Practise Chanter Advice-- Getting BACK into piping

[EagleJCS]

Here's one for our pipers:

[Here are my questions:]

1) my practise chanter has always, even when brand new, been very difficult to blow. I even put a nice, brand new Gibson reed in it and it's still harder than the Dickens to get a steady blow for longer than five or ten minutes. This was always the case. Is it my technique or my intrument?

2) my chanter sounds "pitchy." I had to use Autotune when recording to correct some pitchiness. I suspect that either its holes were incorrectly drilled or pipes don't quite fit into a standard 440-based scale?

3) I've always had the habit of biting my mouthpiece. My piping instructor never corrected this even though I gather that this is a big no-no. It's a hard habit to break. Any advice?

4) Although there is no substitute for a warm body teaching the student (I can vouch for this having had drumming students of my own and having meen a music student many times myself), what and where are some good respurces to help get me back into piping? I'm assuming that starting back at the very beginning would be prudent since that's the advice that I offered my drumming students who had stopped drumming for many years and wanted to take it up again. Is this accurate? Is this a good place to start (http://www.bagpipe-tutorials.com/play-bagpipes.html)? (I know of PM Bill Robertson's reputation and his skill certainly is extremely high on the talent scale [haha, pardon the musical pun]).

The other respondents have offered some excellent suggestions. Here are my answers:

1) Probably more instrument than technique, especially if it’s one of the ‘Learn to play the Bagpipe’ $30 practice chanters made of a burgundy-colored wood. Those are notoriously difficult to get to play properly and anywhere close to the proper bagpipe scale.

Which leads to answer 2) As Richard has posted, the pipes do not use the Western chromatic scale that we’re accustomed to. Also, I’m told the pitch has risen over the past couple/three/four decades to where it is today (A=476 to 482 or so, depending on a few factors like humidity, temperature, etc.). Even practice chanters have been subject to this rise in pitch, though not as dramatically. My PC tends to pitch at about A=466 (Walsh long blackwood).

3) I use a short piece of plastic tubing (clear, water supply grade) on my bagpipe blowstick, but nothing on my pratice chanter blowstick. I don’t tend to bite that. This kind of goes back to your first question. It takes practice to develop the lip muscles in keeping the air-tight seal on the blowstick. In the beginning, expect to have some issues with getting tired, drooling and ultimately being unable to maintain the seal. I still have difficulty after an hour or so of playing the big pipes at band rehearsal.

4) Others have hit on this well already. I would suggest going back to the beginning and (re-)developing your technique cleanly. Invest in a good tutorial book (the College of Piping green book, Sandy Jones’ tutorial, et. al.) and try to find an instructor, either local or on Skype.

Welcome (back) to the journey!

[imrichmond]

Would I be advised to get a new chanter? The one that I have is kind of crap to be honest. Where the plastic portion of the mouthpiece connects to the wooden part of the mouthpiece feels a bit wobbly.

You don't say what make of practice chanter you have, so it is difficult to say whether or not you should get a new one.

Your plastic mouthpiece likely feels wobbly because the wooden part that it screws onto has dried out and shrunk slightly. This happens if the chanter is not played regularly. In fact, a loose mouthpiece is generally a sure sign that a chanter has not been played, as some of my learners can attest. This would cause a serious air leak at that joint, which would make the chanter hard to blow. You could remove the plastic mouthpiece and wrap a bit of hemp (or dental floss, if you don't have hemp) around the threaded wooden part and then screw the mouthpiece back into position. This will tighten up the joint and stop the leak.

Also, if you do not play the chanter regularly, the hemp on the tenon of the bottom section will have dried out and shrunk. This is also a source of considerable air loss. You can try wetting the hemp to cause it to swell and tighten up. However, if the chanter has not been played for some time, or is not played regularly, the wood in the tenon will have shrunk a bit and you will need to play the chanter regularly for a few days to allow it to reabsorb some moisture.

Gibson reeds are good, but generally take a bit more air than most other synthetic practice chanter reeds. They also often need to be manipulated by judicious sanding before they produce the best sound in most practice chanters. Jerry Gibson has a couple of videos on Youtube explaining how to do this. I imagine the combination of the Gibson reed with a substantial air leak is making your chanter hard to blow.