusker)

It turns out the I was mistaken about being able to compare my blackwood to this brownwood set of Gellaitry bagpipes. It would seem the bushings on my blackwood Gellaitry are about 1/16″ larger in diameter than the brownwood Gellaitry. So, now we’re left wondering what the difference between the woods really is since there is another variable to account for. The plan is to tape over part of the bushings (the holes at the top of the drones) on my blackwood set to see what happens, but that experiment is to come at a later date. However, I’m currently trying to showcase these brownwood Gellaitry bagpipes. Remember, they are for sale! Tim is just letting me try them out! You know you want them, get a hold of Tim.

But first, there is a great website called islandbagpipe.com. It is home to Island Bagpipe run by Gordon MacDonald, but as a side project he hosts a bagpipe identification site. Gord just so happens to be the only North American retailer of Tim Gellaitry bagpipes, that I know of anyway. He had a set in his shop for a little while and we were going back and forth about drone reeds and he said he liked the Crozier Glass drone reeds in the Gellaitry. I told him I thought they were a bit much, but in light of the fact that my blackwood set is not standard spec Gellaitry (the bushing difference mentioned earlier), I figured I’d give the Crozier Glass another go. It is obvious from the previous post just a few days ago that the brownwood is a little mellower, less edgy, than the blackwood; just enough to take the edge of these Crozier glass which can get a little buzzy in BIG pipes (e.g. D. MacPherson). So, Crozier glass is what you heard above (along with a new chanter reed being broken in that goes a little flat on C and F when I’m not blowing it out) and now below. I think Gord was on to something!

Scale, Scotland the Brave, Wings, Murdo’s Wedding, Lord Lovat’s Lament, Rowan Tree, The Battle of Waterloo, and The 51st Highland Division

Kalabakan & Crooked/Twisted/Broken/Famous (Don’t know the Gaelic translation) Bridge

Here’s one more where I’ve switched to Selbie drone reeds:

Spanner in the Works, Scots Air Hornpipe, and Kelsey’s Ree Reel: