We’ve got two sets of pipes today, my Gellaitry paired with the prototype Gellaitry chanter I received a while back and then my Glencoe’s on a regular L&M bag which is a lot easier to play than the large Gannaway that was on there. First the Gellaitry’s with Gellaitry chanter!

Song for Winter, The Tourist, and The Snuff Wife

Sandy’s New Chanter and Pipe Major Jimmy MacGregor

Next we’ve got the Glencoe’s going with a Selbie bass and Crozier carbon tenors. The tenor reeds are a good match for the pipe and very reliable, but Selbie would offer a bit more in the overtone department which I think makes this set sound spectacular. Another note is the chanter reed is a little odd. In order to quickly bring the reed (Gilmour) closer to my playing strength, I pinched the staple a wee bit and shaved a bit of cane off. However, I believe I’ve pinched it just a wee bit too much. Highly indicative of this is the instability of low A. Oddly enough, if you blow harder on low A it gets flatter, rather than sharper. This is indicative of the reed closing down due to being over blown. It’s also opposite from what the high A does, which gets sharper when blown harder. Additionally, I’ve got a fair bit of tape on high A and G, so out with the poker thing I can’t remember the name of to open the staple back up a little bit. Pinching the staple right where the binding ends is usually my first resort to easing a reed because they dry out in West Texas and really open up. This leads to very flat C’s and F’s and just pinching the reed (with a set of pliers, usually) eases the reed and brings the pitch of the C and F up. So, a little instability in the chanter but here they are anyway. Marches! We’re listening to a blackwood Colin Kyo chanter in these two.

Delvinside and The Piper’s Prelude

Cowal Gathering and Major Mason’s Farewell to Clachantrushal

I’m in Houston visiting the in-laws and even in the winter it is a lot more humid than dry dusty Lubbock. We had two dust storms in Lubbock within a week just prior to Christmas. That’s how dry it is in Lubbock, the north wind just picks the dirt off the cotton fields and blows it into town. So, I brought my Jeffers pipes along with me with the Atherton chanter and my old crowing Gilmour with 3 corners missing. As usual, the chanter reed needs to be seated deeper into the reed seat when it is humid because the first thing I had to do was take all the tape off the high G AND push the reed in, relative to where the reed seats in Lubbock. You’ll find in the YouTube videos linked below that I’m constantly fighting not only the crow of the high A (this reed always does that regardless of where I am), but a flat high G, despite the fact that in Lubbock I need 1/3 of the hole covered to get it in tune. It would really seem that a lot of chanters (and chanter reeds) are designed and manufactured in humid environments and subsequently they behave very differently in dry environments. One of my important tests for a chanter is whether it squeals on low A with G grace notes. A lot of people attribute this problem to just having a dry reed, and that can be the cause. However, when you live in a place like Lubbock where your reed is going to be dry regardless of what you do, you have to have a chanter and reed combo that never squeals. Some don’t squeal until you start applying tape to the high G hole. In my experience, Dunbar and Shepherd chanters always do this (current humidity in both locations where these two companies are located is in the 80%’s, Lubbock is at 24%). Perhaps they’re manufactured and tested in environments where the humidity changes the setup enough so that the chanter reed is already moist and the high G never requires tape. Maybe that’s one reason I like Colin Kyo chanters so much, I’ve never had them squeal because of a dry reed or tape on the high G hole (even if half covered). Alrighty, enough of my wandering thoughts.

So, we’ve got Jingle Bells because Christmas was 4 days ago, Star Wars because someone asked me for the music and so I listened to some YouTube videos and wrote down the best one, and finally some hornpipes that I thought went well together. Selbie tenors for some good overtone action and a Crozier glass bass for some nice buzz.

Jingle Bells

Star Wars

PM Calum Campbell’s Caprice and The Big Yin